My Catfish Mind

The Revolutionary

2011-05-19T08:01:00.000+01:00

Fort the past two weeks I have been living in a quiet world. I have been in the farm, with windy, cool weather, laced with rainy days, and have spent more and more time in my own head. Most of the time I am alone with the dogs (mostly because I take long walks and stay up until past dawn) and have been thinking a lot about a new idea for a story. It is called The Revolutionary, and it is almost completely inspired by my family.

I know that every family (as in the nucleus; parents, siblings, and maybe the closest of grandparents) has its own uniqueness, its own problems and characters, but sometimes I think that mine is a little more peculiar than most. I guess it´s not really that I believe it, but, on occasion, I am struck by how true the idea might be, particularly when I spend a long period of time alone with them, as I have done for the past month. Lately it´s been a recurring theme in the ghosts of my thoughts ever since Sara shared her view on them a little more than a week ago, on Sunday, when we spent all day in bed, exhausted and fucked up and high, talking and staring into space with our thoughts like stars and black holes in our minds. There are very, very few people I like talking to as much as Sara, because she holds the dynamic combination of being of my same age (and therefore often in the same types of situation as I find myself in), being completely, completely different from me, and yet being the person that knows me the most. Far more, I think, than anybody ever has. And, I sometimes think, better than anybody ever will.

On top of her outsider´s perspective on the madness that is the Bas family, with my wonderful Maestre mother thrown in for good measure, I had a moment with my Grandmother that only inspired my thoughts of us even more. It was during one of our family meals; Paella and laughter and loud voiced talk, and there were even more people congregated, since a few of the Bas family had also joined the fray. I was sitting outside in the Spring sun with of few of my Maestre cousins, my Grandmother, and two little Bas children-of-cousins who had previously been running around Uncle Javier´s eclectic ´garden´ and come back with two pairs of tiny little hands covered with tiny little snails. We had all been playing around with them on the table, and I was entertained with my own beautiful little snail and its strange, translucent shell and curious eyes, when Grandma grabs of few of the snails, stares at them, looks at me, jerks her heads towards the children and says,

“Where do you think these sons of bitches have found all these bloody snails?”

I blinked at her and then had to burst out laughing because it was such a Grandma comment, blunt and rough but perfectly harmless in its intention.

The idea for the story, however, really began to bloom from my Father´s recent activities, which have been aimed at causing a revolution in Spain, and that phrase is in no way or from an exaggeration. Actually, today he told me he was completely certain the CIA has been tracking his online movements, and my dad isn´t even a paranoid nut. I just think he really wants to live in a world where creating a fake Facebook account and spreading ideas of revolution on the internet will change the world.

And, more than anything in the world, I want to believe him.

Sometimes I feel detached from the notion, but it has been increasingly clear that we live in an age that screams, that begs and pleads, for change. For real, real change. The economic crisis that has taken over the world isn´t a raining or frogs, it isn´t and earthquake or a volcano or the buildup of 2012. The causes aren´t some mystery, and it hasn´t come from the earth or the sky. It has been us, all of us, our system, our failure, our addiction to creature comforts and the inevitable existence of corruption. And in Spain, we have it bad. I´m not going to get into it, but our ´democratic´ system is different from that in Britain or America, and it is made to breed corruption, because it allows the people in power to be chosen far more by the people already in power than the actual people. And so connections and favoritism plays a heavy hand in our political system, and forgoes the part where the big shots have to go to the townspeople and explain their actions and their consequences. And I´m not a conspiracy theorist, far from it actually, I hate it when people just blame everything in the politicians and are never satisfied without actually knowing what the problem is or how the hell to solve it. But my dad does know where the problem is, and does have ideas of how to make it better. And, most importantly of all, he actually IS trying to make it better, by contacting all the reliable news outlets and movement webpages he can think of. Sometimes I stand quietly in the kitchen and watch him type furiously away at the computer and am so glad to know that I am more like him in character than anybody else I know. Every now and again my Dad and I will scream at each other for three minutes and one of us will storm out and I will fume in my room about what an absolute hypocritical ass he can be. And then a few hours later when we next see each other it´s as if nothing has happened. And not because we repress it (the idea of either my father or me repressing anything is actually hilarious) but because that’s the way we are. Completely incapable of holding grudged, and more explosive than most land mines. And to be honest, I really believe it´s because we are such passionate people. Because we want to do so badly, we want to know, we want to give everything, everything we have for the things we love. I sometimes wonder if passion really has to be so damn loud, so burning, so consuming. Can´t it be quiet? Can´t it be hard and solid like stone instead of some kind of wildfire? But I just can´t picture it. Determination, perseverance, sure. Call it something else, something just as special and wonderful. But not passion. Passion can´t be kept under wraps. And maybe I´m wrong, maybe I´m just biased because I´m such a damn nutter, and if there is a trick to be passionate and not burst every now and then in some wild, foaming, trembling show of emotion and frustration and want, then I really don´t think I´ll ever get the hang of it. And I plan to spend at least a few month of my life in some green corner of the world where Monks live and try to learn to be calm and serene and controllable. Learn how to go against my nature because change is necessary for growth. But I know that maybe one day I´ll be able to be CALM DOWN AND CARRY ON when necessary, but people don´t really change, not in the deepest of insides. My first impulse will always be like this.

But I´m ok with that.

Jesus I like talking about myself on here. The point actually was that today I had a long talk about this revolutionary movement (spurred on by the manifestations going on all over Spain in the face of the elections) with my Dad and Uncle Javier, who are both very wise, and, though they are as different as Sara and I, I can see why they are such good friends.

The talk was a lot about my lack of faith in people VS. what needs to be done. Because, why aren´t we, the young generation, standing up and fucking doing something about all this? I mean, please, anybody who reads this, go watch “The Inside Job” (a documentary explaining the nature and cause of the Economic Crisis) and tell me that it isn´t the most fucked up situation you have ever seen. And usually I am weary of documentaries that are all about going against something, mostly because my bullshit detector has been trained to spot when something is taken out of context to make a point. And to be honest, when I started to watch the film, which began with just snippets of conversation from different people in varying levels of power, I though, here we go, just some out of context, controversial bunch of facts that will leave me dubious and unsatisfied. But, hell no, this isn´t a Michael Moore film (and yes, I know Fahrenheit 9/11 is shocking and revelatory and that anybody who watches it will want to throw a shoe or possibly a grenade at Bush, but there were points in it in which I just though oh please, is this necessary? Breast milk? Lone policemen on the countryside? Just some pick-n-choose cases to make something that is already awful enough unnecessarily more controversial). The Inside Job was factual and progressive and sickening and when I watched it I stopped reading the news because seeing how powerful and untouchable people in power are is like realizing how unspeakably enormous space is, how unimaginably unalterable it is for us. But, today, talking to Uncle Javier gave me hope, made me believe again, because we can always do something. Wars always seem that they will go on forever until they stop.

After that little chat I went to my room and watched The Pianist, which is sent in WWII, and cried desperately during it, like I haven´t in a film for ages. There is scene in which the protagonist´s family is watching as the Gestapo climb up the stairs to the apartment in the building across from them. The German soldiers open the door and shout at the Jewish family they find eating around the table to get up. But one of them, and old man, is wheelchair-ridden, and cannot follow the orders. And so, without preamble, they throw him out the window, to his death. One of the women in the movie screamed, and I sat up straight, clenched my fists trembled and trembled as I started to cry. Because that was real. Maybe not that particular scene, but the idea of it, the level of cruelty, it is not fiction. It is History. And I thought about the fucking mess in Iraq, about the greedy little men in power, about the patients I saw who were wondering how they were going to feed their families now. Is this what we are all capable of? I though. Is this what the human race does? What it has done, and will do again? It suddenly seemed so real. Everything was suddenly so damn tangible, so ugly and apparent and inescapable. I looked at Yuka then, my gorgeous, intelligent dog, sleeping on the bed next to mine, and saw, as clear as a chasm between us, how very different humans will always be from every other species. I felt helpless to really change anything. And it´s ironic, because the original idea of this story of mine, The Revolutionary, is based on a character that wants to do something, wants to change the world, and finds themselves incapable of doing so, only to be shown by their family that we are all responsible for our own world, that the people we meet, the things we say and the ideas we express every day are, in their own right, able to change the world around us. That we do not have to be some great figure, some face on a T-shirt or a name in a hundred history books, to make a difference.

Amazing how I can digress completely from what I wanted to talk about and still make the point I wanted to get across! This blog post has grown in a ridiculously sized monster, and I apologize. It is just that I spend so much time thinking, here. I will lay on my bed and listen to music and just think. And the more I get into my head the more I find it will be impossible to return to society. I just want to run farther and farther into the woods. And it´s not that I´m hiding, I simply feel myself detaching, sometimes. And ever since I came to Spain to spend the year I have learnt how much who we are depends on the culture we are in. Because I may be deemed fairly outgoing in the conservative nature of Britain, but in Spain I´m positively introverted. More times than wanted have I been in a group of people I have just met and someone has turned to me and said something like “well say something!” or “I can tell you´re not very open” and actually my mum told me I´m not naturally very sociable, and my brother said I had grown, over the past three years, to me much more quiet and “mysterious”, the latter of which baffled me completely. And as a knee-jerk reaction I protested, but it´s made me think. Because I like being with people, I love talking, really talking to them, I love going out and being a crazy dancing fool. But maybe I´m not cut out for it. Like I´m meant for something else. And I need a constant dose of adrenaline rushes (lately I´ve taken to helping Yuka hunt rabbits, which may or may not involve me barking, and am setting up something to go bungee jumping. Go figure.) But I also seem to slip too easily into this pensive slash explosive Marina which is such a fucking mad combination I´m really not surprised I feel so inexplicably sad sometimes and yet seem to entertain myself endlessly whilst doing pretty much nothing.

I don´t know what´s up with the doom and gloom that has taken over this blog. I hope it doesn´t seem too gloom and doomy. I´m actually, genuinely happy about everything here. I just talk serious.

Anyways, I have no bloody clue who still reads this or if anybody reads this at all, but I know it´s exam time for most of you so good luck with that. And I´m not adding a ´suckers´ at the end of it because I´m such a wonderful person, be grateful for my magnanimity!!

Ok, almost 9 am. Great. Who needs more than 4 hours of sleep anyways? Not me!

I run on crazy, not sleep.

A soul that leaks

2011-04-25T04:30:00.006+01:00

It is raining softly in Spain, and the sound of it calls for the warmest of cigarettes, for the songs of Bon Iver, for in every one of them something is falling; be it rain, or snow, or spirits. I looked out at the gloom and the puddles that glowed in the night, and thought about how people have souls that leak. How it is inevitable, in our skin and in our bones, that we are unable to be satisfied for long. How we can all find something that will fill us for a while, but we soon realize that the feeling of it drips away until we need something more. A new rush, a new touch, a new sense of life. Maybe that´s what evolution meant for us, what our society is built on. Because I often get the sense that, to be happy, we need the sense of going forward. Need more knowledge, to feel more, to be more.

A week ago I had one of those days when I just feel sad, those kind of days that everybody gets, when it´s suddenly apparent that all the fresh air and the pretty trees where fine a moment ago, but you´ve just realized you´re lost, lost in the forest and you don´t know how you´re going to get out. And suddenly you´re scared because you realize that it´s not that you want to escape the jungle, it´s just that you want a patch that you like (at least for a little while) and that´s just…so much harder to find. I stopped and looked and all I saw was that my soul had finished leaking, and there just wasn´t enough pouring in anymore. And I guess I learnt a lot from what was left inside me, because all I felt was alone.

And doesn´t that tell you so much of how we work?

But Sara was there, she is always there these days, and it was perfect because when I started crying, harder, harder than I have in a long while (“Because, God, why can´t I stop my soul from leaking so quickly, I´m scared because if this doesn´t make me happy, and that doesn´t make me happy, then what, where, is it me, is it everything else) she didn´t really say anything to fix anything, she didn´t give me a solution, didn´t even really try and point me in the right direction. She just understood. She just hugged me and got it and I went to my room and just…felt better. And I can´t quite find a word to describe how that felt like. It was amazing, but not in the way that fireworks and concerts and loud laughter is amazing. It was amazing like a kiss at the corner of your lips can be amazing, how a look, or one squeeze of your fingers, or a soft, soft summer breeze can be amazing.

That whole kind of mood seeped into the day after that when we went to see Matt Elliot live. He is a man made of ghosts. The sounds he makes are haunted, are ragged and raw and as animalistic as pain and lust and hunger. The very force of him is overwhelming. Sara and I stepped out of the concert so subdued we didn´t say a word to each other the rest of the night except for good night. No other sound could be made after him.

It was just that beautiful.

Quietly, I have to admit that there is a little awkwardness in my fingers as I type this, because I´ve never really written a real-life sad moment in the blog before. But I think sometimes it´s nice to peek into the softer, the bluer side of people. It makes them seem more human, somehow. More touchable. More here.

Regardless, the truth is that I´m really quite happy at the moment. This week in El Campo has been quite, quite perfect. Perfect because nothing BIG has happened. The weather has been dull and our eyes sleepy, and we have fallen into our most natural routine. Fur and walks and siestas during the day time, and long, long nights all crumpled and stretched out on my bed, listening to music on my silky speakers, having those long conversations that I feed my leaking soul like desert water. It was exactly what I needed. Those moments that you sometimes see in movies that make you feel warm and soft inside, only that they´re now, right here; all of us outside under the stars, laughing and counting comets, the music around us, always.

Those are the kinds of things that make me find myself in the jungle.

I am happy. But, still, there is a line in Song to a Siren that always, always makes the air stutter inside my lungs. That always makes my eyes narrow slightly with the shadow of some soft pain. The strange, awkward phrase always hits that inch too close to home.

I am as puzzled as the oyster,

I am as troubled as the tide.

all tongues and brain

2011-02-05T15:54:00.003Z

I was just thinking about how I liked that the expression “over and over” repeats “over” twice, instead of it being something like “multioverover”. How the words themselves reflected what they try to express. Which in turn reminded me of the book “1984”, which is the scariest thing I´ve ever read. The book that birthed the idea of Big Brother, about a society watched, and guarded, and controlled, in all the ways possible to imagine. There was a conversation in the book which described how the government intended to produce a new and revised dictionary which´s aim was to reduce human language as much as possible, to the most basic of words. Eradicating adjectives, expressions, synonyms, in order to contain not only the capability of speech, but of thought. Our capacity to form capable opinions, and the arguments to support these, would be cut down to what they gave us, and at the same time any rebel would be quick to catch because, necessarily, they would have to search for those absent syllables in order to find what was missing in that freedom deprived world. The very idea of it almost made me sicker than that scene in “American Psycho” in which he kills the beggar and dog, almost making me stop reading because it was so wrong, so wretched, and at the same time so real, with that dispassionate and aloof tone that Bret Easton Elis uses so well to describe desolate souls and nauseating actions. But I´m getting distracted again by my own course of though…again :). We can call it “scenic route writing”. (Ps. There´s a cat meowing non stop outside, with that kind of low tone that makes me think it´s stuck somewhere, possibly (judging by where the sound is coming from) the roof of the building opposite mine, which limits my cat-hero abilities considerably. Damn, where is a radioactive spider when you need it!?)

Back to point A. The whole idea of language being able to control us only highlighted how important it is to human kind, an idea I thought about a lot when having lectures related to language acquisition last year. They showed us studies, with subjects as young as fetuses and infants (by measuring how their sucking and heart rates altered when noticing changes in their environment, and so being able to see what changes they could actually perceive and, more interestingly, which changes they were most interested in, judging by how long the heart rate/sucking acceleration lasted.). These studies revealed our preference to complex sonorous stimuli, our categorical perception, which leads us to selective recognition of phonemes in any language to start off with, and then specialize in our own. We also studied how vulnerable the development of full language capabilities are to damage; how the scars that early trauma can cause in language development can be deep and ugly. Our brain needs nurture and time to settle fully in the intricacies of language- we have built networks around, with, the use of it. Even deaf children with speaking parents develop crude sign language (much like a “normal” baby sounds out different sounds before forming words) even if they don´t have specific models to copy, but instead simply out of an innate necessity to communicate.
From our fist breath, do we understand how important words are? The shape of our thoughts, the vessel of the meaning in our actions, our friendships, our need for clear declarations of love (or hate, or any other emotion).
Of course, I´m not saying that pictures can´t speak, or actions express. There are moments made for silence (that night made of thunder). And yet I can still taste how important words are, how, at times, necessary. I can lose myself in visions, and find myself in moments, but words are a search, a struggle, a means of release, art, beauty, and the energy they create is necessary for my existence. Some days they are what let me breathe…
I think about that study in which keeping a diary lead to a lighter soul. About that paper suggesting Schizophrenia might be the price we pay for what language puts our brain through…

Wow, I really didn´t mean to go on about the whole psychology thing so long. I just meant to breeze over a few points, but that just came rushing out. Glad I remember so much of it though, considering how shitty my memory is!

Jesus, I can´t believe I´m awake. I know I´m repeating myself, but there really is something about nighttime that does something to me. For the last three days I´ve been completely exhausted for practically the whole day, due to my change in placement location, which, due to the commute (walking + train = 1.4 hours one way) I have to wake up at six which, if you know me, is seriously not something that comes natural to my being. Therefore, in theory, when nighttime comes I should jump into bed with a whoop of relief and fall asleep as my head hits the pillow. Instead, however, I force myself to bed at 10 30 (ok, with my laptop to watch one episode of internet TV, but as the Softer World author says, “Whenever people judge me for how much of my time I spend watching TV and horror movies I wonder if they've ever even been happy ever. EVER”) and, tossing and turning and sleeping horribly I may clonk out way past twelve because it´s like my body just can´t accept that it´s sleeping the whole night through instead of, you know, a bit of night and most of the morning. And, therefore, even though, being 5.05 am, I´ve been awake almost 24 hours, I am still writing. Definitely editing and posting this the day after tomorrow, on Saturday.

Which is my cue to leave, even though blog post madness has hit me hard. (Haha, that reminds me about the paper I read today about addiction to social networks. Maybe that can be the sequel. The Social Network: The Addiction. Muahaha, first step to getting rich, fast: Be Me :P)
And with that overgrown parenthesis filled with typical Marina nonsense, I´m off to...I would say sleep but why would I lie? Listening to music and staring into space it is.
Phantogram: When I´m Small, and then maybe a little bit of Massive Attack: Paradise Circus...then I´m smelling some Beck: Everybody´s gotta learn sometime, coming my way. Then to finish on a high note, Wax Tailor: Que Sera, and for a low note, Tim Buckley: Song to the Siren. Actually, I think I´ll start with that and work my way up.
Join me :)

Crickets are not dreams

2011-01-31T11:15:00.003Z

The other day, Jenny (a beauty of the gypsy kind) told us about a dream she had. Deep within her sleep she sat to listen of a myth of old, where dreams were confused for insects. The story, with only a tiny bit of my embroidery, went like this.

Hidden between mountains lay an ancient village, which´s rural calm was one day interrupted by a sudden storm. Of course, in midst of nature, such phenomenon was not uncommon, but this was not just any storm, for between the drops of rain that fell, also came crickets. The villagers, amazed, stepped out of their houses to look upon the scene of water and crickets singing upon dust and stone. As they watched the miracle happen, they all began to make wishes. Each green creature became a hope, each tiny body a yearning. The storm, of course, did not last forever, and as the water drained away only the crickets were left, a flutter of legs and wings across the earth. And as spring blooms out of a rainy season, so did the desires that were wished upon the crickets of storm. One by one, hopes and miracles were granted out of rain and thin, fragile legs that skipped mystic symbols into the dirt. With each dream that came to life so did the conviction that the crickets which had rained upon the village had come from the Gods, that their being and race was holy, sacred. The myth grew with time and the telling of tongues, collecting awe and worship, until crickets were revered as Demi Gods. But this idea did not last forever. As the dream ended, Jenny was told of an old, wise monk which looked upon the story and did not awe, did not worship. Instead he said,

Crickets are not dreams.

The truth was that the crickets had fallen from the cages where they had been kept in, hanging from roof edges and front porches as the heavy rain of the storm battered their wooden frames.

The moral of the story, Jenny said, was that one must never assume that just because two events are coincided, one must cause the other. In real life this is an idea I believe in, and which is even studied in social psychology. Just cause violent children have watched violent TV does not mean that the latter caused the former. Maybe violent kids look for violent things to watch, and all that.
But, as she explained her conclusions and moved on, I was left a little unsatisfied; something was missing, something was wrong. After all, the wishes of the villagers had come true. How was that explained, even if the crickets were not those made of dreams?
So, I added a little more to the story. Sometimes people need crickets to fulfill their dreams. Not their magic or power, but simply the cricket: the illusion of a miracle, of something beautiful and capable of making your wishes come true. We are in control of our desires, dreams, and how they are realized. Once in a while, though, we need a cricket to help us along. We must always remember, though,
Crickets are not dreams.
We are.

And yes, ok, I have to admit that I have totally upped the cheese since I came back. Maybe a cynical post for next time? Some doom and gloom for dinner?
Or maybe I don´t care that I´ve gone soft. Vaka by Sigur Ros is in the air…
What a beautiful sound.

Brink

2011-01-22T16:08:00.014Z

I love living my life in moments. Few, half made plans, there more for the anticipation (your biggest fears lie in anticipation, but so can great pleasures).
Waking up on a Saturday morning at one, opening the window to cold, fresh air and a cascade of Spanish sun, curling up on my chair with some green tea, a blanket, and a light tasting cigarette and reading Bad Science as I listen to Ratatat and Eliza Doolittle. Hello World, my dreams were fragmented and thrilling tonight, but this is sweet and perfect on my tongue.
This is a comforting and fitting aftermath to a Friday nighs, which always have a special air to them. The working week has ended, and here starts a small capsule of calm and tender days or intense action, apart and away from the five days preceding them.

Yesterday night my flatmates, Jenny and me watched ´Run Lola Run´ and ´The Dreamers´ in the dark. Two very good films, each in their own, different ways. We ended up in Sara´s room, a forest of green, an echo of a far away patch of Amazon, with its warm, humid air and corners filled with leaves. LauraJennySaraandMe sprawled across her warm bed, and in the gloom Sara and I lit up cigarettes as we listened to soft, sad music, telling us through sounds and rough noises of other lives, other pains, other dreams lived, other moments and people cherished. When I closed my eyes and took a drag the world beyond my eyelids would light up for a moment before falling to darkness once again. I lay there until the music ended, Sara´s head on my lap, Jenny against my arm and shoulder. Together, out at sea in that deep, dark music, salt and sand just a tremble away.

It is already turning out to be a good year. And so it should, judging by the way it ended, for these Christmas holidays have been one of the best. New Year´s swim was, once again, different from any other year. Despite being surrounded by sunshine filled days, the last of the year was gloomy and rainy and cold, but man did we make the most of it. At Guille´s suggestion (mi hermano fiel) we stripped to our bathing suits in the car, and rode around like that, grinning out of the windows, my uncle, at the wheel, donned in sunglasses as if it were the middle of summer instead of a dreary December day. When he parked the car we all sprinted out together like mad people towards the sea, as if we just couldn’t live another day without its waves, without its cold, wet touch. Laughing hysterically we threw ourselves in the freezing water- 3 drips (11 for Guille, he ´feels´ a different number each year) and then out, towards towels and then the most ridiculous bikini shoot in the history of photography. That night we had our typical multi-platter family dinner in El Club Social (The Sunday paella room, really) before we all went to mine and with the aid of Belen and my pre-made playlist of old, lets do the twist, music, we all danced longer than any of the previous years. When the adults were worn out and us younger generation simply active and tipsy we collapsed in my room and Guille played us his music on the delicious new speakers I bought not too long ago as we smoked cigarettes and a hookah and talked deep into the night. Those moments are so intimate- Paloma hugging me closely, I love you so much, as we understood and came together, the sound waves around us making our tongues and thoughts in tune with each other, so that we all sung together silently; family, family.

Then, of course, there was the night at the beginning of January. We had taken to playing Mario and Wii Party every night; watered down competitiveness and howling laughter through hours on end. That night, however, after the play, Sara, Guille and me spontaneously decided to take the shrooms we had in store. And so we did. We took my speakers to Sara´s house, far away from adult ears, set up the candles and the noise and chewed on the earthy, disgusting mushrooms as we lay about the living room with Lola and Paloma, our little cousins, which I love all the more for how they understand us, for their open minds. Not taken by the either extreme prejudicing or holification of drugs; that they are simply something one can do if they are right minded, if they understand that it is about enjoying a moment, a different experience, that it is not a loss of control in the worst sense of the word. That it is like going to see the amazing beauty of a slightly dangerous pocket of the word, and that if you are good-vibed and sensible then, its gonna be ok. And, oh God, was it ok. Everything was so beautiful. I cannot, and don´t really want to, explain the full experience of that night. It was simply one of the best I have ever had. Not that I have not have innumerous other amazing nights, but this was just one of them. All my thoughts we so clear and wonderful, they all rang without a doubt, were fact of life, of how everything fit together, of how things were, were. Everything was love and harmony, the chaos turned into the colours, the music was alive. Guille and I connected in a way we had never before- barriers down, we finally saw, understood. All basic space and other minds and art and mi familia fiel. I couldn´t stop shaking my hands to the beat of the music (if you´re fond of sand dunes, and salty air) And my lips wouldn´t stop speaking beautiful words, immense ideas compressed into sounds- at the brink, the brink of things. Sara clung to me and cried, howled, all through Loveology. We were all so happy and together and intimate in that little space that I still wonder if time stopped for us and left parts of us there forever, in that beautiful word. When it dawned we stepped outside and were met with an abandoned world. The red sky, the scraps of wood on the dusty floor, the shapes and colours of everything so clear, cutting, stunning. We walked in that world that had ended for us, survivors (Supervidores…super…vidores…Supervidores!), not being able to feel even the slightest bit alone. In the end we all hugged so hard that my glasses fogged up from the warmth of us, and as we parted and each went to our own house Guille hugged me again, true siblings at last, the most precious thing I took from the whole experience. And it didn´t even end there. For hours after everything was more beautiful, vivid, alive, and when I closed my eyes all I could see was a shifting, wonderland world of colours filled with snails and mushrooms and purple trees. And just like that, with Jeremy curled beside me, and my mind alive with beauty, the night ended.

When I look back on my life, these are the things I will remember. Not the amiable, friendly stretch of days which were good, but uniform. My life will be made longer by these few, intense moments, for 6 months seems much more if filled with glassfuls of memorable instances, instead of a calm sea of same. So that is what I have prescribed myself. Longs walks to see new parts of the city. Plays and concerts and foreign movies. Moments with tea and ash and the fresh taste of orange between my teeth. And the best of company.

Happy new year, everybody. Make the most of it- only you can. :)

a moment of here

2009-11-26T02:45:00.008Z

Outside, it is pouring. I can hear the rain tap against my window, seeking a fraction of my warmth. The wind howls as it drowns. It is quiet and still in the house, and my room wraps around me, settling softly over bared skin. Blood Bank murmurs out of my laptop, mixing with the tepid, dim lighting. My hair is wild around my face, framing my world in feathers of black. My eyes burn around the edges, suggesting sleep. I am tired, content...submerged. Deep within my world of caramel light and night music and heavy eyelashes.

I feel at home.

Playlist I: Wolves

2009-09-23T06:38:00.003+01:00

Catpower: Werewolf
Bon Iver: Wolves (Act I & II)
Sea Wolf: You’re a Wolf
Lady of the Sunshine: The Wolf
Wolf’s Rain: Paradiso
Sufjan Stevens: Romulus

Living With Animals

2009-08-31T06:10:00.003+01:00

At the start of this day, which turned out to be a good one, I said ‘I’ll make note of what happens today and post it in a blog so that people know what goes on in the wonder, never never, always land of El Campo. So here it goes:

I was most charmingly woken up by someone beating up my locked-from-the-inside, bedroom door.

“It’s three-thirty! You’re parents are gone! The food is ready! I’ve made the food!” Grandma’s voice belted straight through my head. Laura rolled and grumbled in the bed pressed against mine.

“Ok! Thanks, Grandma!” I shouted back, stuffing my head in the pillow. Jeremy, stretched against my bare leg, rubbed against it slightly.

“The food is ready! It’s in the kitchen!”

“Ok Grandma! Thanks! Be out soon!”

“It’s Spaghetti. I made Spaghetti!”

“Thanks!”

“Your parents will be back later! It’s three-th-”

“THANKS GRANDMA I’LL BE OUT IN A MINUTE!!!” I bellowed, smashing my face against the bed. There was a moment’s pause before her steps shuffled away. I sighed in relief, and then started giggling incredulously.

After zombie-ing around, getting ready for the world, I went to the kitchen to be instructed on how to finish making the Spaghetti, to be explained how it was made in the first place, what ingredients it had, where my parents were, what they were doing, and finally that I should make a salad. Did I like cucumbers? Yes. Because my brother liked them. So did I. I didn’t have to put them in if I didn’t want to. I did, I liked them. I could put tomatoes instead. Ok, Grandma. I love you.

After making the salad (tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, vinegar vinegar vinegar) and feeding Yuka, I ventured into the blinding, scorching sunlight. Said hi to the dogs and spent the pseudo-morning swimming and sunbathing blearily, reading a total of about 3 Lolita pages, too hot to concentrate for long. After my brain was sufficiently fried, and I supposed that strutting around topless whilst workers were nearby would give Grandma (the other one, mother’s side) a heart-attack, I gathered my things and made myself lunch. Ate it alone, since brother and sister were still in bed. It was yummy, and I loved how my fingertips smelt like tomatoes even after being in the pool so long. I think I’m gonna make myself so many (tomato tomato tomato) salads during the course of summer that I’m going to end up smelling (if you get close enough, stranger) in that strangely sweet, ripe, red way forever.

I ambled back to the pool where I settled back with Lolita, in the shade this time. The flies weren’t driving me to homicide, so I stayed until my eyes were sleepy with Vladimir’s embroidered words, my legs hot as Yera (dog) jumped on the recliner with me. Determined to blink away the laziness, I ambled to the kitchen to make myself some tea and set out the painting things on the table under the wide porch. Settling down, I sipped the rejuvenating drink whilst eyeing the half-done painting critically. Traced with a finger the face of the boy who was looking in a surprised manner at the grass growing from his head. Sketched were his massive earphones, the birds and contorted woman who blared from out of them. I re-touched a couple of things with the pencil before sinking into mixing colours (this green, that) and watering them into the paper. When I noticed it was already eight I packed my things up, cleaning the paint-dabbled plates with my fingers and put everything away diligently. Noticing everybody was busy with something or other (Sims, Pikmin, Bass practice, late siestas) I grabbed my camera and decided to take a walk alone with the dogs, needing a bit of space. As I whistled for the mutts and walked away, however, Pedro (Pedrito: 11, curiously smart, funny, rascallish) spotted me and asked if he could come along. Surprisingly unbothered I assented, waited until he pulled his trousers on and set off. It was an interesting walk- the same languorous sunset, the same sights, but Pedrito rattled on about different types of fish and hunting (an inward, memory-induced wince) and the morals of fishing and Where To Get Good Fish. The dogs ran around us, yapping after uncatchable rabbits and nudging my hand or the lens of my crouched camera as they walked past. Hot from the walk, I slipped into the pool as Pedrito ambled off. I only meant to cool down but stayed until the stars peeked out, swimming up and down, up and down, completely lost in thought, until it was ten. Got out, dreaming of hot-then-cold showers and the food that followed. After I had lazed a bit in the TV room, watching someone play Pikmin and laughing with the cousins, I made myself a pizza and put it in the oven. As I stepped out of the kitchen, Paloma told me Laura was asking for me. “Where?” “In Guille’s room.” “What for?” “Dunno. Said that they’re playing something you might like.” Attention caught, I peeked into the softly lit room Guille, Laura and Sara were in, two with acoustic guitars, Laura with electric bass.

“What’s up?”

“We’re playing Bon Iver songs,” Laura replied. My face lit up. “Ok!” Run to check up on the pizza, and then spent the next hour or so, maybe (time is hard to keep track of in those kinds of moments) playing around with songs. Laura on rumbling bass, Guille on acoustic guitar, Sara on the whining, beautiful harmonica, me singing,

Come on skinny love, just last the year

Pour a little salt we were never hee-e-ere
Mah-mymy, mymymy, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

Easy to deepen and melt my voice against his wolf one.

Grandma had to go to bed then, so we retired to the New Club Nintendo where I mostly lay sprawled on the couch, my legs resting over one person or another, reading Lolita. I took a couple of tea breaks. A step outside to the cold air, and would wheel around the dogs on the bike, loving the night, jasmine air on my face.

Night time: novels, and films, and eulogies; I would write anything for you.

I would sip my tea, sitting on the steps outside the kitchen, Luna at my side, reading calmly. The cricket and frog filled silence was a big change from the chaotic guitar-hero, pikmin, John Butler Trio noise of Club Nintendo. On the second ‘break’, I cycled to the tractor shed, and lay on my back near it, staring at the stars a while, thinking about nothing important. About the stars, mostly, and this and that, and that. And poor (oh God) Lo-lee-ta. Or something like that.

When it was late enough, and some people had gone to bed, I played Guitar Hero until my hand could not un-clench from the ‘claw’ position, and then Guille came in and said that his A Level grades had just come through- 3 Bs and an A. Oh My God, Yes! Hugs, Hugs, Well Done! (relief, relief). He was still worried, though, because he needed two Bs and an A, and the A was in Spanish. Would it count? We told him not to be silly, why wouldn’t it? A little later it came through that, yes, he was in Cardiff. (More hugs).

Laura and I, the only ones left in Club Nintendo at seven in the morning, collected ourselves and went to clean the kitchen. We were just wiping down when Guille hops through the door and says,

“You guys want to go on an adventure?” We looked at each other.

“An adventure?”

“It’s kind of risky.”

“Risky?”

“Come on.”

We followed him out, barefoot, like characters on a game as he trotted funnily away, leading us to his risky adventure. We rounded a tree and there was the car, turned on, humming and rumbling. A smile split my face and Laura and I scrambled in the back. The air conditioning was on full-blast. Artificial Artic Black Interior. Giggling, we put on the seat belts, and I clutched Guille’s head-rest as we ambled out of the front gate and unto the road.

“No cars from the right!”

“No cars from the left!”

We were off.

Guille swerved madly on the road, jokingly shouting “OH SHIT!” as we laughed madly in the back. Classical FM was on full volume in some mad contrast with out hysterical laughter and curses and thrills as we sped down the road. My heart was swimming at full speed. I couldn’t stop laughing. Dawn was beautiful.

One illegal turn and two past cars later, we were back, stumbling out of the car (which we parked differently at my suggestion, just for kicks), still giggling, adrenalin-filled. Celebration not over, we went back to Club Nintendo to play Soul Calibur. I watched Guille beat the shit out of Laura despite it always being a close call, laughing loudly at their antics.

It was around nine when we got back home, settled into bed, Laura and I still joking as we lay next to each other, Jeremy between us. It was with a screamed BUENAS NOCHES! And a smile on my face that I finally drifted off to collect some energy to start another day.

Fly Guts Are Brown

2009-08-18T01:15:00.017+01:00

I think there is something seriously wrong with me. Maybe I’ve gotten some kind of mutant version of Bird Flu or Swine Flu or whatever disease the media is freaking out about- I don’t know. The point is that I’ve started saying “Ouchie” instead of “Fuck, ow!” I know. It’s disgusting. I’ve asked to be put down, but doctors keep babbling on about some Hippocratic Oath nonsense. Pssht.

Ah, man, haven’t you missed me? Sure you have, come on. Surely that bewildered dizziness felt at having lost so many minutes of your life in such a useless manner after reading one of my blog posts must be terribly endearing. Why, I can see the half-amused grimace on your face right now. Partly because I am intuitive, but mostly because I’ve got cameras all over your room. :D

Moving swiftly on- me having not updated in so long is good. Kind of. You can actually tell a lot about a person’s mood through their blog updating tendencies if you know them semi-well. It also helps to have my natural stalker tendencies. For example, I can tell when Freddie is in an emotion struggle when she doesn’t update. On the contrary, Cecil updates more frequently when she is overwhelmed with emotion and needs an outlet. Lyle is a sharer; he tends to update when he is inspired by certain things, be it experiences or curiosities he stumbled upon in the web. Tori...seems to not update when she’s busy or has nothing to share. Which seems pretty obvious for all of us, but let’s not be pedantic! (Def: Pe.dan.tic. adj.: Being a twat.) As to me, I tend to update when I’m more bored than not, or guilt moves me to annoyance. (Thus why I update so seldom: Procrastination entertains boredom, and my guilt is a complete and utter sloth.)

Actually, maybe I should stop wasting cyberspace my talking about how I don’t update whilst I do so. Actually, whilst unpacking the boxes which arrived a few days ago from Jersey (a sort of sick feeling caused by watching tea filled cups which belong to some other life, here) I found a diary I thought I had lost, from when I was sixteen (I am tempted to burn it. 16 did not bode well with my complexion, I have to say) and saw that the grand majority of the entries begin with “oh man, its been ages since I last updated! Sorry!”. I had to sigh about the things that never change.

Aah, man, it seems I have been here for such a long time, and yet in some ways as if summer has only just started. I still remember the first few days of my stay, though, when I was the only one of my cousins in the farm. I spent my days with animals until I smelt and felt and vaguely looked (maybe a little around the eyes) like one of the dogs. I feel sorry for people who don’t (or haven’t got the chance to) appreciate animals beyond the ‘pet’ stage. Many people like their pets, and enjoy their company, but don’t really appreciate it fully: don’t love their expressions, their charisma, their individual personalities and the tranquillity that can be gained through a bond with an animal, as strange as that may sound to some of you (and as normal to others). I lot can be said about a person by observing how they handle an animal. Psychopaths, for example, often show the first show signs of ‘cruelty’ (which would maybe be better termed as ‘emotional indifference’) by hurting animals. Even in psychologically stable people (I use that term loosely!)- take my parents for example. They treat Yuka (the dog) like their treat me. Hah! Ok that sounds vaguely wrong, but what I mean is that their comportment with her can be mirrored with their relationship with me. My Dad’s obsession with a clear domineering, He-Male, King the Third of the World role and my mother’s incessant force-feeding of affection in various healthy and unhealthy manners has been prominent in my life. I have, thus far, remained (mostly) unscarred by their parenting skills. Though maybe after re-reading what I have written so far I may have to re-evaluate certain key points of my psych.

After people started arriving at the farm it was a slow, rumbling start into pseudo-normality. Too many things have changed since the beginning of last Summer in this Family, and recuperation has been slow, and I could feel it palpably, and didn’t handle it well, I must admit now. My desperate attempts to fix some of the war wounds (still being attacked and smarting) only resulted in making a mess of the situation. In retrospect, though, I’m glad it happened. Finally, at 19 years of age, Marina Bas has finally learnt that, sometimes, she has to Shut Her Mouth. The truth of the matter is (I say this casually and with resigned humour) that that insistent trait of mine, which has been brusquely termed by a lot (a lot) of people as ‘opinionated’ or as an inability to be in the wrong, was not at all correctly identified. Ok, so maybe not ‘not at all’ but mostly incorrect, yes. Everybody has opinions, and I freely (and almost often) admit when mine are wrong (my God if this Summer hasn’t been about that). But you see, reader of mine, (who is probably wondering why oh why I am talking about this when I should be hyper on talk about summer anecdotes) the thing is that I actually made myself that way. Moving around as I have, I had the privilege of meeting a lot of people, and going through the process people only go through one or twice, (meeting a group of friends which you attach to by proximity, and then navigating to those you have most in common with) too many times to count. Therefore I saw more than my share of fakeness. Childish fickleness; the words you flippantly say about friends behind backs, and the opinions you omit or change in order to appear more likeable to a particular crowd. At a very tender and small-numbered age, I realised that I was in a situation in which I would become very susceptible to become incredibly fake. To be integrated into so many different cultures and clicks and so on, it would be easy to construct a face for each occasion, for each group. A set of opinions, of likes and dislikes, or favourite colours and movies, for each group of people. (In Manhattan she is the pale-skinned, hamster-faced girl who likes winter most of all, and would not be afraid of lakes or ice, and would be positively disgusted at keeping dead squirrels for pets. In Venezula she’s warmer, and laughs quietly, even though the noise is contradicted with a toss of the head. She likes spring now, and worms and sloths, and can star-jump, eat lollipops and not get brain freeze, and not enjoy the feel of the burning fake grass as she runs bare-footed. In London she never ties her jumpers around her waist boyishly, and does more than sit on manly, dictionary-lifting laps; plays football, and lets the boys lift her up and stuff her in bins without scratching at their mouths and necks. And in Jersey she is a rolled-skirt girl, with a penchant for illegal make-up and coquettish earrings, and most definitely does not wear clothes pegs in her hair, or daisies in her buttons, or entertains ideas of being any sort of liquefied particle, shelled insect, or sea-fond animal.) And maybe that would start out in order to make life easy- but in the end I was scared (excuse my use of clichés) of losing myself. Of being so incredibly mouldable that I would be nothing: I would be Ditto, Flubber. I thought that the only way to remedy this would be to make my opinions so clear that my personality could not be shaken; to build myself up (even at that age) with words. A Bit Unhealthy. But with time I have come to realise that Less Is More and that it’s just...not necessary anymore.
...Ah, the wonders of self-psycho-analysing. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed that (I’m sure) invigorating view into my pokemon-evolution self.

But well, despite any obligatory learning processes, the summer has had very good moments. I think I will have to remember these months through details (moments, expressions, eyes, and grains of salt). The protected feeling of sitting outside all night (from 1 to 7) with the dogs by my side. Or the walks with the mutts, long and always marked by that vibrant last hour of the sun. That first night in La Manga; going to the beach in the dark, and having sister and the howling, hooting, degausser songs. The days peppered with concerts (“It’s the spice of my life-I couldn’t live without them!”)

There was the Antony and the Johnson concert in Cardiff, which was brilliant; the lighting and the trembling voice. Though at the start, after the first song (no introduction, just a dark walk to each instrument, and the beginnings of a thrum) there was this perfect, prefect moment when the piano slowly died out and the lights were absent and blue, and suddenly some numb-minded, twat-faced woman shouts, “When do we get to see your face?!” Why!? Why would someone do that! Yagh! Rawr! Instinct to Kill: Powered Up. Resident Evil roundhouse kick to the exploding head.
Then Madeleine Peyroux, who was honey-voiced brilliance. At one point her guitar whined at not being tuned properly and she stopped, looked down and said “I think my guitar is trying to tell me something.” That woman is very beautiful.
Then Yann Tiersen which’s French-shaped mouth I want to kiss fully. Not much more I can say about him that sister hasn’t in her last blog (go, hunt down).
Then Vetusta Morla, who had the Reverted Mob Effect on us. Everybody knew every sinuous guitar cord and every poetry-laced lyric, making our dance and voice compete with the singer’s own. Energetic, consuming...grr <3

Of course, there are the shiver moments, which makes me appreciate the kind of person who, when is shown a song, stays silent until even the last thread-of-note disappears to comment. Even better, when the comment is a closing of eyes and a hummmm of satisfaction. Lick your lips. The innumerable moments of loud laughter with sister (the epic remote control toss between feet and hand, or the perfect moment not to kiss, or the “*fart*, that was poor.” “You’re poor.” “I’m Elvis!” “...As I said, real poor in sanity.” “...One for the money, two for the show!”) or getting The Creeps (Def: the.creeps, intr.v : heebie-jeebie aftershock from girly outburst) after screeching and standing on lifted surfaces after being, A) attacked by demented, shooting-star beetles or, B) spotting mutant spider crawling near us.

And more things, and more, but this blog post is so long I’m pretty sure its reaching the legal limit for ‘tedious’, so I better stop. Maybe more soon with music donations.
Humm hum hum. :)

and the sea is just a wetter version of the skies

2009-07-02T03:22:00.002+01:00

Summer is here!!
This is, by a million tanned miles, my favourite season. The sun peals all excess layers from me; they curl away like old wallpaper to leave the original colour behind, still fresh and slightly wet, as if just painted. The skin under my skin is blue and if you press against it closely you can smell the sea.
How can I describe summer?
Summer is freckles across my nose. It is watching my skin paint itself in the tribal markings of sunlight; a bikini of paleness against stark bronze. The only measure of time is seeing the contrast between colours grow deeper. It is long minutes of laughter, and the softest, dreamiest naps. It is taking walks with the mutts and the sunsets. It is watching sunrises by reservoirs. It is the taste of chlorine and the slap of volleyballs over invisible nets. It is the smudge of acrylics on fingers and wrists, the snap of the camera shutter opening and closing, the click of letters settling into virtual ink. It is the flies, and the heavy, heavy heat. It is sand between toes and under nails, blistering skin, matted hair, and the glorious shower that makes it melt all away. It is family. It is safety in its most basic and primitive sense. It is sleeping in twos. It is living in packs. It is long novels and swinging hammocks. It is the absence of mornings and the deepest of relationships with the night. It is calluses from game controllers and ping-pong rackets. It is jellyfish, surfing fish, and the most beautiful sound in the world. It is concerts in warm air. It is dancing until there is no more dark. It is the sort of calm that has no compromises or adverse effects. It is music, and thunderstorms, and the kind of memories that fade into warmer hues, softening around the edges and gathering affection instead of dust with the passage of time.

{}

In our bedroom, after the war

2009-05-18T22:33:00.004+01:00

Greeting, earthlings!

I’m avoiding revision again. Crazy, that.

Anyway, I come bearing gifts. Not a particularly good one...I just thought it would be nice to set up a blog with bits and bobs of my writing, in case anybody is interested! Nothing long (not that I ever manage to extend my creative writing into anything that falls under the category of ‘long’, heh) primarily because Html kills me slowly. So probably most of it will be poetry or random sentences I sluggishly write in the book by my bedside when I’m trying to fall asleep.

By all means criticise it if you want, since making things public holds no feel of grandiosity or ideals of talent beyond that which practice implicitly shapes.

Also, I have to add that the people in my writings are not me. Most of my writings, as random and incomprehensible as they may seem, haha, probably have a whole backdrop. I won’t write any sort of clarifications alongside them but if you want to know what the hell I’m on about, ask :).

That’s about it! I have to go revise biology now. As if today’s exam wasn’t awful enough. Though to be honest one of the questions just has to take the prize:

If a young girl is experiencing jealousy towards her father, Psychoanalytic theorists would believe it to be:

a)chest-hair jealousy

b)muscle jealousy

c) maturity jealousy

d)penis jealousy

....Yeah. LOL. Take a wild guess at which it actually is. I read the first option and had to bite my lip so hard not to burst out laughing. I can just totally see that in comic form.

The shiny, rainbow chest hair of win!

LOL ok, I went to deviantart to see if I could spot a picture that mirrored what I was imagening and found Sir Gayer and Mr Gaylord on the way.

what the freaking fuck man.

LOOOL.

ah the internet. a wonderful source of culture and other such chiselled things.

and when you bring your lips to my ear, I can hear the sea

2009-05-16T12:53:00.004+01:00

I don’t feel alright in spite of these comforting sounds you make

Well I’ve been here before, sat on the floor

They’re calling out, come on lets go

Hold the gun way deep down

Don’t let the silence get you down

If it makes you less sad I will die by your hand

Vacuous bird, where are you now?

December starts on Sunday, next Sunday

And you can try to fight this all you want

Running just as fast as you can

Lately I’ve been measuring

Do I love you because you treat me so indifferently?

She was still sleeping, the problem will stay

So it's grey, well so are my favourite cities

And it feels right this time

---

That was two memes in one. First Lyles' band-cover one, and secondly thats a song made from the first phrase of a bunch of songs in shuffle. I did cheat a little in the second one- switched two of the songs around, but it just sounded so much better that way :3 Title is all mine though :)
If you like the meme- DO IT!
<3

Freestylingtheassoffyah

2009-05-12T10:13:00.003+01:00

Ok guys, are you ready to love me a little more?

A few days ago I was gonna take a shower (Apparently this is when I write blogs now O_o) and I thought ‘hey man I need to write a bog!’ So I sat down and was like –durrrr dunno what to write. Now, whilst studying I’ve been putting on so many youtube playlists that all I could think of was making it into a typical vlog thing only they always end with a song so...I had to make up a song. I’m not so good at that. So I just pulled it out of my ass. I giggled for a bit making it but 5 minutes later got bored, saved it and hopped into the shower. But I just found it and decided it’s so absolutely awfully wonderful that it must be hurled into blogworld, as a special thanks to all the birthday wishes that really did mean a lot to me cause despite the fact that I wanted to downplay my birthday- and succeeded, somewhat- its the day my mum usually makes a fuss because I can’t be bothered so I was like :( but then you all cheered me up (little doggy and her mum called and as I picked up, not knowing who the number belonged to, they started shrieking the birthday song and I was like *omg the gremlins have finally come to get me!!* But no it was the wonderful surprise of sisterhood XD) and I also caught up with Cecil SO,

Here it goes!

It doesn’t have cords or notes or anything, by the way. It’s a new genre called freestylingtheassoffyah and its so cool it doesn’t even exist yet.

The song is called ‘my hands are made of clay so please don't eat me’. please sing along!

---

I fell in love the other day when I was sitting in my car

Looking out the window at the spots around the sun

The boy paused by the hood and when I looked

His eyes were dotted like an afterimage spook

I stared at him long until he got creeped out

And hastily looked away before my blush sprang up

For weeks and weeks and weeks and fourteen days

I watched the boy from far far away

‘Mr Cauliflower Head’ I called him in my mind

He was so perfect I pretended he was mine

Until voyeurism just wasn’t enough

I had to hear the lovely voice that had crawled into my heart

I said “Mr Cauliflower Head why won’t you love me?

A want to cook pieces of your hair, can’t you see?”

And he said, “Cause you call me Cauliflower head;

My name is Spock.

I like grunge electro and eating magic rocks.”

I looked at his bento which was all wrong,

The dividers were unmatched and the rice looked like a sponge

“Those aren’t rocks those are clams.”

“Shut bitch don’t interrupt my jam!”

I set his head on fire and cooked it medium-well

He wasn’t my type, that much was clear,

So I left him alone, gasping in pain and feeeaarrrr

On the way back home

I met Bowzer and he went “yo!”

I thought he wanted to eat me cuz his teeth were bared

Until I realised he was just smiling like a crack-on-bear

So I waved back and hit a box

And out popped a mushroom in all my luck.

Its eyes popped open and then it said,

“Hey Marina hows it hanging, you’ve been one-upped”

I ate his face with morbid relish and slowly smiled

until I realised the consequences were rather hellish

My hands had turned hairy and my nails had grown

I stared down in horror and started to moan

Inside my belly the mushroom laughed,

“You’re closer to being a cat now!”

And that is that.

---

...

Hahaha,

LOVE IT, HOMIES!

PeeEss: (takes on mystical storytelling voice) and they say if you say something nice about me in the comment section the moon will turn into one great meatball and no one will ever go hungry again...except the vegetarians...and also we’ll all die from meat cancer.

...oh well!

{}

2009-05-09T15:17:00.004+01:00

My sister is the most beautiful girl in the world
and,
I love her more than music.

Oh go Elf Yourself

2009-05-08T16:00:00.008+01:00

Yo yo yo, motherlovers!

So...I wrote this a few weeks ago in Spain. Went to take a shower and instead I randomly sat on the bathroom floor, half naked, and wrote this because I’m just that cool. And of course forgot all about it (actually it’s the second time I do that, I have an into-the-wild themed blog here somewhere. Hahaha....erk) And when I say forget I mean lazy-ass procrastinated. Ahaha...love me?

Anywho, here it is now, in all its unedited glory. Bask in my hysteric humour! (also, the tenses might be screwed up cause maybe I started editing it and then got bored half way though. :D)

I came over to Spain a few days before official hols started, missing a practical and a stats lesson to catch two concerts on the first two days of the stay. The first one was on Friday, Oceansize, and it was utterly awesome. There were quite a few hard-core fans in the crowd around us which always makes everything a million times better. When they played Savant my sister and cousin and I just latched together and swayed and threw our heads back and closed our eyes and it was like being somewhere else, like being nowhere, or maybe just we were there 100%, no straying thought or distraction. Like worship, closing your eyes and thinking, and loving nothing, nothing else. I just remember the heavy smell of pot and the flashing lights against closed eyes, the feel of Sara against me, the back of her head on my shoulder and Laura’s hand in mine and the music, the music was so deep into everything it made my lungs rumble with the cords of the guitar.

The second one we saw was God is an Astronaut which wasn’t as good, in my opinion. My mind wandered, I couldn’t sink into the music at all. They played clips of things in the background which I had to work hard not to look at and it was frustrating. The whole concept was irritating. Music for me is a means to feel something, but I choose, to some degree, what the music makes me feel and believe and remember. To have the clips there- sunsets and bombs and skies- was sort of beautiful, yes, but it was forcing my head to go one way or another and I heavily resent any kind of manipulation. I remember when I was little I had a lot of trouble sleeping, so my mum bought one of those relaxation tapes. I remember lying in my bed stiffly, almost angrily, sickly, listening to a deep voice telling me to “feel....relaxed. Just drift...away to a calm, calm place....just feel yourself drifting, floating...you are at peace. Now...” I had stepped out and said to my mum “I don’t like it. It’s telling me what to do.” At the time my mum had laughed, taking it as a bossy little girl not wanting to be ordered about but that wasn’t it. It was more than that. It was like someone was trying to reach a misty hand into my hand and touch all the things I had stored there and the thought was disgusting.

The week after the concerts I spent half in Cartagena with Sara and then a few days in La Manga with Little Doggy which was awesome because one of the days we went off, taking a walk around the whole area and taking picture of everything we could think of. Cats wound themselves around our legs and dogs barked at us. We even slipped into some abandoned houses (with the crisis and the fact that it’s not summer, La Manga is abundant in these). One of them was huge, with a tennis court and a pool and the most beautiful view. We loved it and vowed we would have a similar house we could watch the sunset from when we are older.

The other one was an unkempt little house in some neighbourhood we crawled under a fence in plain view to get to because there were yellow flowers everywhere. Apart from the fact I got stung, in the forehead, twice, it was pretty damn cool. The ‘phrase of the day’ was achieved when I had laid down on the dirt to get a picture of the sun bouncing off a fallen lamp and, getting up, Laura had tried to clean me up a little but I had simply shaken my head and shrugged, saying “Oh it doesn’t matter now, I’m the dirt monster.” We laughed and ran around so much that day that it’s been a long time since I sleep so soundly.

It was off to the third concert after that, which started off rockily as we missed the bus and had to take a taxi all the way to Murcia. But we got the taxi driver to reduce the price a bit and the night was definitely worth it.

This Will Destroy You was playing and despite the fact that what they managed was awesome, they had to cut the set short cause they had lost all their equipment in the airport and didn’t have half their effects or necessary...music-thingies. So we left around midnight and, after much direction-taking and actually passing it a few times, we reach a bar with nice decor and good music, in which we stayed there a tad too long. At around four we took a taxi with another guy to a club area and slipped into ‘Stereo’ which is originally meant to be a gig-room but is transformed into a dancing area when unused. The three of us danced the night away in a rather hyper fashion on the stage-area until it shut down at seven. Another guy then drove us to the bus station where we had breakfast and hopped on a bus back to Cartagena. I remember sitting across two seats, back against the bus wall and sleeping looking out the opposite-side window. The clouds were ghostly, masking the sun faintly so that it was possible to look straight at it and I marvelled at how truly round and solid it looked. With not cracking, splitting light around it making me shield my eyes. Hanging there so perfectly it looked like a toy. The signal of a God telling us, maybe, that we are only the dream of some fatigued, old man, which spends his life wondering if he should regret having slept for so long.

The remainder of my time here has been spent in the Farm. I’ve been living with little doggy for a week now and she is driving me insane. Not throw-tea-in-her-face-to-watch-her-scream insane. More like throwing-fairy-liquid-at-each-other-and-laugh-hysterically-until-seven-in-the-morning insane.

Seriously, I think we laughed more yesterday than some people laugh in their whole lives. And not. Hahahaha that was so damn funny either. It was more like AAAAAAHAHAHAAAAHAHRHGHGHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHRGHGHGHGHGGGGGGGHHHHGHGHGHAHAHAHA(silent laughter, gaspgaspgasp)HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH. Owowow my stomach, ow I can’t breathe HAHA.

At one point our conversation deteriorated into little doggy rolling away from the small gap where our two beds were pushed together, exclaiming, “Why do I always end up in the crack!?” I burst out laughing and said deeply “Oh you like cracks, don’t you,” which just made us laugh harder, and then proceeded to gasp out things like “anal leakage!” and “cunt-juice!”, laughing hysterically until little doggy moved so much that the beds slid apart and she promptly fell through the gap, saying “ahaha, Marinahaha, help help me marina marina marinahahahah,” whilst I looked at her disappearing, wiggling limbs and just rolled around on my bed laughing like a complete maniac.

That night we decided a few things.

-little doggy has crossed a few too many crazy lines.

-I am at the end of crazy road, waving my arms and shouting “I AM THE VOICE!”

-‘go elf yourself’ should be incorporated into the insult-vocabulary, which comes from the program in which you can put faces of people on some dancing real-live elves so that they bob around ridiculously. Nothing was funnier than watching my uncle’s stoic face on one of the dancing elves.

Nothing.

-Anal leakage should not be an advertised side-effect for anything in the history of ever.

-When we are together, we should be banned from the public. For their own safety.

-Wiggling the tongue like the KISS member is not a good way to hit on someone.

So yes. Quite the productive night. Except when I tried to go to sleep and would randomly burst into giggles every few minutes as images popped into my head, like the time I randomly starting singing the circus song, which abruptly ended in me feigning to shoot myself in the head and violently throwing myself sideways, or the time little doggy clicked the lights on and off rapidly, shouting “DISCO TIME!” Which of course was my cue to thrash wildly in my bed, a scene which was described by her as me looking like ‘an epileptic Japanese ghost’. Or of course me putting thumb-tacks between by knuckles and shouting “I'M WOLVERINA!” or the smart alternative of razors between the fingers and an exclamation of “HELLO, ITS EDWARDA RAZORFINGERS!”

Little doggy told me to just imagine a desolate, cold place to get rid of the laughter. That kind of worked, until I imagined myself in the middle of a lonesome snowy field, arms in the air, face pointed to the cloudy sky as I laughed manically like a villain. I then proceeded to act it out, booming-laughter and all, which just got us started all over again.

Ooohhh dear.

So yeah. Hopefully I won’t be sanctioned any time soon.

Not promising anything though.

something in this blog is going downhill

2009-05-07T14:55:00.007+01:00

Insanity!!

Things are happening to my head because of all this studying!

I had a happy-peculiar morning in which I talked a little too much out loud (one ‘conversation’ held with my grater in which I kept bumping into it and finally I stopped, looked at it and said, “Ok one of us has to change. It has to be either you or me,” followed by an expectant look upon the quiet grater until my mind smoothly asked me wth I was doing.) It all culminated to the point where I stopped, sighed and said “So it’s gonna be one of those ‘talk to yourself days’” and then with a flick of my wrist I started grating the tomato again, singing in a midget, nasally voice “oh yes it is oh yes it is be happy I have a voice and hearing aid to listen to the cars singing across the rooooaaaad!”

... yeah.

Dedicated to Cecil: I bought the squid-whisk! It is beautiful and I WILL BE HAVING BABIES WITH IT....no wait a second. Considering its shape that sounds incredibly wrong.

...

See this is what I mean.

Revision does things to you, man.

(whisper) Zombie sex things.

im so glad im in my room on saturday night. so, so happy.

2009-05-02T21:51:00.002+01:00

REVISION IS FULGY PENIS STEW

the mushroom cup

2009-01-08T05:10:00.007Z

There are a lot of uncertainties in the world. A lot of unanswered questions and a lot of loose answers. But there is one thing, one thing only, that I know for sure, and will never doubt.
The red in bubbleshooter is eeevvviiilll.
Hehe. Anticlimax ftw?
I’m such a dork.
Talking about being a dork, who’s excited for the next harry potter movie? I AM! I don’t even know why. I never really like the movies. I think maybe there is just a part of me that is made of geek and demands all that is thestral and hagridish to be worshipped.
Oh no, but the movie I really want to watch is ‘the Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ the music on the trailer rocked and when I watched it I felt insanely jealous. That is exactly the type of story I would love to write. None of my ideas are original. I make them original (or pathetically attempt to) with my crazy messy fragmented writing style. But meeeh. I’m 18. I’ll get there sooner or later. I’ve wanted to write a story about someone who could listen to what furniture has to say since I was like 14 but then my sister said she had already read a story about that and I was like uuuurrrggghhhh.
I’ve also wanted to write a story set in the future, just for the setting. To invent the mannerism, the slang, the fashion, the history, the diseases, the geography. I would make people bisexual and bald. Heh can you imagine? Sitting at the back of a cinema filled with bald people, the reflection of the movie bouncing off skin at a million angles. You would be able to watch the movie, albeit upsidedown, on the head of the person one row under and if you turn your head just right- oh my god what are harry and draco DOING?!!?
Haha I wish. No seriously I do. Ginny is far too cute. The main character should be with someone with a million flaws. Like Draco. Flaws are sexy. As long as they are balanced with virtues obviously. I’m not going to coo “oh a psychotic killer! Come get me, big boy!” But yeah. For any boys reading; don’t try and desperately hide your dorky flaws. It makes you look like a dick, and FYI, girls and gay men only like ONE type of dick.
...hmm, how did I get onto this topic? I don’t know but it’s going to be wrapped up with the fact that I love Mr Darcy and his puppy eyes of doom. The way he says iloveyou is wet and pouring like the rain.
Talking of H to the 2 to the O, the last morning in Spain rocked. After a night of not sleeping (psh, obviously, sleeping the last night there) Paloma Sara Laura Lola Me said goodbye to my parents and group-hugged my brother as I kind of had to hold back tears when they left cause it was the first time they did that. Stupid Cardiff. But yeah. After that we took a walk and arrived at Ponc’tan (which is what we named an odd field of tall plants we could wade through, but is really the name of Issun’s village in the game Okami) and because I hadn’t slept that night or the previous, almost, I had a little more crazy inside than usual, which translated into me running madly through the field feeling like I could howl at any second. I like those moments. I’m filled with a sort of animal energy inside and it feels as if I can run for ever and ever. I think I would make a good lioness. I would like hunting, if I didn’t have an annoyingly active conscience. I mean not as a human, but as an animal, purely for food. The thrill, the chase, the running, the power. All in a very non-human way.
I fail at being normal, hah. Probably why people look at me in a very strange way when I say “I wouldn’t mind eating human. Just to see”.
Hmm....that looks very strange written down. Maybe I should stop admitting that...?
But yes, we ran through the field and the velvety leaves were so wet that when I stumbled out of the green it looked as if my bottom half had been completely dipped in water.
And then Laura drove with me to the airport and in the queue we were laughing so hard every five seconds that her Dad said we were embarrassing ourselves. Our laughter boomed across the giant, packed room and it was nice. Haha I’m laughing right now remembering it. Seriously we would.not.stop.laughing.
Like the night before the last, which was mostly spent in the kitchen, Laura Guille Me. We were both watching my brother play Oblivion and laughing madly as things attacked him whilst I simultaneously wrote out a story plan for ‘The Year of the Iron’. (Marina writing a story plan!!?!?! Sockhorror!). I don’t know if people will get the title is an unfunny parody on things like ‘the year of the horse’. Little Doggy did you get it?
And then whislt doing this Laura suddenly pointed out that dawn was breaking and I craned my neck to see through the window when I caught sight of the shard of redorangepink lodged in the horizon and started shouting “IT’S RED IT’S RED” which logically meant we had to run to the water reservoir as soon as possible. And so we did. We sprang into action, peed, got some jackets and shoes on, I snatched my camera and we made a run for it. It was only a little embarrassing when I ran ahead to snap the sunset up and got caught running like a retard by a worker in the farm. He was skinny and walking slowly and looked at me with faint surprise as I sprinted, laughing hysterically with my tongue out like some spastic dog. I saw him, stopped laughing abruptly and quickly put my tongue back in my mouth. Smooth.
But the water reservoir didn’t have a good sight of the redness and we kept running, me ahead again and laughing hysterically when I heard Laura say “I can’t do this, I can’t-” And then screaming all the way down the side of the water reservoir, which was followed by an exclamation of “I’m going to throw up!” said in a very funny Spanish saying.
Oh I love her.
Geh, I don’t like the word love. It’s too commercialised. Every time its mentioned I think of cheesey romance novels and films that end with a kiss and pink valentine cards. . I wish every time I said the word LOVE I would be censored and the softest key of a grand piano or the length of a harmonica would play instead.
I {} you
But do you know who I {}? My family. Truly, unconditionally. I have such a totally awesome family. The best family in the world. I mean my friends are also the best in the world, but I chose them and they chose me. But my family is made of luck. So even though only one member of it reads this I dedicate every single one of them
This
And leave that to replace the L word.
Anyway, I don’t know how this blog even got so long. It was supposed to be the first four sentences. I think I should go finish my essay now.
...There really is only one thing left to say.

Ninja Cats PWN!

time is contagious

2008-12-31T01:18:00.008Z

Helluh!
I am cold! Because when I said I didn’t have internet what I ACTUALLY meant was that I didn’t have internet in the house and actually preferred going without it than being outside club Nintendo whilst freezing my ass off. But I’m out here with my Sister so she can see Hellsing and skimmed through the blogs and saw Lyle’s and obviously had to write one of my own cause his was rockage. And not just cause he mentioned me ;)
Christmas Eve was strange this year. People missing and stuff...in more ways than one. No Christmas Miracle for this family, not even close, but we can manage without it. Here comes a new year guys, this one is going to be better, cause we’re gonna make it better.
Tomorrow is the super cool Bas tradition to go swimming in the sea the last day of the year! You have to go underwater 3 times minimum to make it count. It’s always my brother, little doggy, me, my uncle, my dad and the ghost of my aunt and her silver scar in the headache cold water. My mum sits on the shore, looking at us, half amused and half as if she thinks we are totally insane.
Which we are.
And it is always so much damn fun. I’ve never given a metaphor to the act (like cleansing ourselves, hehe sounds too pure) and don’t really want to. It’s just...what it is. A piece of good luck, maybe, to last another twelve months. And if it doesn’t work then, oh well, let the salt taste better next time.
But yes, I have officially stolen my Dad’s camera and have taken quite a lot of pictures. I’ll put them up on facebook just because it’s so damn easy to upload them there though I should get a new place to do that. The first day we were here we all (Sara,Paloma,Guille,Laura,Me,thedogs) went to a field opposite the farm and ran and jumped and crazed about like the wild animals we are. The sunlight was everywhere, everywhere; on the leaves and melting across the horizon and in our eyes. And it was so funny when we all perched on a tree and started humming the Zelda theme tune and laughed about how we had grown up and still we were climbing trees and singing about elves and adventures.
And it’s nice when you can say some things never change and actually mean it.
At night we totally geeked out by playing Mario Kart using the Miis of Harry Potter and Voldemort we had created last summer. Though the best was using them in Wii tennis and watching Voldemort’s psycho smile.
And yesterday we had another blow-me-away moment. We all sat outside where the internet could reach us, sat in the cold, in the shadows. Huddled into ourselves as Sara showed us a song which was...raw. I listened to it, looking at the stormy night sky and oh my God what a song. Not something to just listen to whilst walking or working, no way. This song was explosive. When it finished there was a pause of silence and we said what we thought, calmly, because Sara had put herself on the line by showing us something that had impacted her so much (she cried the first time she heard it). And I closed my eyes and said something like,
“It’s like...” my voice shuddered over the silence, “as if the song is everything that is past, as if it comes from somewhere that has seen everything humans have done and can do nothing but cry. It...It sounds like the sound the earth would make after it witnesses a war. Not the violent sounds of the actual war but...In the Battle of the Somme. It sounds like the crying echo the land where it took place would leave behind if we could listen to it.”
And it was the greatest sensation to have Sara look at me and say “That’s just it. Like the earth, its the earth this song comes from. I had felt it, but didn’t know how to put it into words. That was perfect.”
Ah the Shiver feeling. When you know something is so much bigger than you and at the same time....a mere detail.
But yeah, I’m not actually going to say what song it is cause...showing it would be like showing a piece of myself because...when something makes such an impact on you it’s like it melts into you, becomes part of the person you are slowly creating. And so throughout life you are slowly picking pieces up, fitting them together, until you are some sort of strange abstract art. Beautiful and incomprehensible at the same time.
Anyway! This new year is going to rock. I shall tell you a secret and say something in me is afraid when I say that too loudly (touchwood) but I don’t care! Make your own happiness, I say.
Well, the first month of the year is going to start off with (let’s ignore the exams, my friends!) seeing Edward Scissorhands onstage! Fuck yes! Then getting a fucking job and savingsavingsaving. Having super lots of fun i school time despite that and then in June going to Glastonbury. Then having an amazingly long and fantastic Summer and in it Sara, Little Doggy, my brother and yours truly are gonna pack a couple of sleeping bags, the camera, some tinned food, some music, fit it all in a car and just leave. Just us four and whatever we want. We are gonna rough it and be as fucking crazy as possible. Sneak into hotel’s or residence’s pools to shower. Scavenging food or playing (guitar) for money. Stealing vegetables from fields and seeing the sights. Not really planned, not knowing what the fuck is going on. We are going to get lost and wilder and tired until our laughs turn hysterical and not care.
Because you know guys, the only thing I truly truly want to be in this life is a person that DOES. I plan to move around the world, to not settle for ‘comfortable’ or ‘stable’. I will always remember when Mrs Wilson told me that she was unhappy in Jersey. Too small, too boring, students everywhere. And I said “then just leave”. And she smiled and said, “it’s not that easy.”
But I never said it was easy. What I’m saying is it’s worth it. You have a family and a job and- so what!? Is that what life is about? Working and reproducing and getting trapped. No way, man.
And I can tell that when I say these things I just sound like a teenager talking dreams but...I don’t care! Hehe, I don’t care. As Lyle hopes, I’m gonna write a fucking book and make a movie and transmit all these ideas into pages and scenes and characters and I’m going to see my name on a hardback front and cry.
And its going to be wonderful.
And yay I’ve had enough motivation to write over here in Spain! Sara showed me the band ‘Explosions in the Sky’, from a new genre of music called post-modern rock and oh my god. Pure inspiration. I put the music on to study and as it started my trembling fingers had to leave the faulty numbers of statistics and write The Worst of This. It was great. 8 pages so far! Haha it’s truly pathetic how slow I write. Oh well! Slow and steady wins the game. I’ve outlined some characters which I love to do. It has an odd sense of intimacy, playing god. Scratching out the hopes and flaws and history of a person only you know.
Haha, I really don’t know what I would do without being able to write!
But yes. Also! Hehe I wasn’t sure if to tell you this since it’s personal in a strange way, but I don’t think anybody reads this blog beyond those trustworthy and I think when I tell you you’re all gonna sweatdrop and think ‘that is so Marina’. But yes, What I’m gonna do next year is that every week I’m gonna collect the names of a couple of dead people. In the newspaper of from the cemetery or anything. And for each of those people I’m going to do something. Anything. Whistle a song on the street or smile at a stranger or draw a chalk drawing on a wall. Something small, as fleeting as that person was but it will be something. Something so that for that moment the person is living on, past the breathless constraints of death. :)
And I’m gonna say now that the actual idea was not mine. A fictional character did something similar in I don’t know what story and I though “That’s awesome” and since I’m a person that does then here I go! I can even write a simple blog about it! What do you guys think? Chachacha!
Heh, and one more thing, I’m gonna leave this game with you guys. Mainly it’s for Lyle cause I think he’s the only person with the possibility of liking it but I’m putting it up here in case someone else does. It’s about physics and stuff and I will declare you officially smart if you complete it alone.
Okay then. Just some music and great philosophical questions to wrap this up.
Can Zombies have fun?
Why is Guitar Hero so fucking entertaining to watch?
Can Dinosaurs sing?
Why doesn’t princess peach just get an alarm system or something?
Actually, I’m also gonna give you this. It’s my favourite anime and although I know that’s not anybody’s thing I really do recommend it. Very different from other animes and lovely in order to just calmly pass the time.

Right, I’m going to stop now.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR :(

2008-12-11T03:01:00.001Z

I know you all prefer it when I write happy blogs but I just have to say:

Some people are sick in the head.

Is it supposed to be some sort of irony that this was posted the 11th of sept?

I'm so angry right now I don't know what to write. urgh.

this is pure rant

2008-12-06T08:05:00.003Z

Hey everybody!
Was just watching ‘five awesome guys’, which is strange cause I don’t usually go on youtube if it’s not for music but now that I think about it it stemmed from music-watching. Also, fell in love with this conductor. I was amazed by him, I got tingles all over my body. It was magic, it literally way. The look of awe on his face, of pleasure, the way he conducted with his whole body, his whole expression.
But back to the point: five awesome guys. Are awesome. Loved the idea of 5 strangers just posting a video one day a week each (mon-fri, get it?) and just getting to know each other really well in a short period of time and they were talking about how friends online are made really quickly really intimately because you can get to know them first. You can read their blog and see their youtube videos and it’s different from the real world. And sometimes that annoys me, because it seems cowardly, to say things between screens and not face to face. To not be able to just be strange and sudden and intimate with strangers. Actually, I’m just generally disgruntled with the real world at the moment. And I hate going emo on you guys but it seriously is just pissing me off. And what else am I going to talk about but acceptance? Ok I’ve started ranting now, I can’t stop:
What is the deal with not accepting people that are different than them? The more I think about it the more it seems utterly ridiculous to me. Are different people frightening? No. You know what it is? It just came to me- it’s about barriers. When differences occur, people either perceive or build barriers out of those differences. For example, today Steph went with us to Lucy’s flat for Lucy’s birthday party but didn’t want to go to Oceana (club) because she just didn’t feel like it. And she was insisting on the fact that she was shattered, and she looked obviously uncomfortable when people persisted otherwise but still most of the gang was like ‘come on steph, come on, you’ll enjoy yourself in the end’. And ok I get it; she’s our friend, we want to spend time with her but...peer pressuring her into going out when she clearly doesn’t want to is not the way to be a good friend. And if, for example, steph continued to not want to go out clubbing then instead of getting around it by going to cafes or to the cinema or talking in lectures and over msn, people would decide that the barrier of her not going out with us would be too big to be proper friends with her. Which is just plain wrong. And then at the end of the night I went out of the dance floor to make a call with a friend and she went to the toilet and I was utterly stunned when she came back with tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong, thinking it was because she had to go home alone and didn’t want to and so obviously I insisted that it would be fine to go with her but she said it wasn’t that. She looked at me and asked me ‘Why do I always have to be the first one to go home?” and I was just floored. I knew where she was coming from; ideas that, what, she was the boring one? The, the what? Just fucking no, you know? It’s wrong that how society is has made people with such basic differences be made to feel less than what they are because of it. Just no. Be what you want to be. Be what you like. God I’m just by pure coincidence listening to this song that fits well with what I’m saying. I wish I could make people understand that...they are going to die some day and that life is all they have got. Death is nothing- it’s the end of things. Not anything to be fixated about; it’s gonna happen, that’s it. Just make the most of your life. LIVE IT. live it being you, not what other people want you to be.
And...well yeah, urgh this post is going absolutely nowhere it hasn’t been before.
I suck.
But anyway! Can we drop the emo and talk about something happy now? Yes ok: I’m going to steal my dad’s camera at Christmas, and my new year’s resolutions (along with other things which none of you can know about, ha!) is gonna be to take it with me EVERYWHERE and capture stuff. I’ve changed quite a bit with uni in the respect that I am A LOT more confident. I’m not sure if any of my friends know this (my family do cause they rock!!) but I haaaated meeting new people. And not like generally disliked it, I honestly hated it. I didn’t know how to do it and considering how much I have moved school that is quite a problem. But I always felt that I had met enough people- that I had been forced into the meeting-new-people situation enough times. But not now! I’m one of those people that talk to strangers easily and about everything now and it ROCKS!!! People always look at me with surprise but then generally pleasure as well at being so unexpectedly engaged in a conversation.
Right so the point of that was that I’m gonna take my camera and if I meet a person I really like the look of on the street I’m gonna ask if I can take their picture. Yes I totally am! I’ve thought about it and came to the conclusion that if they ever said ok (pressured by it) I would remedy the following posing awkwardness in the picture by making them talk about love or/and death. What I’m gonna do is say “are you in love?” and if they say yes I’m gonna ask them to think about the little things they like best about the other person. To just imagine them, like how he kisses your jaw-line instead of your cheek, or the way his hand lingers in your hair or the way she really listens instead of just waiting for a turn to speak, the way she hold your hand and brushes her thumb over your skin.
And just as they think about those little things I would snap a picture of their face and it will be wonderful. Can you all please tell me how utterly rockage this idea is? Because it is. Strangers rule. Except the creepy ones which leer. Leering is a big no-no people! Oh but I got a really nice look from a guy in a shop the other day. I went to Tesco with Zoe and I was asking her if she didn’t have like weird OCD things she had to do and she said no and as we were paying I was saying “yeah like me, before I go to bed I have to finish listening to the song that’s on in full, I can’t cut it off or I’ll feel really weird. I won’t go completely off but something inside just...” and I could tell the tesco guy was looking at me so I looked up and he had this really nice...interested and understanding look. So yes, conclusion: strangers are good as long as they are not leering.
ALSO! I saw someone walking down the road naked today! Teenager with his friends at night (no children) so creepiness factor was out. It was very funny because I was just thinking about how I’ve had nightmares about that- you know, walking down the street and then suddenly realising I’m only in my panties. LOL. The guy had a tattoo on his ass. Just in case you wanted to know! Really wished I had my camera though, it was SUCH a facebook moment!
And no, guys, I did not look at his penis. Just cause I know you’re thinking it because you are all perverts.
Also I had to jump down a wall and destroy my knees and feet and knock on Kento’s window at like 2 30 because I had forgotten my keys. Funny though cause I scared the shit out of him. He rocks! I send bloglovewaves to Kento. (He is obviously one of my flat mates, guys).
Woah this is long. It’s because I’m hyper. I love being hyper its a million times better than being drunk. I was hyper at Lucy’s and Val was just pissing herself saying she ‘wanted to see more of this Marina!’ and I realised that I was being quite myself! All loud and jokey and just plain- well you all know what I mean when I get like that. Also in Oceana (which is utter piss! Nicole and I vowed never to go back there unless under obligation. The music was suckage except for the end when we re-entered the disco bit and then it was quite good. They played Queen and I was like FRRREEEDDDIIIEEE and also they played YMCA and I was like CCEECCIILL. Oops am I still in the parenthesis? Closing this now...) As I was saying, in Oceana they were playing ‘ready to rumble’ and I swear I was going crazy, Nicole was like WTF!!!?? Cause I was like RRREEEAADDDYY TOOO RUMMBBLLLEEE.
Lol and this blog has transcended into topics which you guys really don't give a shit about. But it’s seven in the fucking morning oh my god.
ALSO! I went to bed at nine the other day. PM!! Yes my friends, you have heard me right. Burnout. I danced in my room for a bit (I do that a lot. And can freely admit it...obviously. It’s fun! Sex on Fire officially rocks.) and then took a shower and then sat in front of my computer and thought “essay due in two days. Must do.” But...yeah it wasn’t happening, so I went to bed (took me hours to get to sleep but ah wells) then slept really badly (I dream A LOT here. Or, if you’re being pedantic, I remember a lot of dreams here. A lot. A lot a lot. Like, almost every night. It’s confusing. Having a lot of dreams with a black puppy in it. In the last it died and so did my brother and I felt very sick because it was my fault.) and then woke up at seven, having 5 hours until my lecture so that I could spent around 3 on the essay in the morning but of course as it happens, just when I had to get up I suddenly fell asleep with no trouble and slept until nine in the morning. (internal clock wakes me up at 9 30 every day now it sucks.) so yeah I was in bed for 12 hours. Not normal. Not normal at all. And now I have a lab report due on Thursday. Oh but guys! I got a 65 on my last one! Yessssss! I’m so happy about that. Got 48 for my first, then only 52 for my second and then it suddenly jumped to 65 (and 70 is a first so- yay). I did no secondary reading cause I thought it wasn’t necessary for lab reports so all I have to do it that and maybe I will get a first for my next one! Woop!
Why am I still talking? Ok I am stopping now.
Will update later maybe with some music. To make up for these failure of this postage.
I love you all, I really just do.
ALSO!...ok no I should stop now. It’s eight now, got distracted msning with Nicole. I really like her, she would beat scissors every time, she would.
Right, this blog is now longer than what an essay is supposed to be.
That is SICK.
For those who have actually read all of this- you are so much better that those who didn’t. And going back and reading it now is cheating, you already suck.
So HA!
Also I’m gonna do another meme soon. Maybe another 15 things I like because u can never get enough liking. Or Lyle’s uni one.
Oh my God Marina stop typi-

2008-11-18T23:36:00.002Z

A sort of quiet, questioning song by Kid Harpoon.

This blackboard
Weighs heavy
Board rubbers
Leave scars
Exam board
Inspections
To the drawing board
My son
You need curriculum
Strong discipline
So pull up your socks
Stand tall and breathe in

Why am I not rich?
Why is my back sore?
What made us linear?
What did Grandad die for?
Why are there armies?
And whos on our side?
Where does the sun rise?
And where does it hide?

Back to bed
You're dreaming again
Safety in numbers my friend

Picked from a shelf
Sent on parade
Forty hours weekly
Slave for a way
To pick from a shelf
Send on parade
Children of fortune
Make children of fame

Why is this yours?
Why wasn't it mine?
Why do the clocks keep on ticking off time?
Why are there nightmares?
And who made my shoes?
Why are there children shedding blood on the news?

Back to bed
You're dreaming again
Safety in numbers my friend...

Not mine to dedicate, but I will anyways. To Baby P. Who’s 17 fleeting months of life were composed of bruises and cuts and screaming. An ear semi-detached from the head, a bite wound on the head, the tip of a finger stripped from nail and skin, and a spine broken in three places. And that’s physical pain. The fear, and confusion and horror he must have gone through. Not even a proper name for his existence. Just Baby P.
If there is a God...he must be weeping.

Back to bed...you’re dreaming again

Birds

2008-11-14T15:41:00.008Z

My Blog comes back to life!
This is my first post in Cardiff. Its dynamic, nocturnal ways have greedily stolen all my time from me, but my fingertips have missed the letters dedicated to this page!
I am so happily tired. Weeks seem to supersound fly by. Clubbing party, film social, then a missed gig because of a lab report that dragged until 1 30 in the morning, and then relaxing in a pub at an open mike night are the kinds of stuff that have decorated the last four days.
But tarara, when have I talked about normal stuff on here? I had some awesome moments in the past week. I didn’t sleep at all on Saturday, and I was in my room at dawn, looking at the fold of clouds and sky let the dawn seep in and I crawled across my desk, sat on my windowsill and watched the birds. My fingers were numb with the sharp, fresh cold of the morning as I blinked at the sky, and just...just sat there and breathed and looked. And the noises of dew and seagulls filled the air as I watched the birds twirl and swoop and dance and just...fly. I was so lulled by the whole moment...as if time had stopped. The worry, the work, the excitement...it didn’t exist. I was just tired and cold and happy.
On Monday, also, I was walking back from the club around midnight (after the music turned crap and Beth and I couldn’t stand it anymore) when it started

Pouring.

Streaming, streaming it down and I just stopped in the middle of the bridge that walks me to my residence and looked down at the rippling road below. The orange, tepid streetlights that illuminated the tarmac made the surface seem to come alive with the water and I just stood there, getting soaking wet and shivering and tipsy in a mini skirt. I can’t remember what I was thinking. Nothing. Or just that the water looked like a million creatures and that it felt good. I probably looked like I was about to jump, however, because out of nowhere a voice said
“Are you ok?” I jerked back, startled out of space, and looked at a short oriental-looking man blinking at me below a plastic hood and I shook my head, saying er, yeah, yep, yeah I’m ok, hehehe. He looked at me for a second and then nodded, leaving. I watched him run through the rain and wondered what song I would be listening to if my MP3 weren’t fucked.
So, you know what, life is really good at the moment. Yeah I miss people, yeah I wish some things were different, yeah I’m worried about some people but...I feel so free. Like this is it, now, like I’m my own person. My own shopping, my room, my life. I handle the stuff I need and decide what I want. And ok that means I’m broke and not doing nearly as much work as I should but, whatever. I’ve met some great people, who I can dance madly with in public places, people who like clubbing, and others who like gigs, and more that like the cinema, and other that like just chilling.
But what’s really good as well is that this place inspires me. I’ve been thinking about the book I want to write and the movies in my head constantly lately. Ok I haven’t actually written anything, I’m busy and tired and...yeah basically I’m just plain lazy but at least it’s in my head again. And I love the voice of my muse. The little creature who randomly narrates stuff that is happening. Mostly the sky, because it’s such a difficult thing to put into words. But I’ve taken to carrying a little book and pencil with me everywhere and when I think of a line or idea I jot it down. Which was funny when I was being attended by a chubby man in Orange and I was in awe about the fact that he had about seven pens attached to his front pocket. As he was attending me I was like “Yeah, ahum, yeah it doesn’t sends texts, yeah,” whilst sketching him with words in my note pad, smiling secretly to myself. I also did that in my head yesterday at the open mike night actually. Wouldn’t it be funny to have a blog about all the little things I notice about people and places I meet, or ever the people in my head? About Alice and her wonderland nightmares. About Jack, the vegetarian with the serial killer’s name. About Copper, who smells salty like the sea. About Charlie who doesn’t know, but understands. About Albert, who’s fingers weave secrets that kill. About the little girl who knows that sometimes, silence hurts more.
I am so ready to just rip a book out of me. And I have all these scenes for a movie. I want it to end with a moment that happened to me in summer. I was floating alone on my back in the pool, looking at the sky spin slowly, framed by trees. I want the main character to die, but the very last scene to be her, young again, a memory, floating on water, and as the camera tilts from her to the tilting sky her voice would softly say,

We all turn into ghosts, eventually.

2008-09-19T02:55:00.002+01:00

I can’t believe it’s gone from being shyly invited to a Halloween Party by Claire and Rachel to dancing in a car park with Freddie and not being able to let go because I’m gonna miss you all so much. There have been some bad times, some arguments and fall-outs and so much drama it’s a wonder how I’m not an actress, but the truth is that has been such a small fraction of my life for the past four (five?) years that it doesn’t even matter. I’ve have so many incredible memories with all of you guys. Things I can just reach into my mind and call back. And the good thing about our group is that we’re all so different that I can pick things from all over the spectrum, from girly chats and shopping trips to anime marathons to swimming in the sea with our clothes on. And I could list all my love, and all the memories, and why each one of you, my marmite friends, are so, so special, but I’m not going to because the thing with friends is that I know you have that list inside you already. So before I get all teary and stupid I’m just going to say...thank you. Thank you for loving me, thank you for tolerating my strangeness. Thank you for thinking it’s ok to want to be a water particle, and a snail, for laughing at my craziness and loving me for me. I sit here right now and my mind is taken over by all those good days, by sitting by the gym, most of all, covered in orange pulp and laughing our heads off.
So, guys, it’ll never be the same again. But that by no means signifies that it’s over! You can’t be rid of me, I’m gonna stick around until you’re six feet under. I love all of you and I’m not gonna say good luck, all you need you already have to make it to the top.

So it’s like I say; Friends (like you) are like pissing your pants. Everybody can see it, but only I can feel the warmth!

The World Is Just Awesome

2008-09-10T22:31:00.012+01:00

Late late update.
Er...I remember what happened the 9th, cause I meant to write a blog but was too lazy to. The day was nice though we failed to sail again (fate is earthbound and made of jealousy) but sat drinking iced lemonade and laughing. We ate some churros and decided that the Spanish way of life was the best in the world. Lol, which might sound quite patriotic and whatnot but, come on. Sure naps exist all over the world, but which other country has a siesta as part of the culture? Meriendas. Tapas. Late at getting up, late at eating, late at going to sleep....It’s not that we’re lazy. We’re just well rested! XD
Then we threw ourselves into the pool, slid the aforementioned (inflatable) canoe onto the water and had one of those childish wars where everyone is trying to get on the bloody canoe and we’re pushing and pulling and shrieking and tugging and kicking and crying and laughing until I was exhausted. At one point I leaped unto it, slid across the elevated sides and fell off the other edge, almost drowning as I laughed underwater. It’s rare that I feel so comfortable in only my bikini to just wrestle around in it but I wasn’t even thinking about it as we somehow made groups and tried staying on the thing as long as possible.
Later, when we had tired ourselves out (my arms were literally useless after trying to tip the canoe so many times) we got ready and went to the mall again to have some icecream and see Wall-E. It’s really nice to hang out all of us outside the farm. Little Doggy and I had a complete laughing fit though, I can’t remember the last time something like that happened to us. We were some sort of hyper and as we bought ice cream we literally couldn’t stop laughing. At one point I was trying to say ‘this receipt is calculated to perfection’ but I was gasping for air so badly I couldn’t get it out, which just made it funnier. Then we turned suddenly as a kid started crying and saw a small boy with the face half dripping with ice cream, wailing away, and burst out loudly so that even the shop attendants were giggling into costumer’s faces and saying ‘they’re gonna get all of us going, now!”
I can’t pick out much else, with my catfish mind, outside the usual things. A few bad things. But that happens.
Actually, I also spent another week in La Manga which was even better than the last. But what was really cool was the last night, in which I didn’t sleep at all. For no special reason. Sleeping was just a foreign idea; something that I was to do when I fell down exhausted (which I did, heh). But around nine in the morning I just got up, got my music, and it lasted the song ‘They are night zombies!!’ to walk from the house to the beach, which was being ransacked by a strong wind. The sea was crazy, wild, and not in orderly big waves but with fragmented ones that crashed and sucked in and broke and slammed; it was chaos. I threw myself in and it was half frightening, how it toyed with me so easily. At one point I tried to catch a wave on my back because I was too far in but it slammed me down and when I surfaced, another one hit me, and then another one, and though I wasn’t scared I thought ‘I haven’t slept in almost 24 hours, and haven’t eaten in eleven...this might be bad’. But the experience itself was refreshing and special and chaotic and I loved it.
On that week I also dreamt I could fly, which I haven't done in a while.
Above a city in the sea, though at the time it didn’t seem strange. And it felt so good. So natural. As if it was the thing I had been born to do. And it wasn’t one of those typical dreams where you want to fly but can’t, or end up falling. I was just flying, with not wings or contraptions, but tilting my arms out and gliding. Soaring. I think I was on some errand, or flying for the pleasure of it, but I remember a faint thought of not being able to do this before (obviously out of the dream) and getting the feeling of how ridiculous it seemed, to live without this, this feeling, this ability. It almost had the feeling of hearing a good song or watching the mushishi sky, when I don’t know if I’m breathing too much or not enough, and my chest is trying to expand and contract at the same time and it’s as if I’m trying to contain something which is too big for me and I just can’t. Which always reminds me of the film ‘American Beauty’ which kissed the words off my lips. The living for living. The beauty for beauty...
After that there were also a lot of other special moments, and great days, and fucking, fucking awful moments. But a wonderful moment was in the last day, when we all got into my brother’s room and him and Little Doggy played along with the song ‘Zombie’ by the Cranberries which is just....it’s sex, it’s animal, it’s liquid, it’s waves in your ears, and under the skin, and in your bones. I fucking love that song and it was such a great moment, even if it was interrupted once. But the lights went off and the bass was heavy and the guitar that was accompanying acoustic and, ah, I don’t think I have to say more. The people that get this just will.
And also it was the amazing coincidence that after my brother, Little Doggy and I went to the Asiatic restaurant and got in the car, the radio was playing the song. The radio, in Spain, playing a song by the Cranberries. And out of all their songs, Zombie. And starting just when we got in. We were all surprised into a giggling silence.
And then back in Jersey, back to my clan of crazy dudes. Today was great, starting when I woke up at two in the afternoon by Freddie’s call up till right now, good things haven’t stopped happening. Dancing in the car with Freddie and wading knee-deep in the sea and taking pictures and a great sunset.
Today just has two things to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmBSwizauLg
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_f98qOGY0

i caught you a delicious bas

2008-08-14T14:53:00.007+01:00

Heck yes I got three As! You think I got where I am today because I dress like Peter Pan over there!?

dawn is made of

2008-08-14T04:16:00.001+01:00

Olympics and UCAS track refreshings

oh you lazy days

2008-08-08T02:13:00.012+01:00

The next update of my summer is here! As promised to Freddie, I’m keeping you all in the loop.
Well, the other day I went to the Go Karts, which was insane. It was me and most of my cousins, my brother and his friends.
I didn’t press the brake once.
I was this crazy monster on the tracks, letting my wheels shriek against the road on the curves and laughing to myself madly inside my helmet. In my first curve I slid sideways from the force of my speed and slammed against a strange and yet, still kept going. I banged against the tires at the side of the road, went off track and at one point I had to push my helmet and glasses down my face because they were being blow away and let go of the wheel completely to do so. Despite all this I ended up first with a whole round ahead in my second race and it was so fun I might possibly be addicted to speed! ;3

Then another day we went to a shopping mall, had a splendidly unhealthy dinner all together, went to see a bad movie which ended at two in the morning (Jersey, eat your heart out) and then goofed around the empty mall by running up the wrong side of the mechanical stairs, getting on a toy merry-go-round and generally being crazy, loud and annoying. That night, big doggy and I went to bed at eight or nine in the morning. She played Okami and I wrote and then she read what I wrote whilst I played Okami. We had a strange breakfast and watched the sunrise with music in our ears. The clouds were giant and drifting towards us so that when I unfocused my eyes and looked at them it was as if some great being were about to tower over us. Monsters, or Gods. A little later I stepped out again and saw the cracks between the clouds glowing orange and I ran to the house, grabbed my camera, and trotted to the water reservoir which is elevated, and I spent long minutes capturing light and wind on film. Philipo the photogenic dog, came with me. I took some photographs of him looking at the horizon as well and went back to Little Doggy with scraped knees but a grin on my face.

The next day I wasn’t all that tired, but lazed about the farm until I went out with Little Doggy to RUN, a fantastic Asiatic restaurant. We both moaned at the Miso Soup and varied sushi and Thai noodles and fried ice cream and sesame and rice balls with ice cream. I’m not gonna be all that surprised if I go back to Jersey having gained a few pounds! We giggled over the Asian waiters (I have a thing for their jaw-lines ;) and watched fireworks and kids running around and climbing trees in the pleasant atmosphere of the plaza where the restaurant was at.

Then, this weeks has been a little of everything...clubbing again, a lot less drunk which was goooooood. Then Christian left, which was sad. Then Wednesday was disaster day, in which some entity beyond us made sure we did not get on the boat. I guess it started with having no bread for sandwiches. And then we got bread, and we didn’t have a second ride. And when we convinced Mum to take the boys to get a canoe, there were no canoes, and their tire went flat. And when we got to the boat we had forgotten the rudder and the keys for the sides. When my uncle and the boys went to see if my aunt had a canoe, they found one in her basement, but my brother got hit in the eye by a chair, they lost the paddles so that they ended up with only one toy one and the canoe had a slight hole in it (though this was noticed later). All this was happening whilst the cousins and I practically burnt to a crisp in some kind of ‘yatch club’ which had no freaking shade available until I ran under an umbrella when some people left whilst my cousins hissed at me not to and to which I responded very loudly “I don’t care! Let them tell me off, I’m dying here”. To top this all off, my uncle came back whilst we were eating a little after three, me having woken up at 11 30 to drive there after going to sleep at around six. In the end something went wrong in the preparation of the boat so that a rope got stuch and we couldn’t go anywhere. And we had to send someone after my brother and Danish who were in a canoe somewhere far into the sea.
In the end I was so tired that I swam a little in the pool, locked myself in my room, read a bit, and then slept until ten at night in the most wonderful way. The farm is practically only place I can nap. Partly because I don’t have homework or studying or anything worrying me, nudging the back of my mind with ‘I should do this’s and “I’m wasting my time with that’s." But it’s also the atmosphere. The crickets. The thin sheets. The way it take me ages to fall asleep but it doesn’t matter, the drifting in and out. I have all the time in the world.
Of course, that meant that I wasn’t tired all night so that I stayed up until seven-eight. Again. But it was fun to lie beside the water reservoir, looking at the stars with Luna the dog by my side, until the skies lightened and the horizon turned pale. I didn’t stay long enough to see the sun actually rising and playing with lights and clouds, but went home and took a shower and went to sleep smiling.

I spent today reading ‘a spot of bother’ mostly. Painting. Blowing bubbles. And then talking to my 13-year-old cousin about how the trials of love are affecting her. Which sounds funnier than I find it. But let’s not get into that.
And now it’s just Tato (my uncle) and Carmen (my cousin) and me in Club Nintendo (a room with all the computers and TV and Wii). Carmen is playing Resident Evil on the Wii, shrieking “Die! Diediediedie! Aaaah!...Is he dead? Eeeek, he’s not dead- Tato, Tato, they won’t die oh my god they’re zombies!” Aaah aaah aaah!” at the screen. And when I ay shrieking I mean shrieking. I’ve seen this game being played by about five different people and she is my far the scariest player out of all of them. And funniest.
She’s killing chickens now...and giggling rather madly. I’m severely disturbed. Aaahaha! She tried killing a cow with her knife (under my suggestion, I have to admit) and it turned around and butted her with her horns. I gasped loudly and she starting wailing that the whole town was crazy. Though in my opinion, Leon is also missing a few screws.

“Your right hand comes off?”

So...yes. Almost worried about results. Hoping to go to Aqualandia. Going to sleep at six. Getting up at one. Pool. Sun.
That’s about it.

Blue Paper Boats

2008-07-31T16:32:00.006+01:00

One of the days in La Manga was especially fun.
Despite the fact it started a little slow with four hours of wandering around the house half-starved to death, it all started looking up when Little Doggy arrived home, calling out in Japanese, “I’m home!” to which I replied “Welcome back!”
As she saw me, leaning towards the oven in a little blue skirt, she laughed and happily pointed out how I looked like a wife at work, and said that the funny image made her day.

We went to the beach after lunch, where we spent most of the day. Firstly communing again with the sea, in which we caught waves whilst I said very truthfully, ‘being in the sea makes me want to purr,” which Little Doggy proclaimed the strange phrase of the day.

(Mira Lola, me estoy mojando)

We saw a giant fish surfing and as Little Doggy left to take a nap I stayed, floating easily even though the waves were a little rough by putting the back of my head towards them, tilting and swaying under the blue sky like a boat, peering at the clouds in the distance.
There was a wonderful moment underwater when the sea was pushing me towards the shore and I was swimming deeper in and as I closed my eyes is seemed as if I were moving but going nowhere at all. As if I were suspended, caught in a dream, and, strangely and confusingly I thought ‘Take me with you. No, don’t steal me. No, take me with you,’ And it was especially strange because I really meant it.
We had a little adventure after lying in the sun listening to music for a while as we took a walk with my camera and I photographed whatever we found was interesting, the best of which were two boys sitting crossed legged with even their hands posed in the meditating position and a ball of sand on each of their heads. The Zen Kids. Also, a large man lounging in a hole he had made, who we later found out was their father and looked like a big tanuki.
The day was absolutely filled with bursts of laughter between me and Little Doggy which would scare anyone looking at us, and was topped off with the delicious meal in a Chinese restaurant with an orgasmic fried-ice cream dessert which caused a very...interesting conversation.

Once back in the farm my other cousins, my brother, his friends and I went to another beach which was also loads of fun. At the end I took loads of photographs which turned out great. I may even do another only-photographic post for you guys :3 Some of the other days were a little more turbulent as I seemed to somehow always get hurt/sick but it was always the consequence of having too much fun.

Then there was the Jazz concert, which was amazing. We started on the seats, and technically should have stayed there as it was a sort of stadium/auditorium, but a hippy girl started dancing at the base of the stage and more people went down and in the end the two of my cousins and I that had gone to the concert were dancing to the sound of the low, amazing voices, the great instruments, the mind-blowing combinations. Even a cricket joined the fray, scuttling around in the stage, painted in the blue lights. We laughed and I loved the expressions we could see up close, the way the second jazz singer imitated the guitar with his voice, the way the bassist danced. There was a point when a video cameraman pointed his camera at us and I grinned widely and did the peace sign and I saw him laugh as I turned back to dancing. At the end my feet were killing me but we all had an ear-to-ear grin on our faces.

Despite all the good stuff that’s happening, though, the best thing about this place is that I’ve always got something to look forward to. Go Karts, beach escapades, shopping in the stands, clubbing, cinema, dining out, great walks, and even the lazy days are worth mentioning.
Aaaah, good old summer. What would I do without you?

the easiest place

2008-07-18T01:07:00.007+01:00

It’s kind of amazing how much I just fit here. I slip into this style of life as if I had never left. Doing things that link directly to every other summer and making it feel so much like home, I don’t know what else to call it. Made up of little moments that are testimony of why this is the best place on Earth.

Mermaids
As always, as soon as I got the farm, after all the crushing hugs and shouts of greeting and peals of laughter, we threw ourselves into the pool even though it was one in the morning. We attempted to play volleyball which is more like we divided into two on either side of the pool and failed miserably at throwing the ball at each other. Little Doggy’s throw was especially spectacular, explained by the fact that she closed her eyes every time the ball neared her.

Oldschool
We spend the few hours after lunch and the late evening in ‘Club Nintendo’ where we are glued to the computer or connected to the Wii, racing in Mario Kart or battling it out in Super Smash Brothers (Brawl), laughing our heads off as we pause the game and look at our characters frozen in the funniest positions and expressions. It’s especially cool because it isn’t just us kids (that’s what we are, always) but also our uncle ‘El Tato’ who’s porch guards the Nintendo room and is as infantile and fun as any of us.

The Dark Room
I think I would love the process of revealing photographs, because I have far too many good memories in dark rooms. In the farm we have a particular tradition.
Usually its starts with Big Doggy and my brother ‘jamming’, her on the bass, him on the guitar, as we giggle at their songs or lay on the bed listening to them play along to things like System of a Down and Greenday and Kill Bill and Blink. As they run out of songs we turn out the lights- I’m never really sure how it even happens, but at the end of it it’s dark, sight useless in that world- and we are pressed together on the bed, listening to music. To songs that will reach us, that will dig deep inside and silence us and make us farther united, if that’s possible. Pidgeon said ‘We are so close...’ and it’s so true.

Ockham’s razor
Surprisingly, it ins’t t all sunshine and heat over here. It was cloudy and I was pissed off with the sky for betraying me, but it was made worth it. Partly because of the sunsets. The large clouds made the sky a spectacle; letting the sunrays through so that the blue was streaked with beams of light like a photoshopped picture. I took a walk with one of my cousins to pick flowers in one of the greenhouses and couldn’t stop staring above.
And then there was last night, which was amazing. It was dark and overhead it was saturated with clouds but there was thunder in the air, lighting up pieces up of the sky. My mouth opened and eyes widened as flashes flickered the world white and visible and then turned the lights out. I took my MP3 and sat on a swing, one of those long-limbed ones that hang from massive trees, and listened to my songs as it started to rain. Not the measly Jersey rain, but summer rain. Thick and sudden and soaking me through in mere seconds. The wind was making everything sway, even me, and veins of light were appearing in the clouds in tempo with the flashes. Two of my cousins curled up in a hammock beside me and if it had been almost anybody else it would have bothered me, for them to interrupt that moment, when everything was crazy and alive and singing. But it didn’t, not even when my little cousin jumped around with a towel on his back saying ‘superman!!!’
I let myself shiver wetly, closing my eyes and the rain stream down on my face and the wind swing me and the music blare and it was perfect. It was as if we were part of something...not bigger than us, but at the same time as if it were everything there is in the simplest way.
Sometimes Ockham’s razor cuts things just right.

Over here I’m just me. Stripped down bare. The first night in the pool my mum attempted to start the game off my throwing the ball in the air and hitting it, but she missed ridiculously and we all burst out laughing and I laughed hard, the sound transforming into something from my stomach instead of just lungs so that I was cackling and all my cousins giggled, saying ‘the witch the witch!’ and it’s not that I’m less me anywhere else, or that I laugh less or have less fun in Jersey, but I realized in that moment that I hadn’t laughed like that in ages because, maybe there’s something in the air, in the trees, in the crickets and the frogs and the wind, but I can just let go here.
And it’s the best feeling ever.

On Sunday I’m off to La Manga and from Wednesday I’m living alone with Little Doggy for three weeks. I have no doubt we have many adventures in store for us and will keep you guys updated with my seasalt and laid-back world.

Always

2008-07-12T02:37:00.006+01:00

See you all in a few weeks. I’m just a pond away,

and you all know how to swim.

I spy with my little eye, things that start with '?'

2008-06-22T17:51:00.007+01:00

I'm so glad summer is finally here. All gentle and calm. A little strange inside, and unsettled, but Coldplay couldn't have timed their release better, in my opinion. because 'just because I'm losing doesn't mean I'm lost', and 'No I don't wanna battle from beginning to end; I don't wanna cycle, recycle revenge; I don't wanna follow death and all his friends' and 'tonight we're going to run, dreaming of the Osaka sun' and all the other good lines that make me smile even if they're a little sad just fit perfectly with the change.I've been a 'school sucks' girl all my life, so even though it's sad leaving all this behind...hey, it's summer, baby.

I'm free.

But onto new things. I've been collecting those random questions the Blog profile can generate, which I mentioned one post down. And ’cause I’m so terribly fond of memes I thought I’d start ANOTHER one. Only this time it’s all to do with your imagination and randomness and just a bit of fun. I’m gonna post the list of questions and ask that you answer them yourself in your own blogpost, even if it’s just one or some of them. If you don’t have a blog, post them in the reply! I’ll wait a day to see if anybody takes up the challenge and even if you don’t, I’ll be posting my already written answers in black under the questions tomorrow, so that you can only see the if you highlight the post.
I’m just smart like that. (and modest too!)
I’ll wait a day because if it were me I would give in to the temptation, read the answers straight away and then just not post my own out of laziness or scared of being influenced by them.
Right, here they are! Tee-hee.

Question: For your birthday, your aunt gave you a maple syrup dispenser shaped like a rooster. Please write her a thank-you note:

Answer: Yo auntie,
Thanks for the rooster. I know it's supposed to be a maple dispenser but it looked so lonely just sitting there, unused and crying thick dollops of syrup, so I filled it with bird food and put it in the garden to make friends. I’m not sure, but I think it was smiling the other day.
Thanks again,
You favourite niece, Marina

Question: If there isn’t an ‘I’ in team, then why is there a ‘me’?

Answer: Because there isn’t an ‘I’ in ‘me’ either you moron.

Question: You've been entered in a shadow puppet contest. What's your best pose?

Answer: The classic ‘that bitch started it’ pose. Profile, pointing at ‘that bitch’

Question: If you were a wrestler, what would be your finishing move?

Answer: Nipple Twist!

Question: Never mind the turtle. Don't you think you're sure to win?

Answer: Don’t ever ‘never mind’ the turtle. That is your first mistake, grasshopper.

Question: Whoops! Your tongue is now a magnet. Whatever will you use for silverware?

Answer: My tongue is a magnet? *leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer*

Question: When you spilled the milk, did it look like the moon?

Answer: What is with these questions? That just sounds like a metaphor for orgasm to me *shrug*

Question: What did you dream when you ate a spider while sleeping?

Answer: About Madam Widow and her mourning, cannibalistic eyes. The way she twisted around people, sinking fangs that numbed.
Always thinking of someone else.

Question: Come up with some possible band names for your group that features a washboard and a styrofoam tuba.

Answer: ‘Wives with Knives’. ‘People to Recycle’. ‘Laundry Day’. ‘Going Native’

Question: Unlike a dog, how can a turtle ever be naked?
Answer: Dunno, give it to Freddie saying it’s a drum, and you'll get musical porn.

Question: You forgot your mom's birthday! What can you make out of super glue and olive pits?

Answer: A fabulous sculptural masterpiece depicting a daughter hugging her mother, with the caption, ‘love from olive hearts’.

Question: Radio wire is often used to make bird nests. What station do they listen to?

Answer: Mockingbird FM on the Organic Channel. (Do mockingbirds sing fossil songs of extinct birds?)

Question: What would you wear for camouflage if you were hiding in a gingerbread house?

Answer: An old-hag disguise, eating the occasional kid or two.

Question: You're trapped in a well with a goat and a slinky. Describe how you will escape.
Answer: Well, I would hypnotise the goat with the slinky by talking to it slowly whilst shifting the toy from hand to hand in that terribly addictive manner, and convince it into being a bird. When it starts flying upwards I would hook the slinky to its horn and let it pull me to safety, making sure to leave the girl from the ring well behind after kicking her repeatedly in the face.

Question: What's the most amount of sand you've ever had in your swimming trunks?

Answer: The fucking Sahara, and then some.

Question: What spells can you cast with magic markers?
Answer: The spell of words of which’s ink bleeds into hearts. Or, you know, the magic of stabbing you in the eye with the end of the marker.
Whatever.

Question: Your hands have been replaced by rubber stamps. What do they say?

Answer: (R)EPIC-(L)FAIL! So I can proclaim things epic, fail, or epic fail! Ahaha!

Question: What reason do you have to believe the earth is flat?

Answer: I’m never upside down. And Terry Pratchett says so.

Question: Your pyjamas have duckies on them. Why did you switch from choo-choos?
Answer: The smoke of the trains got into the lungs of my dreams and I needed lakes and clouds in my sleep.

I think I speak for most of the student community when I say...

2008-06-03T03:14:00.007+01:00

I FUCKING HATE REVISING!!!!
RRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!!!!

UUuurgGGhhh...I can feel my life seeping away slowly...quote by quote, study by study.

17th of June...thee art mine love! Forward goeth time, yet enchanted by the tortures of misery and boredom. But let thee not rest until summer meets a final leap into mine arms.
...Or someshit like that.
Wazever man...I’ve gone insane.
More, I mean.
Deliver me, Ludwig Van Beethoven, from a piteous end at the hands of studying.
Amen?...or has cheezburger?

Minds of Cardboard

2008-05-29T21:34:00.005+01:00

It was about two years ago, I think, when this metaphor came to mind. And I’m blogging this for me really. As a record of sorts and maybe being conceited enough to suppose that this can help some people. Not really because I expect it to be news but because sometimes when it’s written down it’s just easier to understand. Also, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but for the purpose of setting it all out in a way I like, I’m joining it in one blogpost.
People are animals. Some of you are going ‘duh’ but it’s not so duh. Look around you. Do you live like every other animal does? Think about all the things humans do and have done. The kettle. The wars. The governments and lies and festivals and nail polish removers and mascara and scissors and engines and round CDs which can produce music and little pen drives which carry secrets and words. We are fucking amazing. It’s hard to grasp that computers don’t simply exist, but that they evolved from the minds of creatures who used to hunt Mammoths with stone spears. That we have a periodic table and that we dye our hair.
But still...we are animals. And animals need so survive, and that’s what most of us aim for. And what is one of the basic rules of survival? Knowing when to fight or flee. Knowing when something is a friend or a foe. But of course, we are pretty pathetic in the sensing department. We can’t see properly most of the time, we can’t smell for shit, and our nails and teeth couldn’t kill a puppy. So we have devised another mechanism of differentiation; judging humans on human standards. When we meet someone we can’t help but have to classify them. It is a necessity of survival. And we may think we are very complex, and we do have more classifications, but we still have them as rigid as any other animal.
This I call ‘boxes’.
To put simple examples, there are common labels like ‘chav’, ‘goth’, ‘geek’, ‘gay’, ‘preppy’, ‘teacher’, ‘student’, ‘emo’...the list is endless. We have all done it, we all do it. I can’t tell you the amount of times my friends have played that stupid ‘chav game’ which I hate. I remember a person once asked Rachel if she hung out in cemeteries because she liked gothic clothes and rock music. O_o
But we always have to make things more complicated because if we just stuck people in boxes and left them there, the act wouldn’t be so dangerous. But the fact is that every box is heavy and burdened by strings- the strings of rules and regulations. Of expectations, or rumours, or standards.
To make an example, the first time I thought this up was when a girl told me she had made out with another girl several times. A natural reaction, I think, would be to classify the person as a lesbian or at least bisexual. You would think that at least technically that’s just what it would be. And homosexuality may not seem as outrageous because of TV and media today but it still really is. If you were homosexual and came out in your school, and everybody knew it, would it be the same, really? Do you think people wouldn’t talk about you or bully you at all? They would, because kissing someone of the same sex has the box named ‘homosexual’ and homosexual has the strings of; forbidden, against the church, against reproduction, supposedly the cause of Aids, etc. etc. Or maybe just because Bandura was right and we only learn through models.
But the fact with my case was that that particular friend simply loved the other same-sexed friend so much that she felt comfortable doing it. She didn’t find the thought of female bodies attractive or appealing. It was just one particular type of love.
With this I’m trying to show how commonly, and I’m no exception to the rule really, people put one person in one specific box and that’s it. That’s what they are. They are no longer ‘Tony the human.’ They are ‘Tony the emo’ or ‘Tony the rocker’ or even ‘Tony the bitch’. When you meet someone and you think they are mean, how do you know they’re not having a bad day, or are trying to protect themselves, or one of the other million reasons people have to lash out? When people say ‘oh I hate chavs’, or ‘oh I hate teachers’, do they realise what they are saying? Hate is a strong word and to classify a whole range of people with so many other traits, stuff them in one box, and hate them all...it’s ridiculous.
Let’s make this a little harder. What if two brothers loved each other in an ‘unconventional’ way and had sex? I made them both of the same sex so the excuse of deformed babies cannot come up. Now, how do you feel about it? And why do you feel that way? What are the reasons? OR a 43 year old woman that loves (in an unconventional way) a ten year old boy. Now, she does not touch this little boy. I believe love is wanting to protect that other person until you are willing to risk anything for them. What if this woman loved the boy but only protects him? Is that love wrong despite the fact that she is, in her mind, a paedophile? And if so (and I’m not taking sides) how so?
For me, ultimate wisdom would be to accept people as complete individuals. To drop all the boxes. All of them. If a teacher and a student hang out- nobody would think of it twice until initiative to do so because it would be two humans hanging out. If two girls kiss, it will be natural because it will be two humans kissing. If a person loves another person it would be good, because love is good- and lust is a completely different matter. Muslims are not terrorists, German are not Nazis, people who dress in black aren’t depressed Goths, emotionally unstable people don’t always resort to cutting themselves. And on and on and on.
So the next time you meet someone, try to keep an open mind. This is a person. Not a box. They act the way they do because of certain reasons which you don’t know about, and should therefore nor assume the results of. Before judging someone, know them. Not just the first layer.
I know it’s easier said than done, and that the boxes are there for a reason...but give your cardboard mind a rest from time to time. Maybe this will give you the chance to see how special some people can really be.

Treasure ahoy!

2008-05-28T02:15:00.003+01:00

I was doing everything possible to not revise and discovered the ‘random question’ choice in the blog profile. I’ve fallen in love with its robotic questionings. It’s so fun. It just gives you a- you’ve guessed it- random question and you can put an answer to it. I’ll do one every day!

...Until I forget, or my capricious love abandons its ugly font, its mechanical ways, or how it never gives me any answers of its own.

So, blahblahBLAHblahbah.
That’s all I have to say about that.
(...sigh...i guess I’ll go do some revision now...never mind its 2:20...fuckyours)

Excuse me, miss, why is there a hole in your chest?

2008-05-25T03:58:00.002+01:00

So the last day of school has come and gone and we are racing towards exams, summer rolling out in hills after that and then in the impossible horizon lies university, without you guys.
I’m going to miss you all so much.
The old old lunches, the orange game, the singing in town, the penis aerobics, the walks on the beach, the swimming with clothes, the cock porn, the sweat and hotty, the coolness, the isis and booksbooks, the hugs, the yaoi, the badges, the t-shirts which people don’t get, the giggling in English, the laughing at Mr Magallo, the kisses with fingers on mouths, the crying at the bottom of hills, the hallucinations, the confessions, the music, the drama, the life, the mama wheels, the grand piano in the church, the skirt lengths, the ginger, the not ginger, the maka, the screaming, the punching games, the new year’s resolutions, the winning, the losing, the frigging hagerious, the prince of England, the lesbian filled castle, the dungarees, the whips and chains, the photogenic, the not so photogenic, the sushi, the car rides, the singing out of windows, the 40 40, the groping whilst film-watching, the dancing in rooms, the gigs, the parties, the videos, the lip singing, the nick-names, the bitches, the stupid laugh, the killing of babies-turned-into-hamsters, the meaning of life, the mouth popping sounds, the llama, the kronk, the farts that are ‘gonna smell really bad by the way’, the pancakes with ice cream, the banana and strawberry milkshakes, the obsessions, the harry puppet pals’ bother, the pile-ons, the stupid German tests, the skipping down the hill, the dog ears, the back fetish talks, the hill man, Da Whale as the ultimate penis, the loudest laughs, the cackles, the doodles, the holes in the sand, the echoes in the piano, the clashing shoes, the million minute hug, the ‘give me a word’, the hand squeezing, the palm-reading, the marching to RS. The good times, the bad times and all the other times that are over but I’m thankful happened.
But an ending doesn’t always mean a goodbye so for now I’ll say; See yah later, everyone.

OMG a hug! Quick, children, cover your eyes!!

2008-05-21T21:06:00.004+01:00

[Insert stupid and dramatic news music here]

In other news, there has been a spotting of a strange event in Beaulieu Convent School. Marina and Freddie were seen hugging each other for an amount of time exceeding legal limits on school ground. There was no proof of clothe removal or groping but officials maintain that the strange event must have some ulterior motive, possibly connected to an alien attack or the fact that Voldemort is going to kill us all. Never mind that he died at the end of book seven.
Marina, one of the participants in the unlawful event, was seen throwing spit-balloons at the press and exclaiming,

“You people make me sad.
Bloody hell. Haven't you never seen two upright, pink, monkey-like creatures latch on and squeez each other for an extended period of time before?!?!?!?! IT’S CALLED A
H
U
G
HUG.
SHEESH
Get a best friend or something, losers!”
...
Right.
Next, a 5-year-old child was seen laughing in public and will be sued for causing disease, also known as ‘spreading the love’.

That time I insisted the electricity was in the oranges

2008-05-20T19:05:00.013+01:00

I was walking through the primary school playground as I left for home today and saw two kids shredding leaves and making different coloured piles, setting them up nicely and childishly, and it just took me straight back to when I was little. Even though it doesn’t feel like it at all, I’m now, technically, an adult. Inside me my memories are affected by the strangeness of time, making them seem as if their events happened either a million years ago or just yesterday when summers were chock-full of playing without a single care in the world. My cousins and I are really close- I couldn’t possibly love them more- and that’s rooted in those many summers we spent together. Summers when we would play ‘Pokemon’, ruining our knees by crawling about, collecting rocks as ‘eggs’ which we stole off each other. Months when we would settle in one particular path of the farm which was framed by trees and made ‘houses’ under particular ones, creating our own little ‘mud village’ which consisted in trotting down the hill to where there were rows and rows of upturned earth where watermelons were planted. We would sieve the dirt, making mud out of it, each choosing a job which consisted of using the mud to make something you could sell to each other. Mine was usually animal accessories (such as little sofas, beds, toys, food), Sara being the most artistic out of all of us and making mud animal (some of which I still have). In the later years Paloma was always the banker, making round drops of money and lending it out to us in order to keep the economy going. As our adults napped after lunch we would either play that or sit on the grass, gameboy in hand, painstakingly connected to each other and racing on Mario kart, the only game I was ever any good at.
We would also have epic games of adventure, each choosing a character (I was always a water witch called Luna, ahaha) and go around the farm with a long list of self-made spells and stories, battling demons and monsters such the ash dragon, personified by a mound of burnt trees and leaves, or Bobby the Vicious, a chained dog which was pretty scary with anybody except me. He died of sunstroke years ago...
In La Manga Laura, Guille and I would be horrible troublemakers, running about harassing the Indian restaurant downstairs by throwing water balloons from the balcony, sticking up ‘CLOSED’ sings on the door as well as crudely drawn pictures of a hand with the middle finger lifted and insulting (this would be the wittiest and funniest thing since farts were invented). We would go about the streets in the evening, pretending to be spies and hiding from everybody, following strangers in an overly dramatic way. I remember this one time, playing some spy or magical game when I pretended to break or infect my leg on the side of the beach and sent Laura to collect some ‘medicinal herbs’ to cure me. As she went off and I moaned in pseudo pain on the floor this gigantic grasshopper flew towards me. My first instinct was to get up and flee the scene immediately but, of course, by leg was infected with some mysterious disease...so I stayed put, staring at the mutant bug in horror and awe until it was frightened away. And when my cousin ran back having dropped the plants, I sent her right back, even though she had to trudged through thorns and nettles because, damn it, I was going to die if she didn’t do something about it!
Not to mention the dramas we made up with our teddies as characters, full of the adult themes of love, deception and death. Or all those lies my bratty, bossy self made up to freak Laura out, such as the one time I convinced her that I was a vampire and would go and kill her mum at night if she didn’t do what I said. AHAHAHA....ah...good times.

I love how annoying and innocent and just childish children are. I left the school playground smiling after an amusing conversation;
“Marina!” a kid called Lauren from Brownies ran towards me, smiling and stopping a few steps away almost shyly. I grinned at her and we exchanged hellos as Grace, another girl from Brownies, ambled up to me with a semi-quiet 'hello Ladybird!'. I smiled at both of them and then Lauren said,
“Is that your I-pod?” pointing at the thing in my hand.
“It’s an MP3 but yeah,” I said, adding the technicality to make conversation.
“Nice I-pod!” she enthused and I laughed at her obvious dismissal to my correction.
“What song are you listening to?” she persisted.
“er..” I squinted at the screen, invisible in the sunlight, “Lady by Regina Spektor.”
She stared at me.
“Weirdo...” she drawled and trotted away. All I could think to do was laugh as Grace shyly shrugged and a teacher smiled at us, nevertheless inching in our direction suspiciously as if I was gonna kidnap the girl or something. Thinking back on it I began laughing as I climbed the hill, only stopping when I realised I would look like a right nutter if anybody saw me giggling alone to myself...
God, I hope I never forget those days, the ones Grace and Lauren are living now. Fuck uni, those have to be the best years of my life. The mooning through car windows, the farts on matches, the riding pillows, the pissing from balconies, the climbing fences and chasing dogs and petty arguments and hysterical laughs....how can you beat that?
You just can’t.