A desperation murmur of a heart beat

My mum just sent me a text. It reads - "who is that vampire guy in the Joker make-up?" Suffice it to say I had no idea what she was talking about, so I rang her. Now apparantly I was watching something last week on tv, and she commented that he looked like the Joker, but I knew what was going on, so I explained it to her. That was last week, today I have NO idea what's going on. I can't remember watching anything with vampires, let alone vampires with Joker make-up. In fact, I can't remember watching anything with anyone in Joker make-up at all. All I remember watching is Torchwood. Anyway, she wants to know who this mystery guy is cause she says that is what Danny looks like today - you might remember him from other Halloween costumes such as Jack Sparrow (sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow). I knew he was going to do the Joker thing, I just knew it. I should have bet on it, damn it. Anyway, this incident just further illustrates what a unique challenge the parenting of me can be - being on the phone while I run through all the possible shows we could have possibly watched last week and all the vampires I can possibly think of (which for some reason today was limited to Lestat). My poor mother has lived through so many of my obsessions. We still don't know who this vampire Joker is...I honestly have no idea what she's talking about...I'm guessing the character probably isn't a vampire at all, just really pale which I contribute to the clown make up...I mean why would a vampire be dressed like that? It's driving me nuts tho, not knowing.

I should be cleaning up right now, Lizzie's coming over at 5, but I really don't want to.

Ryan Adams was on Letterman last night, he was looking the way he sometimes does that makes me think I've got a bit of a thing for him. You know, despite his being one of those moody, brooding artists types. Disturbingly, I watch a lot of Letterman. Not because I particularly want to, it's just on when I'm up late. I usually only realise when the guest musicians start playing how late it is. It's a cue for my brain to go "Oh Letterman's on, better go to bed soon." I don't even know how old the episodes are they show here. Sometimes I think they can't be that old, but other times there seems to be a bit of a break in information. Well whatever, I ramble pointlessly.

You know what, I'm really very protective of my friends. I hate it when something happens that I can't fix or can't even plot revenge against. I hate feeling so useless.

Days like today just fascinate me. Wasn't hot when I left for work and it was raining, it's taken all day to warm up and even now, it's not really hot, it's just humid. The sky isn't really blue, it's more yellow. Everything has that slightly off tinge to it. I always feel like it's quintessentially aussie.

Now let's see, the obsession of the week. I was considering making it the Trope Wiki site since it's endlessly amusing and provided much aid in the procrastination process this week, but the dubious honour is going to have to go to Green Day's American Idiot. How many years has it been now, four? And still I respond to this album in the same way. I've been listening to it now for four days straight and it's in my car cd player, selected on my iPod, and currently blaring from my stereo. I know it back to front, and yet, I never get sick of it. I've expressed my adoration for this band many, many times, and it never lessens. If anything, it gets stronger. Every time I listen to this album, to any of their albums really, I realise it's why I wake up every morning. It sinks in, it courses through the very strands of my existence, it's like taking that first breath after being under water for a long time. Every time. Everything I feel, everything I love, everything I want, is reflected. And yes, sometimes it breaks my heart, but at least I feel it. I'm weird, I'm a loner, and I feel slightly unhinged most of the time, but it's ok cause I have this. So even though every single feeling captured on this album is one I can easily find, and knowing that stings, it's beautiful, because it's real.



I just caught sight of the pile of clothes in the corner of my room...gah. Why can't I hang stuff up then every weekend won't be this tiring battle to actually get stuff back into the closet. Grumble. Damn the infernal laziness!

Music: Homecoming - Green Day
Mood: Blah

Lost and found, city bound in my dreams

Are we the waiting/St. Jimmy is a great reflection of character - the quiet, half poetic introspection and reflection, against attitude and those cheeky, give 'em hell tendencies.

Hm.

My tutor had that look in his eye when he looked at me today, the one they tend to get once they've read something I've submitted for workshopping in my writing classes...the one where they realise I am actually competent. Then I pitched my idea to the class and they all looked at me sort of stunned. I always feel slightly vinidicated when this happens cause they realise I'm not as useless as they think I am. We were workshopping another girl's piece, fantasty, and she said something like "so he falls in love with this girl" and completely randomly the guy sitting next to me (he always sits with Ally and I) turns to me and says "why must it always be a girl, why can't he be gay? That never happens. It doesn't have to be obvious or anything but hey, then it'll be different." I sat there nodding and wondering why he'd chosen to make such a comment, let alone to me. Of course, I'm quite the perfect person to make such a comment to, but it was just unexpected *shrugs*

I left early to go on a final Halloween scavenge. On the way, I came across a busker singing 'Sex on fire' but he had changed the chorus to "You, you're Jessica Alba." Not sure why. Ah the city, always amusing. I gave up eventually, and just got a military trench from a costume shop. The girl looked at me like I was insane because apparantly it's going to be a nice, toasty 36 tomorrow. So while I originally settled on just going with the Captain Jack Harkness thing for lack of another idea, now it's more of a half-assed-attempt-to-not-die-of-heat-stroke-while-pretending-to-be-a-doctor-who-character thing.

"You are so obtuse."
There is a character that says that in something...hmmm...can't remember who or what or where though. I hate it when that happens.

Oh and to continue my puzzling over fanfiction from the other night, you know what really preplexes me...people who write themselves into their fics. Usually teen girls. I understand wanting to be part of something (only too well sadly), but I think it's very weird to write yourself into an existing story. It doesn't feel authentic.

I found this absolutely NERDTASTIC site the other night while googling Space Whales (don't ask, I get geekier by the day), and it's just so amusing and so us. Today I came across a bit under 'Genre Savvy' that sounds completely like something I'd say - And they've seen enough Horror movies to know that when there's an ax murderer on the loose, the last thing you want to do is either split up, boink your significant other, or investigate strange noises in the Sinister Subway. I was also particularly pleased with the 'Idiot Ball' section - A moment where a character's stupidity fuels an episode, or a small plot line. If the character does this the entire time then the character is Too Dumb To Live, if multiple characters have the Idiot Ball it becomes an Idiot Plot - especially with it's reference to Peter Petrelli - Peter's first memorable action way back at the start of the series is to see if he can fly... by jumping off a tall building. This troper considers Peter to have been consistently portrayed as an idiot. Of course, he's also the most powerful character on the show,and also, the season one finale had him standing around looking panicky as he was about to go nuclear, completely forgetting that he had the power of flight. Thank you, that's excatly what I was thinking! If Sylar can multi-task than so can he. Huffs.

I'm only doing this to distract myself.

Meanwhile, back in the real world where people's main concern is not the suckiness of their Halloween costume, Roze quit her job thinking she had another one lined which has now fallen through rendering her in financial crisis; Em has worried us all and is currently MIA, not responding to any of our texts; and David Tennant has quit Doctor Who.

Well done universe, well fucking done.

Music: Are we the waiting - Green Day
Mood: Worried

Hear the sound of the pouring rain

Novel writing is done. Finally. I'm a thousands words short of the limit suggested in the outline, but if I add another chapter, I'll be a thousand words over. Epic sigh.

I have to workshop tomorrow, but that's all done and sorted. I just want to go first so I can head over to the costume shop before I have to go to work and pick up something for Halloween.

Now for screenwriting. Shudder. Let me compose a poem for the occasion :
Oh Screenwriting
How I loathe thee
Let me count the ways

Ugh.

I saw the trailer for The Spirit on E today…it was different to this one, but still amazing looking



Frank Miller’s style is just so…engaging.

Also, The Watchmen



I’ve heard a lot of hype surrounds this. Doesn’t look half bad really.

I like my comic book movies dark and demented. The only sueprhero/comic book movies I like are the ones with the tortured heroes…no superman or spiderman for me…and ok, I guess you can argue they are tortured too, in their ways. But all that red and blue! Black is the way to go people. Black like your sooooul.

Now I’m just being an idiot.

Hmm. I need sleep.

Music: Holiday - Green Day
Mood: Exhausted

Like brothers on a hotel bed

You may tire of me as our December sun is setting
Because I'm not who I used to be
No longer easy on the eyes but these wrinkles masterfully disguise
The youthful boy below who turned your way and saw
Something he was not looking for both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize
When he catches his reflection on accident

On the back of a motor bike
With your arms outstretched trying to take flight
Leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete
In the city where we still resigned.
And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea-light navy men
Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides

...I'm not much of a Death Cab fan, but on a poetic level, that's really quite beautiful.

Music: The night
Mood: Pensive

This is how I'm supposed to be

I haven’t felt this disenfranchised in months. It’s funny, every time I think I’ve turned over a proverbial new leaf in my life, little tendrils curl around my ankle and remind me of their existence. I don’t know why I continue to delude myself; you cannot change fundamental aspects of your personality. It’s like stepping in gum, you’re walking along all fine and dandy then suddenly your foot catches and it’s all uncomfortable and annoying.

Thinking too much is not fun. Don’t listen to your teachers, kids. Be stupid and oblivious, blunder through life never leaving your suburban existence. It’s easier. There’s nothing out here, being clever and well read, informed and in-touch…it’s all highly overrated. There’s no satisfaction. And you know what’s funny, we all feel it. Not just mere mortals like me running around trying to have some vague show of a life, but people we admire. Artists, writers, musicians. Ah creative types. Says something doesn’t it.

Someone needs to do a scientific study on the link between disatisfaction and melancholy, and creative expression. I bet there’s a lot there. Most influential and revered creative people in the past were manic depressive and/or suicidal. Tragic really, to be able to capture the best (and worst) of humanity and never feeling satisfied. Never feeling a part of it. Never feeling like justice could be done to it. Just existing in a bubble of self imposed feelings of failure and disappointment.

Ah well. I ramble. Key is not to think about this stuff.

You have no idea what it’s like to live in this head of mine. Eloquence escapes me, words rendered useless and futile. And to think something I have unwittingly decided to dedicate my life to can be so utterly useless…always failing, stumbling at the edge, faltering on the fringes of coherency. Words always fail when they are most needed, when you need to get it all out there, to make sense of yourself. Can’t be done through words. The inside of my head is a wave of destruction, the clean up after the storm. It’s Kansas during tornado season. Sometimes you get lucky, and no storms hit, but they will come. They will tear it apart. Nothing will change that, it’s futile to fight nature.

I do believe I just freaked my dad out. I’m sitting at the dining room table in the vain hope it would inspire more productivity than the bomb site that is my room, and he decides to pop up behind me and see what I’m doing. Of course, it wasn’t uni work, oh no, I was trawling pages of Torchwood icons (because I am, and probably always will be, a total icon whore)…and being Torchwood, there were what my cousin would call “kissing icons” on the page. Cue his *confused face*. Poor thing. Being my parent must offer some unique challenges.

Mum sent me out to Flight Centre to pick up our Trafalgar things this afternoon. Soooo we’ve got the Europe tour and an Ireland tour. Well Ireland's first. I’m going to freeze my ass off, but it should be good. I’m new to the whole Coach tour experience, but it should be interesting. We’ll be in London for two days in between tours, so I can meet up with Abbi. Might possibly only be leaving on the 24th of December. Depends on ze flights.

Sigh.

Every part of me objects to having to do uni work. Bah.

Music: Jesus of Suburbia - Green Day
Mood: Apathetic is putting it mildly

Won't somebody please think of the children

At work. Blargh. Nothing to do. Double blargh.

I had a total Owen moment this morning.
"What is that smell?"
"That would be grass"
"It's disgusting!"

Mum watched the start of that episode with me the other day, and she was like "That sounds like you". Indeed. I always complain when we head into the wilderness and spend a great deal of my time running around with my phone in the air trying to get reception, when I'm not skulking around with my laptop looking for wifi hotspots that is. "No other race in the universe goes camping, celebrate your own uniqueness!". Ha. Not bloody likely. We didn't watch the whole ep tho. I had to skip it shortly after that because I realised it probably wasn't the best dinner time viewing.

Sometimes life can be so beautiful it makes your heart ache. Other times it seems like a collection of mediocre occurances and disappointments. There is more of the latter than of the former.

People getting old scares the hell out of me. I see them at work, all these frail, elderly people. It feels like just looking at them might push them over and break something. It makes my insides knot. It's unavoidable, inevitable, completely beyond control. I can't stand it.

Its one of the things that kill me about Torchwood. Jack might not be able to die, but perpetual aging! Gah. All that life and charisma to end up a giant withered face in a jar. Yay for virtual immortality o.o Even as a time lord, you'd be screwed eventually. Once you've regenerated your allocated amount of times...

Shudder.

As Brand New say, die young and save yourself.

Or become a vampire....or an elf. I love that elves can die of a broken heart, it's poetic. But then, I just love elves.

Damn fictional creations will be the death of me.

My left hand keeps going numb. It is exceedingly annoying.

God I exhaust myself.

Music: Traffic
Mood: Grumpy

Cuddling close to blankets and sheets

By some cruel act of fate things never present themselves to be ludicrously tempting when I'm feeling reckless, and dangerous. It's probably a good thing so I don't end up fucking up, but it's frustrating when irresponsibility courses through my veins and there is no outlet. Of course should such a oppportunity present itself I will be far too withdrawn in my anti-social self-imposed hermitism to even notice. Always happens. Never around when you need it. The universe enjoys mocking me.

Speaking of mocking, being a teenager is such a pain in the freaking ass. I had three at work today being all sullen and pissed off, griping and moaning, when thigns just aren't that bad. Of course, when you're a teen, everything is that bad. That's been scientifically proven too, something to do with chemical balances...as is usually the case.

It never fails to amaze me how disconnected I can feel to everything. Like I don't belong anywhere, and I can't be comforatble anywhere. Especially in a crowd of people...it's always easier to feel utterly alone when surrounded by people you just can't connect with. I see no way of this ever changing, of me every changing, I will always be this awkward, this shy and unsure. I will always struggle to find comfort and familiarity in things other people don't even seem to think about, normality. I will always be alone.

Last night was interesting. We went to Summit/Orbit bar. Revolving establishments never fail to amuse the masses. Dinner was good, although I always marvel at the big white plates they give you at fancy places with just a little heap of food in the middle. Good though. The hot chocolate souffle dessert in particular was fantastic. Spent the entire night next to Roze, leeching off her social skills. She doesn't understand the concept of "awkward" or "silence". Every conversation is run like an interview, every person she meets is immediately a friend. I can sit there and stare at the city lights, nodding and interjecting when I feel like it, and when the opportunity presents itself. People probably think I'm aloof and disinterested...really I'm just lost. Em's boyfriend is the loveliest guy I've ever met. We spent the entire night building his ego. He's good to her, she deserves it. Was slightly bizarre with half his friends being there, making us girls some of the oldest guests. Some girls from High School showed, that was a bit strange too. Still, Em had a good time. That was the point.

You know, I don't understand why people write fan fiction. I understand obsession, oh I understand that only too well. I get loving something so much, that it feels like your very existence is founded upon it. But things such as fan fiction, especially concerning bands or musicians or such, just seems so bizarre to me...from a writing perspective. Essentially, you are creating an image of what you think these people are like. Because you honestly have no idea. So, really, a whole character is constructed. So why not just think up a different name and viola, a different character. New. Shiny. And all yours. Even when it comes to writing fics based on fictional characters...you can never capture the character the way it was created...unless you were there for the pitches and the development and the story arcs and the what-have-yous...because you have to understand your character, the motivations, the back story, things that aren't necessarily obvious, but that the writers know about. When a group is writing, they all have to be on the same page, they have to know and love those characters like family...the way Abbi and I love our ESM boys. And you know, if someone wrote a fic on those characters, they wouldn't capture it properly, it woulnd't feel right to us. That's always nagged it me, the few times I've read fan fics...the way the characters just felt a bit...off. Regardless of how good stylistically the writer is. And I don't understand why you'd do that, put in all that effort to write all this stuff about characters that sure, maybe you love, but you don't really understand - not the way the writers do - and that you very, very rarely have a chance of capturing properly. You might as well start an orignal work, sure it might have a slightly "ripped off" feeling about it, but everything is a rip off of something else, at least this way it's yours. Completely. And there's nothing to "measure" it against.

*shrugs*

Maybe that's just me. According to wikipedia though "fan fiction, as it is now understood, began at least as early as the 17th century, with unauthorized published sequels to such works as Don Quixote". That in itself is kind of amusing since Cervantes' novel was itself a send-up of romantic period literature.

Anyway...

Here's a little known fact, Jasper hates livejournal. Part of the reason I decided to blog here instead...what's the point of having a sidekick if it's going to object to where I blog.

I wrote "retconned" on a patient's medical card today cause I wasn't paying attention.

I'm such a geek.

I still havent worked on my novel writing piece. Better do it tomorrow.

I'm so apathetic it isn't funny. And melancholic.

Keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground.
Today's the day it gets tired.
Today's the day we drop down.
Give up my body in bed.
All for an empty hotel.
Wasting words on lowercases and capitals

Music: The Quiet Screaming - Brand New/Dashboard Confessional mash up
Mood: Disappointed

Now who here among us still believe in choice

1,276 words. Right then, well I am screwed aren't I? Oh well, more important things to attend to.

Hair blowdried - check
Nails painted - check
Blood red lips - check
Bag of books to return - check
Presents - check
Birthday card - check
Sense of excitment - check

Tonight, we say no to nothing.

Music: Ocean of noise - The Arcade Fire
Mood: Mischievous

The hands of time could never move again

It is 11.04pm and I have written 296 words of Chapter 3 which I'm doing for submission. That's oh, what, 0.5% of what I'm supposed to have? Well done, Jen, well done *slow clapping*

I'd go to bed and say I'd get up early but I know that's never going to happen...I do my best work after midnight. I don't know why I bother even trying to get anything done before sunset...well I guess I don't, just the procrastination gets done. Sigh.

I want to wrap myself in Stephen Christian's voice. Much like a blanket in fact, warm and comfortable.

"What a cosmic joke, eye candy. An accident of chemicals and evolution. The jokes, the sex - just to cover the fact that nothing means anything. And the only consolation is money."

Music: Inevitable - Anberlin
Mood: Still stressed

I'm reaching out for something, touching nothing is all I ever do

The silence was like barrier in the unfamiliar house. I suddenly wanted to do anything but saunter out into its big unknown. At least I knew the study, I knew there was nothing hiding in the shadows. Who knew what we would find in the rest of the rooms? Still, I couldn’t let Pete know that.
He followed me out into the hall, still complaining about how pointless he thought it all was, but I ignored him. It was better that he kept talking, at least then the silence wasn’t so threatening.
“So where first, Sherlock?” he asked, smiling, “The kitchen? I could go for a snack.”
“Sure, if you know where the kitchen is.”
We hesitated in the long hall. It had the same high ceiling as the study. A single light cast only a dull glow and the far side of the hall to faded into darkness.
Right. Not creepy at all then.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Stupid uni. Does NOT want.

I haven't been able to do freaking anything today. I don't want to write stupid novel writing thing, I'm over it. I don't want to re-draft stupid screenwriting thing either. The only thing I'd be vaguely interested in working on is Children's Fiction but of course, that's already done. Ugh. So yeah, I have to write 5,000 words to submit on Monday and since I'm heading out tomorrow it has to be done now.

What did you think I did today? I watched Law & Order and Wayne's World. As always, productivity abounds.

Oh god and I still have to do my Honours proposal...

Feeble brain!

Music: Ballroom Blitz - The Sweet
Mood: Stressed