My to-read list

Feed me.

I'm going to compile a list of books I haven't read at all/in many years.  Books I really should have, and just haven't got round too, or read many many moons ago and don't really remember anymore. 

Then I'm actually going to read them. 

Below is the start of this, but I would love your input - any books you love - what's your favourite book? What books do you tell everyone about when you get the chance? Tell me!

• Dermaphoria - Craig Clevenger
  
• Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee
• Middlemarch - George Eliot
• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
• Tess of the D'ubervilles - Thomas Hardy
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
• The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
• The Road - Cormac McCarthy
• No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
• Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• American Tabloid - James Ellroy
• High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
• Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk
• The Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton
• The 120 Days of Sodom - Marquis de Sade

Look forward to your contributions!

Plus (because I'm cheap) if you live near by and have any of the above books, any chance I can borrow them!? Cheers!

Over & out.

x

*sigh*

I just don't have the energy anymore.

I didn't think my life would ever be like this, that I would ever feel like this. Funny how things work out?

Sometimes...

Sometimes, I just start crying. I don't even realise at first, and then suddenly I notice tears streaming down my face. I can't stop them. It goes on for hours. This is becoming frighteningly frequent.

Sometimes, I'm too afraid to get out of bed in the mornings, because I know the day will be full of dissappointment.

Sometimes, I don't leave the house. Becuase outside - anything could happen. I don't know if I trust myself to not walk in front of a bus - just to feel alive for a split second.

Sometimes, I wish I didn't block the people that care out, and scare the people that don't off.

Sometimes, I wonder if my happiness is worth hurting others to achieve, or if I should just swallow my feelings, my dreams, my wants and desires because I know I can make them happy.

Sometimes, I think my lack of creativity is the real root to all my pain. I have no way to express myself.

Sometimes, I wonder if my pain is real. Do I even have any? Seems nothing in comparison to some. Perhaps I'm just numb.

Sometimes, I drink because I don't want to think anymore.

Sometimes, I used to fuck virgins, just so I was unforgettable to someone, somewhere.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'm lost when I'm not trying to save someone else. I only have me to think about, and that is a horrible feeling.

Sometimes, I lay awake until 6.30am in the morning. Then I wake up around 9am, and just stare at the ceiling. I tell everyone I don't wake up till after 11.30am, it's sort of like being alive and no one knowing.

Sometimes, I wonder if anyone knows how scared I am they will work me out?

Shallow.

Why do I worry about how I look to other people? I mean, to be fair, 70% of the time I don't - I look a mess in clothes that don't go and hair thats a mess and no make up, because I'm comfortable like that. But the other 30% of the time, the 30% of the time that I actually see other people I know...well. I worry. 

This has been bought home by the fact I'm going to a wedding on Saturday. I've never been to a wedding before, and this isn't just any wedding. Its my best friends wedding, one of the most important people in my life, and he's getting married. I'm honoured to be invited, and I'm so so ridiculously happy for him and his lovely fiance - I don't think there is anyone else I know that is so deserving of finding someone as perfect as he has. I don't think I could of imagined someone as right as she is for him, and him her as they are - the kind of couple you can imagine at 80 still laughing at each others jokes, and taking walks along the beach...the sort of thing you see in films. I can't wait to celebrate it with them.

However, last few days - weeks even, I'd forgotten this. I had lost all focus on what this event was, and got lost in a panic of what to wear. How lame. 

Anyway, sort of got my outfit sorted jut need to find some accessories. I'm dying my hair tomorrow, with a hair dye I haven't used before. What's the betting I fuck it right up?

Over and Out.

Am I an anti-feminist?

Today, other than feeling quite ill, I've spent the day reading essays on feminism. I say reading, technically its re-reading, but since I have the memory of a goldfish, things I read 6-9 years ago, I can't exactly recall.

Reason I went on this little internet search frenzy, is because I got annoyed at a comment I saw somewhere, saying that true feminists (yes, they actually said 'true') do not enjoy pornography. Resent any form of sexual fantasies that may empower the male. True feminists, they don't flirt. they don't have sex, by the looks of it. Especially not with a man.

So as a sexually liberated, flirtatious pansexual, I'm clearly the polar opposite of feminism.

*sigh*

I guess it goes back to the feminist sex wars of the 1980's. The sex positive feminists against the anti pornography brigade. I guess I had kind of hoped we had moved on from this - I mean, we're what, third wave feminists now?

I believe in a woman's choice. In a womans right to choose. I believe women can meet their sexual needs and desires however they so wish - be that porn, toys, fetish, sex with the same/opposite sex, sex with one, or 10 partners - whether that be in one night or not...I could go on forever. At the same time, I support women who decide not to have sex. Who choose monogamy. Who abstain altogther, and everything inbetween.

Women have as much right as men to choose. I dont think thats a particularly radical opinion to hold. As long as they do that responsibly, safely and consensually, who the fuck else has it got to do with? Infact, I find a lot of the things I have named above can be empowering to women, but thats another post altogether.

Laura & I are going to start a zine. I think we've decided it's going to be about sex. Being sex positive, and a feminist - its not an oxymoron. Magazines like Scarlet, it doesnt quite hit it. However, there are ones like Bust and the like out there, but nothing in the UK. And there should be. So, Zine today - who knows where it might go.

I ramble.

In other news, I've decided I'm emotionally numb. I think its safer that way.

Meaning is not in things, but inbetween them

I've spent the day watching films.

Currently, I am watching Velvet Goldmine. A film I watched, without fail, everyday between the ages of about 12-14. I think the last time I saw it I was about 16/17...a frighteningly long time ago.

So I'm watching it, and remembering what I loved about it, how it used to make me feel. It made me want to be a boy. The effortless elegance of the men in this film, the ease at which they were different. In the film men are portrayed as romantic and creative; true poets, tortured souls. I blame this film for my life long love affair with musicians, it epitomised what I wanted in a man; and what I wanted to be.

However, looking back at it now, there is an underlying theme to the film that makes me quite uncomfortable. The women in the film are portrayed as weak, not understanding, in the way, and ruthless, yet powerless to the whims of the men in their life.

That doesn't sit well with me. 

It doesn't sit well, that when I watched this I wanted to be a man. Or boy, as it were. That it made me ashamed of being a girl, made me jealous, (or is it envy...but that is a whole other post altogether) when infact the qualities that I love about the men in the film - elegance, grace, beauty, emotional vulnerability - can often be called classically feminine traits.  But when watching the film I didnt recognise saw that. I just saw boy=good, girl=bad.

That goes against everything I've ever believed, been bought up to appreciate, and the though I now, as a woman follow.

Is it better to be a man? Is one better than the other? I don't think so. I wouldn't change being a woman now for anything. We may live in a patriarchy society, but I'm a stong believer that women encompass a power that men will never be able to experience. When that is reflected more equally in society, perhaps there will be no need for feminism. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

In summary, I'm glad I dont feel the same towards Velvet Goldmine as I did, but I am glad I can now appreciate the gender play in the film to a better degree.

Bloc Party Lyric Shocker

I've enver really given much though to Bloc Party lyrics. But I heard something today, that just really struck a chord;

"Forever trying to find you on the lips of someone else"

Isn't that beautiful?

Ok, I'm going before I get all emo.

I've fallen in love with a girl.

I've never met her.

I doubt I ever will.

She's paints the most beautiful pictures, and is all crafty - in a good way. Has the most beautiful face, and the most cutest dress sense...and is from Portland. 

Could she be more perfect? I think not. Other than the fact I've never spoken to her, never will, and hse is (probably) straight and married.

Some of her work I love:

If you would like to buy me, well, everything, she sells her stuff via the beautiful site Etsy.

And she's born on February 13th, which is just the most romantic date - and means she's an Aquarius, which always have me hooked forever, and she's so pretty, I don't know if it's weird to post images of her on my blog though. Probably. But anyway, her art is beautiful, it reminds me of Mark Ryden.

I've not had an unobtainable, non celebrity crush in ages! hehe

A drunk and ill Mel is over and out.

Wishlist

I've been filling slides after slides of stuff I desperately want. Stuff to form the basis of pinning down my 'image' rather than being a higgledy piggledy of stuff that doesn't actually go together/I don't really like.

I thought it might be better to actually put together all of these things I find on my net rambling in one place, so here it is.

I'm in love with modcloth.

If you would like to buy me these things I will love you forever, and pay you in felt animals.

x

The Obligatory New Years Resolutions Post

So, my new years resolutions are as follows;

• Actually go to the gym, since it's free
• Join some sort of active class - swing dance or something
• Really make an attempt of making my own clothes again
• Put together some sort of scrapbook/memory book
• Keep this blog updated
• Read something different; different authors, different eras, non fiction, philosophy
• Go back to education
• Finalise my tattoo plans and finally get them!
• Register with a doctor
• Get my passport, and go to some new countries
• I WILL do New York this Christmas!
• Buy an Acoustic guitar, and get an adaptor for my key board and start playing again
• Go to the theatre/concerts
• Be more spontaneous
• Sort out my finances
• Sort out my 'image'
• Stop procrastinating - rather than mong on the net every night, actually LEARN something or read
• Cook more

Thats pretty much it. I have some personal quests too.