A losers diary

[burns1]

Saturday

Well, I was going to do some work and save this until later, but I’ve had it all bottled up over the weekend and I need to let it out, cos I couldn’t even really talk to my flat mates about it, they hate her enough as it is now because they see how fucked up it makes me, I don’t want to make that worse.

So, I woke up on the floor, not even having bothered to lay out a bed, at 7.30 AM. I’m hungover to all hell, paranoid, sick, and fuming mad at the world. I reached for the Vodka.

I know, I know. Don’t judge me. I swear, even I have never drunk that early in the day before. Except at Airports on the way to stag weekends in Prague and Amsterdam, but that’s different.

Swigging huge gulps straight from the bottle until I felt grounded enough to cope with the day and stop the kitchen knives looking like such a temptation to start carving chunks out of my arm. Then I sat there and waited for her to get up. The vodka had the desired effect pretty much, as I was able to be my normal self and not be totally freaky with her as I was scared that I was going to be. We chatted, she didn’t mention West Country Twat, and I couldn’t because I didn’t trust myself with what I might say. We watched the football and then I headed off home, seriously considering jumping in front of the train rather than getting on it.

I got in the train and thought, OK I’m sober (ish – at least as far as she was concerned I was anyway) so tell her now, tell her while she can’t dismiss it as the drink talking.

So I sent her a text message saying

‘You know you are loved don’t you? I don’t care whether you believe me or not, but I love you completely’

And waited for a response, which eventually was:

‘Where did that come from?’

So I said:

‘You said last night that no one would ever love you enough to cope with you, and you deserve to know that you are wrong, because I do’

….

‘Bless you, (burns),’ - That was it, that was her reply. And now she is acting as if nothing is any different to how it was before this weekend. She hasn’t reciprocated, she hasn’t freaked out and backed away, she is just totally and utterly the same.

I feel cheated! Is that weird? I almost wish she had said that she didn’t feel the same, and that we shouldn’t see each other anymore, I think even that would have been better.

I feel like she’s waiting, waiting to see if a better offer comes along, waiting as if she knows that I will always be there as a fall back if she needs me.

Which is why I started today by saying I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, because I think now that if she turned round and told me she loved me, and that this would work, I think the roles would be reversed and I don’t think I would believe her anymore. I think I would always be scared that I was with someone who didn’t love me as much as I loved them, and I don’t think I could live like that.

I still have so much more to say, but I shouldn’t overload people.

 

[burns1]

and another thing!

Other things that went wrong this weekend that at most other times would really be bothering me:

1) The bloody rash reappeared with a vengance, great big swellings on my head and pock marks all over my cheeks, (all gone again within about three hours of appearing, so I am not some hideous freak again) no itching, no logical cause that I can think of (apart from either alcohol abuse, but that wouldn’t explain Mondays outbreak) or stress (which would). But I spent Saturday evening looking like a cross between The Elephant Man and Manuel Norieaga

2) I am a bad son. I missed my Mothers birthday dinner on Saturday night because I just couldn’t face putting on a happy face and pretending that she shouldn’t be worried about me. Lucky I did cancel in the end, as the rash would have freaked her out, but I didn’t have that at the time.

3) I have lost a £100+ coat that my flatmate lent me.

But one bright spot in the otherwise grim hell that is my life at the moment – the second series of 24 is on. Thank god for small mercies (and please don’t anyone tell me that it is a disappointment compared to the first, I think finding that out may push me over the edge!)

 

[burns1]

eh? what?

There’s a guy in Germany who has been given 6 years in prison for ‘Attempted Manslaughter’. How is that even possible? ATTEMPTED Manslaughter?? (and no, I’m not on the Sideshow Bob ‘they don’t give a Nobel Prize for attempted physics’ tack here)

Maybe my understanding is skewed, but I always though that Manslaughter was kind of a ‘well, you killed someone but you didn’t meant to but you need punishing anyway’ kind of crime. So how the hell do you attempt manslaughter?

It’s confused me is all, sorry.

 

[burns1]

With apologies...

...to anyone that isn't Deez, but his PM box is full:


'Well, thanks for that cheery outlook. I hope to God I am strong enough to not get quite that bad. Could cope with out a career or friends, but living with my parents…MY parents??? Dear God nothing could reduce me to that! LOL.

But I know, the changing job thing is an option that I need to consider.

And to think, all I was going to do was send you a PM reassuring you that I am still reading your journal, following your request in the last entry!

 

[burns1]

Mr Maturity...

I think this thing may cause additional problems between me and CCFF that are of my own making too actually.

Perhaps I am not being too mature about this.

She lives next door to a church and said that she got woken up early this morning by the ‘happy clappers’. I told her that sounded like an infection and that she should have been more careful with who she slept with.

She is going to Beaver Creek, Colarado next week. I told her it was an apt place to go.

She said she was going to have a Whopper for lunch, I asked her if that is because West Country Twat is doesn’t fit the bill.

She told me she was going for a cigarette break. I told her she was a slut.

OK, so obviously that last one isn’t true, but I need to not hold this against her or that fear of having lost my best friend that I voiced way back when all this started is going to come true.

 

[burns1]

another day another drug

Gotta be quick today, my services are in demand! Only workwise sadly, but it’s keeping me occupied. Work overload not helped by the fact that I had a Drs appt. this morning – another set of anti-depressants to numb me and allow me to kid myself that everything is OK really. Great.

Not sure what is going on with CCFF now, she is certainly less communicative than normal, and I’m forcing myself not to become the one making all the running in our normal email/text/short phone call sessions that we spend all day everyday having.

Apart from that, saw ‘The Ring’ last night. I’m not normally one to be scared by horror films, but fuck me sideways, there is a scene in that that had me pulling my knees up to my chest. I don’t think that has happened since I was about 5 and saw the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Great film though, slightly ruined by the fact that I couldn’t help think of all the other great uses that the tape could be put to though, send a copy to Saddam Hussain and save George and Tony killing milllions of innocents wouldn’t be a bad idea. Actually, sod it, just send a copy direct to George.

Also, I’m fairly certain that if I had a tape that I watched and then someone phoned me and said ‘you will die 7 days’ I’d just watch it daily and live forever.

And the final scene of that film would be very different if it was me, thinking about it, sod chasing around trying to understand what was happening, my final scene would be more like ‘Scarface’ – a desk full of gak and fuck off machine gun to help me deal with whatever was coming.

 

[burns1]

What do you mean we need a break from the old routine?

Keeping my distance didn’t last long – she invited me round for dinner last night and I, predictably, accepted. Actually it wasn’t too bad I suppose, had a strange feeling every time her phone rang as I kept wondering if it was West Country Twat (I should add that although I have never met him, I have had to deal with him on one occasion in the past and had reason to pass comment, in fact I think I said to her ‘he’s a useless twat’. This was many months ago, while she was still with her ex, so I promise it was not a jealously issue, he just was genuinely a useless twat), but apart from that, the awkwardness the preceded her revelation on Saturday has gone and whatever was keeping her from talking to me during the day has gone. Back to square one. Except with a new resolve to try not to let this do my head in too much anymore. Time to take a breather, see how things pan out between here and WCT and maybe try to have a little fun myself in the meantime.

With typical timing though, my first opportunity to go out without her would be this weekend when she flies off to Colorado (I have stopped making snide comments about Beaver Creek etc, thankfully) but I am obliged to go visit the folks to make up for missing my mothers birthday last Sat. Oh well.

Absolutely nothing else to say for myself at the moment. God I’m a bundle of fun at the moment!

 

[burns1]

My stupidity knows no bounds

Just called my flatmate to confess that I’d lost his coat. That he leant me to go to Reykjavik. In November. And that I had studiously avoided mentioning to him ever since until he pointed out on Sunday that it was cold and wouldn’t it be nice to have a big warm jacket in this weather.

So I steeled myself for the phone call (and to make plans to find somewhere else to live afterwards). Told him that I had lost it and that I was really sorry and that I had no idea how I’d managed it.

He took it reasonably well. He said, well I’m more pissed off that you lied to me and told me that you’d broken the zip and that it would be in the Drycleaners over Christmas being mended…

Bing!

It is now safely collected from the dry cleaners and waiting next to me to be given back to him tonight.

 

[burns1]

I swear, this is the most endearing thing I have ever heard

Baby Sloths repeatedly fall out of trees because they mistake their limbs for branches and try grab hold of them, so they find themselves hanging in midair.

Bless!!

God I’m easily pleased sometimes.

Slowly phasing CCFF out of my social life: Stage 1

Agree to the camping trip we have talked about
Get her to come see Steve Earle with me
Arrange an overnight stay in the North East for early April so we can go to the big England Euro 2004 qualifier.
Discuss potentially taking a holiday in the states together next year.

Going well so far, don’t you think?

 

[burns1]

Utter terror

The most terrifying book I have ever read is ‘Timequake’ by Kurt Vonnegut. The basic premise is that this thing called a timequake (funnily enough) occurs that causes everyone to have to relieve a huge portion of their lives (can’t remember the detail anymore) over again but they cannot change a single second. They live, knowing exactly what the future holds, but unable to influence it in anyway, every event that has happened to them, every wrong decision they ever made, every breath they ever took is going to be exactly as it was first time round.

Does it say something about me that I find that the single most depressing, haunting, unthinkable concept that I have ever heard in my life? Probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I read it while I was going through the post Illinois trauma, but even now I find it sends shivers down my spine.

I mention this because I dreamt about it last night, and it must have had my heart racing because I woke up sweating and am absolutely shattered today.

I feel ill now, just thinking about it again

 

[burns1]

Songs that inexplicably make me shudder

Now, I don’t mean gorgeous, heartbreaking songs like Ryan Adams ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’ or Jeff Buckleys version of ‘Hallelujah’, but I mean ‘genuinely, can’t explain why, but make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I hear them’ songs (and the particular lines that do it):

 ‘Long Black Veil’ (The judge he said son what is your alibi…’)

 ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ (Johnny said "Devil just come on back If you ever want to try again,Cause I told you once, you son of bitch I'm the best that's ever been")

 ‘The Battle of New Orleans’ (‘We fired our guns, the British kept a comin’, there wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago, we fired once more and they a took a running, way down the Mississippi to the gulf of Mexico’ )

 ‘Three Lions’ (‘Footballs coming home)

 ‘She Bangs The Drums’ (‘Kiss me where the sun don’t shine, the past is yours but the futures mine, you’re out of time’)

 ‘Two Little Boys’ (‘Did you think I would leave you dying when there’s room on my horse for two’) – how pathetically sad is that one?

 Running Bear (‘As there hands touched, and their lips met, the raging river pulled them down, now they’ll always be together in that happy hunting ground’) - that may be even sadder actually.

OK, I also think we have a new winner in the most pointless journal entry I have yet made. This all started because ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ was on the radio this morning.

Also, I have just realised this isn’t inexplicable at all – with the exception of Three Lions, which just makes me think about what it would be like if England won the World Cup, and She Bangs The Drums, they are all songs that I heard a lot when I was a kid. I think they remind me of that.

 

[burns1]

There their

I promise, I really really do know the difference between 'there', 'their' and 'they're'.

I just don't pay enough attention to which one I've used. If it annoys you half as much as it annoys me, I can only apologise. I will try not to be so lazy.

 

[burns1]

Exploding Dog (again)

i know i keep posting these things, but I just find them heartbreaking sometimes, so simple yet so full of...something...

Anyway, if it's just me, you'd better let me know and I'll stop, but in the meantime:

http://www.explodingdog.com/january2/ithinkijustlostmybest.html

 

[burns1]

F

For anyone that doesn’t remember, the name CCFF came about as a flippant short hand for Current Close Female Friend, coined before I realised I was head over heels in love with her.

Bearing that in mind, I may well start referring to her from now on as ‘F’, for Female.

Because (I know, my English teacher would freak at me for starting a sentence with ‘because’) she is either evil or stupid, and I really haven’t figured out which yet, as neither instil me with confidence in my taste in women.

Also, I am amazed to discover that she appears to have a bigger alcohol problem than me, because this hangover I have today is entirely through trying to keep up with the drinking that she wanted to do last night.

Anyway, this is all a bit non-specific, so I guess I’d better get to the point. She made me speak to West Country Twat…

Honestly, she was in her room, on her mobile phone and I walked past to go to the bathroom, she called me in, and passed me the phone, so I asked her who I was about to be speaking to, assuming it would be her brother as I get on well with him. She said, ‘just speak’, I said ‘to who?’ as a voice through the phone said ‘hello?’, and at the same time she said ‘West Country Twat’ (well, obviously used his real name, but you know what I mean). As you can imagine, I freaked.

I may be the most gullible idiot in the world, but she came out of her room in tears, apologising, saying she didn’t mean to make me angry and didn’t think about what she was doing or how it would upset me, and I ended up telling her it was OK and it was probably my fault for not letting her know how I really felt.

Not letting her know how I really felt???? I couldn’t have made it any clearer if I walked around with a big neon arrow above my head saying ‘I am insanely in love with CCFF’. The whole fucking world knows exactly how I feel.

I even apologises to WCT this morning for being a cunt. Although to be fair to him, from his point of view I was, as he has no idea what’s going on.

edit: suddenly the post directly above this one affects me even more now.

 

[burns1]

Obsession

I wrote when I started this journal that I can be obsessive. I’m fairly sure the CCFF thing has provided enough evidence of that, but for some reason something just occurred to me that really proves it.

Not long after the Illinois disaster (which I am seriously considering writing about at the moment, because it really will explain a lot of the baggage that I carry around with me), I realised that I was in dire need of a fresh start, so I changed jobs (a habit of mine, issues I don’t want to deal with so I change something else, jobs, home, car). In the period between handing in my notice and actually leaving I went on virtual strike, I was doing nothing at all, all day every day.

To this day I don’t know why I started this, but I decided to try to list every film I have ever seen. How weird is that? I’m not exaggerating to say that by the end of the first week, this list was over taking my life. I was trawling the Internet Movie Database from start to finish and compiling a list on an excel spreadsheet, (so I could keep count of the total), I was carrying a pen and paper around with me so that if a film popped into my head that I thought I may have forgotten I could make a note of it and add it to the list if I had, I was waking up in the night thinking about it. I was utterly obsessed with making this the definitive list.

In the end it run to about 5,500 films, alphabetically listed. And then one day, I stopped. No thinking ‘this is weird I should stop this’. Just literally one moment I was thinking about it and the next it just didn’t cross my mind anymore at all.

OK, so how weird am I?

Strange thing is, when I left the job I saved the list to disk, as I couldn’t bear to just delete that much pointless effort. I must still have it somewhere.

And I’ve seen a lot of films in the meantime…

 

[burns1]

So, here goes the Illionois story

I’m not sure about writing this, so be prepared if this post disappears quickly if I change my mind and remove it, but I feel like writing about this to see if it helps me move on a bit.

The reason that things didn’t work out with Illinois is that she while we were engaged she was raped, by someone she knew. I know his name, I know where he works and what he does and there’s nothing I can do about it because she wouldn’t report it. She didn’t even tell me properly until after we’d split up, all I knew is that one moment we were planning a wedding, meeting the minister, choosing invitations and stuff and the next she just changed and started being cold and moody with me for no reason that I could figure out. I had to come back to England, and we were at O’Hare airport and she just told me she needed time to think things through, to figure out if what we had was what she really wanted. There was something about the way she said it that made me know, instantly, with utter certainty that we weren’t getting married, that I would probably never see her again. I was right, obviously.

The last time I saw her was standing outside the bar at O’Hare as she walked off to catch her plane back to Peoria, and as she walked away I just started to cry, uncontrollably and then, being me, preceded to get myself absolutely smashed on Red Wine, at the bar, on the plane, and then, about 10 hours later at the airport at this end.

We communicated a lot over the next few months, first by phone, then by decreasing amounts of email, until she sent me an email telling me the full story, how she’s been flirting with this guy, what happened, how she blamed herself for leading him on, how she knew it was unfair but she couldn’t help herself but blame me in part because I wasn’t there to protect her, things like that. That she was in counselling and on all sorts of drugs to help her get through and how she was moving to Guatemala to get away from everything and that we couldn’t speak anymore.

It was, and hopefully always will be, the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with. CCFF helped me through and that’s one of the reasons this whole situation has become so complicated, because I struggle to believe I would even be alive today were it not for her. She was the only person that bothered to care about how it affected me, I know I risk sounding selfish and the impact on me is nothing compared to what it was on Illinois, but no one else thought beyond what it did to her, CCFF cared about me and allowed me to be OK with the fact that I was hurt and had my life destroyed by what that fucker did, not just her. And for that I will be eternally in her debt.

We are back in some sort of contact, but she’s with someone else now and I know in my heart that I will never see her again. There’s a Steve Earle song that kind of sums up how I feel about it these days.:

When I'm walkin' these streets
And I'm countin' my steps
And I'm draggin' my feet
'Cause I ain't ready yet
To start all over again
'Cause every time that I do
I remember you
Well, you broke my heart
And it healed alright
Now we're far apart
And I don't lie awake at night
But every once in a while
Right out of the blue
I remember you
Well, you never write and I never call
And I don't miss you tonight
I'm just curious, that's all
Do you still have dreams?
Did they all come true?
Does it ever seem like you'll never make it through?
And do you ever miss me the way that I do
When I remember you?
When I'm walkin' these streets
Well, you broke my heart
And I'm countin' my steps
But it healed alright
And I'm draggin' my feet
Now we're far apart
'Cause I ain't ready yet
Every once in a while
Right out of the blue
I remember you
I remember you

So there you go, that’s my story. And having told it I am now thoroughly depressed.

 

[burns1]

braindead idiot can't think of a title

Somebody tell me it’s not really Monday again. Please. Timequake suddenly seems like less of a bad idea, there is at lease SOME of my life that I could cope with having repeated unchaged…

Really not sure where the weekend went though, all I know is that the pile of washing that needs doing appears to have a film of dust over the top of it now as it’s been two weekends in a row that I haven’t been around enough to sort it out. Thank god that I’m a bloke with one of those families that thinks that underwear and socks are a prerequisite part of any Christmas or Birthday, otherwise I’d have been commando for days now. Which would not be good in this weather.

Friday night I was supposed to hook up with some friends (CCFF off on holiday, me trying to take the chance to grab some of my old life back) but I got sidetracked early on in the evening and then ended up staying in and listening to miserable music and drinking beer (and wine, and gin – seems I only delayed the Valentines night plan for a week, rather than avoided it all together).

Saturday = mothers belated birthday. ‘The Corrections’ writ large.

Yesterday, actually did start to make an effort to see friends, went and visited an old school friend and his new wife and new baby. Well, new to me – suddenly realised the little fella was already 8 months old. 8 months!! Which makes it about 10 months since I last made the effort to go see them. Some friend I am.

This, combined with and email I got that said ‘I have too many books has got me thinking though’.

Firstly, I will say now, you cannot have too many books, it is not possible. Unless you’re the British Library who spent millions on a new building and then realised it was still too small, but that’s something different. But trust me, you cannot have too many books, just like you can not own too much music or have seen too many films or been to too many galleries or museums. There is no limit on these things.

You can, however, have too many friends. You end up spreading yourself too thin, not being able to give what you should to make a friendship worthwhile and you just end up with a facsimile, you put on a smiley face and chat about old times with nothing new to say because you stopped knowing each other too many years before. I hasten to add that Sunday was not like this, but more through luck than any effort on my part to keep the friendship strong. But I haven’t made enough effort I realised, I have spent a) far too much time with CCFF, but also, b) far too much time with ‘convenient’ friends, those that live just round the corner, those that are there to come to the pub at short notice, those that take no planning or effort to see. And far too little time with my good, old, close friends that live across the country, or have families, or just take a little more effort to get too or to get to come to me. And that has made me quite sad. I miss them a lot.

Bet I don’t change though.

 

[burns1]

'wings'

Mainly for Tango, so she knows she’s not alone, following her ‘wings’ experience, but:

http://iusedtobelieve.com/

 

[burns1]

She's not there

So, CCFF has been away since 7.30am Saturday morning and is now ski-ing in Breckonridge, Colorado - I got there in the end, at various points I have thought it was Whistler (wrong county apparently!), Vail and Beaver Creek. My grasp on Geography has never been too strong, you are reading the ramblings of a man that spent a good portion of life thinking that Bolivia was in the Soviet Bloc. Well, it does sound like it *could* be, doesn’t it?

So far, so good, I have to say. I have some space, I haven’t been thinking about her too much. I know over the next couple of weeks I really need to give myself a good talking to, make a decision as to whether I do persevere, or whether to try to move on. Definitely tempted to let the slut in me loose again at the moment, get some bloody action no matter what, but in all honesty I don’t think I am that person anymore, I’m not sure if I could act like that, or even if it’s still sociably acceptable at 28 actually – there’s something desperate and pathetic about the thought of a man nearing his 30’s still going out on the pull every weekend.

At someone elses suggestion I reread a lot of this journal, back from the first time I mentioned CCFF through to the end. Apart from wanting to say ‘God, I do go on, don’t I??’ it was really quite weird. The changes in how I write about her, the move from friendship to thinking it was going to happen to where I am now. The saddest thing is, when I remembered some of those things I wrote about – how she kept referring to ‘we’ and things like that, compared to now…it’s just…I don’t know…it’s not ‘there’ anymore. She doesn’t do that. Maybe there was a window there that I misses, maybe there wasn’t. But either way, I am as close to be certain as I have been so far that it’s not there anymore.

That could even be a good thing I suppose, if I reach certainty that it will never happen. Maybe I will be able to meet someone else. I’m beginning to realise that there are good people out there, kind, caring people, and that I am depriving myself if I don’t give myself a chance to meet them. That’s not to say CCFF isn’t good, kind or caring, she so truly is, but if she doesn’t love me, then she doesn’t love me and nothing can change that.

 

[burns1]

Just had quite a fright – there’s a new message on the off topic forums by someone who registered here in February under the same name that I often call CCFF. That would really be a bad bad thing if it were her having stumbled across this place. Fair freaked me out now though. I really wouldn’t need that, particularly at a time when I am beginning possibly to realise that I have turned her into the be all and end all of my love life when she isn’t, when there are other great people around and about and that I need to not be so hung up on this.

This morning started well, and just keeps getting better, I can almost feel my self confidence and independence returning by the second. If I can keep this up after she gets back then we may finally have something to work with here…fingers crossed.

So, I leave the flat this morning, get in the lift and it stops on the floor immediately below mine, blonde girl gets in. A few days ago, perhaps even yesterday, I would have just stood there mute, perhaps just said a polite hello. Today, I actually struck up a conversation, turns out she actually lives in the flat directly below mine. And she’s American (yet again). Ended up walking all the way to the station with her, chatting, laughing. Not like me to be on form at 7am, but there’s been someone making me feel pretty good about myself recently. Seriously crossed my mind to see if she wanted to have a drink sometime, but I didn’t for a couple of reasons, firstly, why risk ruining such a nice start to the day, and secondly – the flat directly below mine? Waaaay too close to home, there’s no way on earth that could be a good thing, if we went for a drink and it went well and led somewhere…do I really want to be living upstairs? And if it went badly…the thought of having to take 8 flights of stairs up and down everyday to avoid the awkwardness of getting caught in the lift…no thanks.

Then got here, got told I’m looking hot today, amazing what a bit of self confidence can do to a blokes appearance.

And then found an email that I have to admit I’d been really hoping I’d find, along with another lovely one from someone I don't talk to often enough anymotre, so now I’m all Smiley Miley for the day. All is good in the world at the moment, and nary a CCFF in sight. My happiness appears to not be 100% dependent on her presence (equally, I assume my unhappiness isn’t either!)

Well, all Smiley Miley (where DID I get that from? I will not be using that phrase again, and if I do you have permission to arrange to have me shot) apart from the Big Fright, obviously.