Friday Feasting Fest

Appetizer
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how intuitive do you think you are?

I would like to think that I sense things, that I know things without a process of rational cognition. It's a nice way to be, to have intuition about people and their feelings, and about one's own feelings and instincts.

In certain ways I am less intuitive than I used to be when I was younger. I used to be very sensitive to other people and how they were feeling. I think almost too much. Perhaps because I was over-sensitive myself. My mother always used to tell me that I was too thin-skinned, too over-sensitive, that I should develop a 'thicker skin'. I think now I spend less time worrying about what other people are thinking, and also I feel confused when trying to work other people out. Sometimes people just don't act or react in the way one might expect.

This upsets me, but I cope with it. Just about.

An example of this is with men. I can't intuit how someone feels about me. How am I supposed to know if someone likes me if they don't TELL me? HOW?

(Please. If you are a man, could you just quickly tell me how your brains work? In the comments box? In return I will write a post explaining women. If you have no interest in having women explained to you because perhaps you swing the other way, please explain men for me anyway and I will buy you a drink next time we all go out and get resonated. Oh, and women if you have any pearls of wisdom, please share.)

Oh, right, scale of 1-10. I'd give myself a seven. I feel that I have good intuition about what is and what is not good for me.

Broccoli, for example? Good for me.
Provoking tigers with pointy sticks? Not so much.

Soup
What is your favorite kind of gum?

Extra, the blue one. Whatever that is. Peppermint, perhaps. I don't chew gum very often now. I used to, when I smoked, but smoking isn't good for me so I gave up (see point above).


Salad
Name a CD you own that you would never get rid of.

The problem I have with this question is that I lose things ALL THE TIME and so I never hold on to things like CDs for very long.

I don't think I could choose one above the others. Jeff Buckley, perhaps. The Ella one I used to listen to over and over until I lost it. Paul Simon's Graceland, or a Simon and Garfunkel Greatest Hits one that also got sucked into the ether. Billie Holiday Lady Sings The Blues (lost) or Peggy Lee Black Coffee (still got).

There is no discernible pattern to the CDs I have managed to lose or hang on to. It doesn't mean I love the lost ones any less.


Main Course
When was the last time you said something you didn't mean?

I say things I don't mean all the time.

"Of course I don't mind doing the incredibly mundane and soul-destroying thing you want me to do that will take me all day and leave my brain trickling out of my ears! Where should I start?"

"I'm fine!"

"OF COURSE I knew rugby was a sport!"

"I'm not upset"

"I don't think I'm someone that needs reassurance in relationships"

I cannot believe how outrageous a lie that last one is. I am still reeling from my own capacity for untruth.

(My ex-boyfriends are laughing heartily at that, as well)

I think that is the biggest untruth I have told recently. It's not that I need any more reassurance than the next girl, but I am not under-average. I find it really impossible to imagine that someone likes me if I like them, and even more impossible to imagine that they won't get bored of me after they find out that I am somewhat over-sensitive and sometimes depressive. I don't think of myself as insecure or underconfident, but I know that there is a part of me that is less attractive than other parts. Someone once told me that he preferred "Happy Léonie" so much more, and oh my God I cannot get over that. Someone else once told me that he was with me because I "tick boxes", because I fulfill certain aspects of things he was looking for in a girlfriend. I don't know why that upset me so much.

I know that nobody wants someone who is two-dimensional, who doesn't have depth and passion and the things that go with that, but I can't reconcile that with my own situation. Rationally I know that I should be myself and my whole self, etc, but I have a Pavlovian response which tells me that people go off me if I'm anything but cheery, happy and fun.

It is stupid and almost nothing to do with the question. Sorry.


Dessert
What is the sum of the numbers in your birthdate? (Example: 3 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 9 = 31)

2 + 4 + 4 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 2 = 30

I have no dye-based anecdotes to regale you with this week. I have done, I am sure, many a stupid thing, but nothing leaps to mind as anecdote fodder.

Tomorrow I have to be at Queens Park tube station for 08.30 hours. Which means leaving my flat at 07.30. Which means getting up at... oh, no I can't think about it. I am out tonight, meeting some people about a music-related project I might be getting involved in, which sounds very exciting from the little I have heard of it so far.
It would mean I could carry on writing and singing what I wanted, but with better resources and contacts and all those boring, practical things that involve networking and smarminess and stuff I am shit at.

So, out tonight, up very early tomorrow. I'm going to borrow my housemate Rebecca's Welsh rugby shirt (I am about a quarter Welsh so I can feel slightly justified) and Dan will be very impressed.

I have had a bit of a 'down' week, as is my wont. I have been struggling somewhat. Panic attacks in the night, over-analysis in the day. I feel... weighed down. It is a swimming upstream week. I still carry on as normal, but just with rocks tied to my feet. I find it difficult to see things in a positive way. Crises I can cope with, the normal and everyday makes me want to cry and be sick, but I won't.

I felt a bit better yesterday but today I don't anymore.

I know it goes away, though.

Why am I so up and down-y? Why, please?

I think perhaps hormones. Or gremlins. Or wasps. It is probably wasps, because they represent all evil in this world. The wasps are controlling my brain this week, and making everything buzz-y, and sting-y, and evil.

Please send tasty treats and wasp poison.

Thank you.

UPDATE:

I have just read one of the most incredible posts that I have ever come across on the Internet. It is strangely appropriate for the way I feel. It is incredible, the whole blog is incredible, and messed-up, and brilliant. Please read it.
www.forksplit.com