Whining Twattery (Includes Moderate Sweariness)

I have been on a blogging hiatus. It has not been deliberate, it's just that I don't like writing the sort of whining twat of a post that I have felt like writing. I have, however, written it anyway. Well done me.

I have found the last few weeks very difficult. I have been rigid with the overwhelming conviction that I don't fit in. Anywhere.

I am staying at my parents' house this week, because I needed to be in London on Sunday and again on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The crux of my problems have come down to two, simple facts: I am a ridiculous moron and will, given half a chance, persuade myself that I am superfluous to everyone's requirements.

(Any ex-boyfriends reading this must be thinking, oh, yes. That's why I got bored with her, she is a mental. Not a cool, interesting mental, just an insecure girl who knows how unattractive insecurity is and so lies about it until it is too late.)

Although I have had some cool times in Manchester over the last few weeks.

On bonfire night we went with some of Ben's friends and their beautiful little children to a park and watched the startled looks on the two-year-old's face as the sky was filled with firey spiderwebs. Then we went back to their house in Moss Side for baked potatoes with chili and mulled wine.

Ben and I smuggled a bottle of rum into the cinema when we went to see the Quantum of Solace and came out giggling and declaring it to be the best film we'd ever seen. We got a taxi home and I swear I heard the driver snort derisively as I listed the reasons that I thought the new Bond girl and I could actually be really good friends (although perhaps we wouldn't lie next to each other on the beach).

I went to meet a band that need a new singer, and they were lovely and we jammed (man), then they sent me some tracks to write over for next time.

Ben has cooked me many delicious meals and I helped him tidy his house before he left (although admittedly at one point my "help" just involved me wearing a sombrero watching him move furniture).

We went to a gig in a church in Salford, where we sat on the floor on cushions, drinking lager out of the can and watching Petra Jean Phillipson. Ben and I chatted to her afterwards. I was initially too shy, but Ben shoved me forward like a pushy mother, and soon Petra and I were chatting about our respective "I'll Make You A Star, Baby" moments. (Mine was when I was at an "audition" that turned out to require everyone to pose for pictures in "lingerie" selected by the producers. I flatly refused, only to be asked "is it because you think you're a bit fat?" by one of the other girls.) I loved Petra. When we were leaving, either Ben or I made a joke about having a great record deal for her, if she'd just come out the back, and she laughed and then said, with a completely straight face, "Yeah, alright, but I don't do anal." Her manager nudged her and squeaked "Petra! We're in a church!". We also chatted to the amazing supporting act, John Fairhurst, with whom I have since exchanged emails about doing some work together.

I have been with my Grandma to Asda and have eaten a million fairy cakes with lemon curd.

I went back to London to to a children's party dressed as a princess, which went well if you discount the one child who threw up, and the fact that all the others seemed to think this was their cue to hurl as well. By that point all the parents were there and watched me try and convince twenty children that this was not a vompetition, and that another game of musical statues (around the sick) was the best thing to do.

On Saturday we went to Ben's Mum's house in Hitchin, to go into London the next day. Ben and his co-traveller/actor Will were leaving straight from the show to the airport to catch their flight to Nepal. Ben's Mum and I went into London on Sunday late morning (Ben had left earlier), and met his Dad and my Dad for lunch, then went along to the show, which was excellent. In the interval we saw Ben, who said he wasn't sure whether he might have to leave before the end of the show. He hugged me and kissed me goodbye. He was wearing his costume, a first world war uniform, and I was wearing my vintage tea dress, so it felt all very poignant, although it wasn't, really. He had to leave before the end of the show, but he called me from the airport. In the middle of our conversation he said this: "...oh, hang on, baby. Will, why does that say 'flight closing'?...(a mumbling in the background)...Oh, shit. Um, I think I have to go now. Love you! Bye!". They made it, but they did have to abandon their pints, which I suppose is suitably dramatic.

Writing all this makes me realize that it has, in loads of ways, been a lovely few weeks. I suppose feeling lost and alienated is inevitable at the moment. I knew it was inevitable, but I didn't think that feeling lost and alienated would make me feel quite so, well, lost and alienated. I want to make friends, so I have been in contact with a few people and signed up for a bellydance class next Wednesday. I will also find a 'job', although I do have a few more princess parties lined up. (I am also going to be a Santa's elf at Christmas, somewhere in Central London. When I know where I will tell everybody I know. I am not joking.)

I have just felt really insecure, which is fucking irritating, to be honest. I have an indescribably huge fear of being "needy", and as a result I just go quietly insane and utterly paranoid. O, how I wish I was a tantrum thrower. I would love to be described as "firey". Yes! Firey people are cool, and a bit scary. I have never scared anyone in my life, and as a result am doomed always to feel inconsequential and paralysed by my own self-doubt. It is fun spending time with me when I am like that.

Self-indulgent self-analysis! It is excellent, and doubtless why blogging was invented. (At Christmas it will be elf-indulgent elf-analysis, something I find disproportionately amusing.)

It is a transition period, I suppose, and to be expected. It is hard, though. Last Thursday I sat on a bench in central Manchester and cried. I am so tired of sitting places and crying, as I have done in every city in which I have lived. I couldn't bear to call Ben, because then he would know for sure that I am not some cool, confident woman but just a boring, moronic loser. I could not call my friends because they would think the same things, and anyway my battery was low.

If you have read this far you can stop now. I'll be fine, of course, it is just my narcissism playing up again, it makes me tetchy. I wish I was an elf all the time. Having bells on my feet would make things so much better.