Yes We Can

I was reading Dreaming of Hanoi and came upon this which stopped me in my tracks and gave me chills.

We definitely can.

Monthly Freak Out Time

So. There's five months to go until The Big Day. FREAK OUT! I seriously need to get in shape. I seriously need to find a photographer. I seriously need to feel organised. I seriously need to chill out. Thing is, the rest of the month I'm calm sedate and perfectly happy about the whole thing, and then I do a countdown and I just can not believe it! Five months to go! That's less then six!

I'm also sad because once it's gone, it's gone. I want it to be the run up to our wedding forever! This is the most fun I've had all my life!

Organising + Bossing around + Getting my way + Wedding day + Conrad = A happy Rachel!

I never want it to end.

*

Random wedding fact:

"The bride's bouquet come from a very old tradition of strong smells warding of evil spirits and bringing good fortune. During the plague in England people would wear little pouches of flower petals around their necks as not to be infected with the Plague believed to be carried by strong bad smells."

Self assessment - Life doesn't have to be taxing!

Eddie Izzard, anyone?

It has become clear to me that I think too much. Some might think this isn't actually possible, but when it comes to assessing ones self, I really think it is.

I assess my relationships, I assess the way I'm talking to people while I'm talking to people. And what's worse is that since I've started realising that I assess myself, I am realising that I am assessing myself while I am assessing myself.

This can get kind of annoying. It hasn't helped that my degree was basically teaching me how to study people and analyse them, and since then I have taken a particular like in studying myself and therefore analysing MYSELF. The problem is, I find myself kind of fascinating. I don't really fit into any rule that exists in my head. I've been trying to figure myself out for years. Many a time I will turn to Conrad and go 'did you realise what I just did? Why do you think I did that?' And we'll sit for a couple of minutes analysing me.

Now, this could technically be healthy. Self-awareness is definitely a good thing - realising the effect you have on people and the effect they have on you. But to function as normal human being? It only occured to me recently that other people may not do this. Other people go into their lives just doing what comes naturally - I, however, have to have a reason for everything.

And here I am, writing a post about it.

Valentines

Sit on your pony and I'll sing you a song
But the words I'll forget
Read you my poem I've not finished yet
Tell you I'll need you in infinite ways
'Till the end of my days

We're like mice on the underground
Blissfully unaware of the life up above
But nothing can spoil our little mouse love
We'll take our lives in our hands as we dance down the rails
Chasing our tails

And I could never leave you
'Cos if I did I'd die
For I wouldn't be me

With each day that's dawning a day has to die
And still nothing gets done
But Who could be truer
Than my precious one
Carefully saving our pennies in jars
Just to waste then in bars

And as days turn to weeks and then weeks turn to months
See how much I have grown
I'm seven years old I've had nineteen alone
You mended the life that was falling apart
On the way to your heart

And I could never leave you
'Cos if I did I'd die
For I wouldn't be me

So sit on your pony and I'll sing you a song
But the words I'll forget
Read you my poem I've not finished yet
Tell you I'll need you in infinite ways
'Till the end of my days

--C P Sharp

Why I Love Ben Frost

A couple of years ago I lived for a very short while with my best friend. It was the best couple of weeks in that house ever. We baked cookies, ate all said cookies in one go, had pajama movie nights, had curry nights, had pajama mexican nights... You can tell we ate quite a lot. He was only there five weeks but it was a good five weeks. One day while I was at work I received and email from him. I was looking through some old emails today and found it. I thought it would be my present to the internet to post it because I love it so.


So...

I thought I'm gonna have a shave and a shower and do my hair and I'm gonna swallow my pride and go down to Past Times and apply for a job.

So I have a shave and I'm feeling good and think I'll take a shower now. I take note of the time because the Collin and Edith show has just come on Radio 1 - this means its just gone 1 o'clock.

My shower is just lovely and i wash my hair and feel all relaxed. I shut the shower off and get dry, wrap my towel around myself and go to open the door. The handle just spins around. So I try again. Nothing. Then i have a flash back. I see the other half of the door handle on the floor, on the landing. I remember from my childhood my mother telling me not to shut a door when the handle is broke - "we won't be able to open the door if you did" - she said.

So...I consider my options. I can wait here in my towel, cold and damp and wait for the first person to come home, but it's not long past 1 o'clock and it's possible that someone won't be home until 5. So that was no good. Well I'll use brute strength then, i tell myself, so i start charging the door with my shoulder/elbow/knee/foot/fist. It's no use. The frame is starting to come loose and every part of my body aches.

I sit down on the edge of the shower and think maybe i should just cut my loses and sit here until Mim comes home - she's only foundation, i tell myself, she could be home at anytime - but then i look up and have a bright idea.

The perspex window above the door looks like it could come out if i loosened the nails. I look around - what can i use - i find a disposable razor and with the plastic handle i push all the rusty nails back until the perspex comes out. Amazing! When you see this in films it always looks easy when someone pops a window and then pulls themself up and they're outta there. But when it comes to it and you're tired, naked, and realise you can't lift your own body weight - because you've recently eaten 6500 cookies - it's a different story.

So...i give up on this idea, put the perspex back up and fashion the rusty nails to rehold back it place. I sit on the edge of the shower again, and again giving up. I try shaking and twisting and pulling the handle in order for the latch to shift but all the results in is the handle coming off at my side to. Great, I think to myself, now I've got to sit here looking through the small gap, where the handle was, being able to see my freedom on the other side but not being able to get to it.

Time passes. It feels like days...weeks...years.

Then it comes to me. I need to find something which i can substitute for the door handle, something i can put into the gap, turn it, and unhook the latch! Firstly i try my little finger. I push it in as far as I can and then try and turn. It doesn't work. The result - bleeding finger! What can I do?! What can I do?! I check the basket on the shelf for some kind of tool. All i find is a handful of disposable razors, all too big to fit the hole i have to work with. I try my other little finger, but it's as successful as the first. I figure I'm going to have to try with the razors.

So there I sit, back on the edge of shower, using my teeth to fashion a tool the same size as the missing metal bar which i knew was on the floor on the other side of this god forsaken door. I go through about 3 razor. my hands occasionally catching the blade and my teeth and jaw aching. On my 4th attempt I'd made my best tool yet and started pushing it into the small hole. It wouldn't go in far enough. So i look around again for the best 'hammer' i could find. The Dove shower gel bottle is the biggest and heaviest thing i can find and so i start 'hammering' the razor handle into the slot. It's in as far as it can go. I sit on the edge of the shower, which by now was surprisingly comfy, and i slowly turn my disposable razor-cum-door handle and as if by some miracle the door pushes open.

I fall to the floor and half laugh and half cry. Immediately I go to my room and put some clothes on, I'm cold, tired and sore all over from my teeth to my toes. I check the time, it's just gone 3 o'clock. I've been sat in that pokey little room for just around 2 hours. 2 freakin' hours!!!!!

Oh well. I guess it's a change from sitting around and watch tv so I can't really complain.

Apart

Things crop up that I forgot I had to do. I sit and talk myself out of doing it. It's not worth doing if you can't see me. Your pride validates me, if you watch me and smile with a secret look in your eye it makes me want to do it even better next time. You make me in to a person that I always wanted to be. Before you there were holes in my personality, I knew who I was meant to be but didn't try hard enough. With you I am always me, the person I know is good in heart and soul and means well. When you are away parts of my alone-self remind me that you are who makes me me. My motivation is to show you how good I am, show you what you make me. You make me pure and real, you make me honest.

At least when I am lonely I know you will be back, and I will be me again soon.

Getting out of aforementioned boxes

Please excuse the freeze frame of Lauryn Hill but it's the only way I could get the song on here.

The Art of Losing Conversation

I am not a conversationalist. I lack in easy speaking credentials. If Conrad and I are having a particularly heated argument, I sometimes have to take a break and go away and write down how I'm feeling, come back to him and actually read it out. My thoughts come to me as I write, not as I speak. This includes small talk and just generally getting to know people.

I used to have a parallel Rachel that I would talk about when strangers would ask me about yourself. I was originally from California, I was a student. I've never been to this town before, etcetera. If some taxi driver would want to know what I'd been up to that night, I would lie and tell him I had been doing something completely different from what I had been doing. I don't much like people knowing a lot about me. I don't want people to try and figure me out, I don't want people putting me in a compartment that I do not belong in. My mind and heart are like water, they fill all categories and spill over into whatever comes near me.

Unfortunately this does not bode well for me and making friends. Making friends is so much easier when you go to school and hang around with about 100 other people your age doing the same thing as you. But in a big city where you have to go out and find it yourself? Open up to complete strangers in order to create some kind of bond that shouldn't be forced? I cannot do it. I am trying to train myself into this conversational thing. I'm going to try and tell people about my life, tell them about who I am and how I feel and try and ignore the consequences and uneasy silences and feelings of insecurity that might come afterwards.

I guess that I'm just me, and I just need to deal with that. And if somehow that brings friendship, then so be it. I hope it does.