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Birthdays, And How I Learned To Celebrate In My Own Way

Thirty today, I saw
The trees flare briefly like
The candles on a cake,
As the sun went down the sky,
A momentary flash,
Yet there was time to wish.

~ Donald Justice

On the other site, I read a post today from Kel, one of my favorite bloggers, about how Sept 11th is her kid's birthday, and since 9/11 celebrating hasn't felt the same. A lot of people on her post were saying that you must still celebrate, keep thinking of it as a sacred day, but I'm not sure that you ever can get past a thing like that.

The two weeks around my own birthday are marred with tragedy in our family - personal tragedy, nothing on the scale of 9/11, but tragedy nonetheless. Until this year, I have never had a birthday that was happy. I knew from watching other families that birthdays are supposed to be times of celebration, but I've never known one that didn't involve guilt for existing and a mother who wished she didn't. Even the years that she was fairly stable, and made an effort, I always knew that if the world had gone the way it was meant to then my brother would be here and I would not.

As a kid, I tried to celebrate anyway. We had parties, balloons, jelly cups, played Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Laughed, danced, and hid the fact that ten days from now Mom would be wailing and telling her four-year-old (or six-year-old, or ten-year-old) how much she wished she was dead. And once or twice, in the earliest days, actually attempting it...but I digress.

It's not that I blame her. She tried. And because she knew that she'd never succeed in making my birthday what it should be, we had other times of the year that were really special. Halloween parties where we did all the things that you'd normally do on a birthday, as well as trick-or-treating and carving pumpkins. Christmas Craft Clubs, held every Saturday morning from Thanksgiving until Christmas, where my schoolfriends came over and each week we'd make a different Christmas decoration. (Paper plate Santas and manger scenes and baubles when I was five, stuffed felt stockings to hang on the tree when I was six, cotton sacks decorated with fabric paints and gutta and stuffed with candy or home-made pot pourri when I was seven...) Thanksgiving dinners, Valentines masquerades, Easter egg hunts in the garden or on the beach. Living with a bipolar (even if never truly diagnosed) mother meant that when she wasn't depressed and suicidal, she was on top of the world, rejoicing in the beauty of life and celebrating every possible occasion. And most of the time she was a good mother. A wonderful mother. We did all sorts of things, had all sorts of adventures, that most kids - especially most English kids - never dream of.

So with all that, the birthday thing shouldn't bother me, right?

Wrong.

I think part of the stress was that we always tried. Often trying to enjoy a thing, whether you like it or not, is infinitely more painful than just treating is as though it's nothing. The years I was twelve and thirteen, Mom and her then boyfriend agreed to let me have a huge party in a local hall, with fifty or sixty kids invited from school (and another fifty or sixty who gategrashed, LOL ) and a DJ. Nothing personal, nothing family-oriented, nothing that would mean I needed anything from my mother. That worked well. But by the time I was fourteen, I was missing two thirds of my classes at school, and drifting apart from a lot of my schoolfriends, and throwing a big party when the teachers were demanding to know why I wasn't attending classes seemed like a sham. So I said, no more birthdays. And none of the family accepted that, and the stressful cycle of trying and failing to enjoy ourselves started up again.

Then I started getting sick around or on my birthday. Stomach bugs. Appendicitis. Kidney infections. Pneumonia. Mono. People always asked how I could have such bad luck, but I never wondered. I may work in the medical field, but I also have a lot of respect for the effects of emotional state on the body. For the last couple years I've begged the family and friends to forget my birthday, treat it as just another day. They wouldn't. I explained the illness and the past tragedies politely, several times, to everyone who asked. They ignored me. I explained not-so-politely, and said that I really didn't want to be reminded of things that happened in the past. They persisted in asking me what I wanted to do, and showing up with presents and cards and telling me they were taking me to dinner, and told me what Kel's posters are telling her - that you have to push through the pain, and reclaim the day as your own. I threw a tantrum, scorching the earth with my anger, and asking everyone how they could be so goddamn disrespectful as to ignore my wishes when it's MY day. They told me I was being horrible and unreasonable when they were only trying to help. I bubbled over with rage and resentment for a couple weeks, and eventually shrugged and decided that birthdays are like funerals - they're for the benefit of the guests, not the host.

I gave up. This year I told everyone that they could do as many presents and parties and evenings out as they wanted, on the condition that they did it three months later, on the third of May. They looked at me strangely, and asked me a dozen times if I was sure, but they respected it. We had a lovely BBQ and loads of cards and gifts, and cake, and everyone sang to me. On my actual birthday, I went shopping alone and bought a couple of books and a Beyond Sudoku magazine and some presents for Mom, and everyone left me alone. I didn't get sick. It was a strange compromise, but one that worked.

My profiles online, store cards that give you gifts on your birthday, diaries - all but the most official documents - have my birthday down as May 3rd. I still identify with the Aquarius horoscopes, but for all other intents and purposes I consider myself a May child. February can never be a happy month for me, not after more than a quarter-century of misery. But birthdays can...you just have to think laterally.

Catch A Falling Star And Put It In Your Pocket...

...Save it for a rainy day.

I feel like I should have a buffer of rainy day stars. Or posts. I did write a bunch awhile back, actually, but I seem to have filed them somewhere where I can't find them. Presumably while under the influence of insomnia. Just silly posts, things like lists of my favorite obnoxious T-shirts, and the things I love best about Autumn, and random thoughts that don't have to be tied into Events, either in the world in general or in my life. Things I can post whenever, just to let y'all know that I haven't deserted you.

Yeah, I'm still alive. Just about.

Been a while, hasn't it?

It's not so much that I don't have anything to write about, it's more that I can't quite get my thoughts and feelings out.

I want to tell you about heartbreak and idiot ex-boyfriends who come and seduce you and then afterwards admit to you that they're still with their girlfriend, and they're still not "supposed" to be talking to you. And also of the idiot girls who fall for their shit for the third time unlucky.

I want to tell you about the people who've jacked me around lately, and how mad I am that so many of the people who are supposed to be close to me totally fail to respect the fact that my time is precious - I have little enough of it - and when I get mad because I get stood up five times in six weeks, after frantically rescheduling things because you begged to see me, I'm not angry because we didn't get to have fun after all, I'm angry because the message behind your actions is that you think that YOUR free time is more valuable than MINE.

I want to tell you about how, more and more, I'm finding myself resenting people because they don't have the same value systems that I do. And how much I hate that resentment, because I don't want to be that girl who dislikes people for being different - but at the same time, I can't help being mad when I try so hard to do the right thing, make so many sacrifices for my loved ones, and they don't even bother to try. And it's all so confused and frustrated and I don't know what to think.

I want to tell you about my health, and how things are happening to my body that are scaring the pants off me, and so many of the symptoms that I'm getting are leading to one specific condition - but I don't want to talk about that condition until I'm a little more sure, can't even go and say to my doctor that I think I may have it, because it's a zebra diagnosis and I already have a reputation as being a hypochondriac, and if I say something and it turns out I DON'T have it then none of my doctors will ever take me seriously again. So there's nothing I can do but wait and watch and observe to see if things get worse.

I want to tell you about LOML, and his problems - but I can't do that, because I promised myself that I'd stop writing personal stuff about him in here. And may have to delete what I've written. Even though I've never mentioned his name. Because I know he would hate me talking about it, even while his life and problems affect me enough that I consider it part of my own life stuff.

I want to tell you about how the three men who mean the most to me outside my family have all dropped me like a hot brick this summer, two of them with little to no explanation, and how I feel horribly alone, even when I'm in a room full of people who love me. And how I don't know how to deal with loneliness, because it's not something that's ever really affected me before. Until now I've always thrived on being alone, and had enough inner activity to never feel lonely or bored. And now I don't know how to deal.

I want to tell you about how much I miss Kurisu-San, but God knows I've told you that enough.

I want to tell you about the utter shittiness that is hypoglycemic dysphoric disorder / neuroglycopenia, that has affected me since I was seventeen but has, for some reason, gone out of control this summer, so that when I get low blood sugar my mood takes a downswing that can be anything from mild irritability to black despair to extreme paranoia to suicidal thoughts to crazy rage, that makes me so upset and irrational that I don't realise I'm being irrational, that makes me wonder if I've suddenly had a psychotic break - until I eat something. And then I feel fine. Even though I was diagnosed by a specialist back in Sixth Form, I still feel like I'm going mad when it happens. How can a basically happy, well-adjusted (OK, stressed-out, but that's temporary) person suddenly become irate, paranoid, even suicidal, just because she skipped a meal? I don't know, but it happens. Craziness.

I want to tell you the fun things, too - the wonderfulness that is Ms Babs who I met two weekends ago, and how much I love Autumn, and how Michael at the bank finally sorted out my finances so that I shouldn't be totally screwed for the rest of the year, and might even have some money for college clothes.

But...yeah. I have all those posts in my head, but getting the words down, so that they sound right, is just beyond me right now.

So here. Have a taste of the best thing that happened to me this week.


No, I didn't make it - it's from Dixie's Cupcakery in town. They actually bake a full-sized Oreo into the bottom of the cake itself. Bliss. I should have only eaten half a one, though - I think my teeth are about to fall out. The ones I have left, anyway.

(Written two or three days ago, and somehow I forgot to post. Oops.)

Time And Time Again I've Said That I Don't Care...

...That I'm immune to gloom
That I'm hard through and through
But every time it matters
All my words desert me
So anyone can hurt me
And they do.

~ Evita

The first time I ever got my heart broken, I was fifteen and I was acting and singing in my theater group's version of Evita. Not the whole play - young voices aren't capable of that, or they shouldn't be - but an abridged version. Still a challenge, and I loved it. I lost my love of performing right after that - perhaps because of what was going on in my life at the time, who knows - and it was actually the last time I ever set foot on a stage for anything other than speeches and lectures. But at the time, I loved it. For nine months I threw myself into being a different person. Being someone else got me through the first few months, when Julian's and my relationship started to go bad, and it sure as hell got me through the last couple months, when our life together - and his life, full stop - ended.

Perhaps it is not entirely coincidence, then, that every time that my heart's been bruised or broken in the last twelve years, I've immediately turned to Evita. Some of you have Joni Mitchell, some have Adele, some have Randy Crawford or Nina Simone or Billie Holiday. I have a whole host of Evas - Elaine Paige, Siobhan McCarthy, Elena Roger (not Patti LuPone, though; I'm sure I'll draw a bunch of hisses, but I don't think she was good in the role AT ALL ) - and yes, Madonna. I thought she did it brilliantly, although I accept that a lot of people disagree. The movie version is usually my first stop, since our theater production was more like the movie than like the Broadway / West End play. Plus, it's easy to get hold of.

When Richard brought Kerry home, and the two of them treated me like I wasn't welcome in my own house. When he fucked me and then refused to talk to me for several days. When Curt told me he loved me and then decided he liked my friend better. When Siji dumped me - twice, actually - for his ex. On these occasions, and probably a couple others that I've forgotten about, Buenos Aires in the 1940s is where I immediately head. It provides a sanctuary.

I've worn out my video of it in the last year or so. It's been played a heck of a lot. Time to get a DVD, methinks.

It's funny, though - I spent so many months being Eva, escaping from my own life into the life of another, that even half a lifetime later I can remember what it feels like to become a person who's known what it's like to be betrayed and emotionally bruised, but who also knows that she's better than that, that she's worth more. Sati forgets this sometimes, but Evita remembers what she deserves out of life. OK, sometimes she thinks a little TOO much of herself, but she makes it work for her. The music plays in my head, and I remember what it feels like to have that confidence and self-worth. And I can feel my shoulders straightening, my chin lifting and my head being held a little higher. And if I also feel myself becoming a little harder, a little more cynical...well, those will probably be temporary, and even if they're not it's a small price to pay.

French Apple Cobbler

(Sorry about the poor-quality picture - unless it's really sunny outside, there's virtually no light in my house, except my bedroom.)

I'm not sure where this recipe came from - my Mom's friend Bernadette, maybe. Mom's been making it for a quarter of a century.

You need:

Ingredients (topping):

~ 1 cup all-purpose flour (UK users, use plain. Also, a US cup is a little bigger than an English one - about 2/3 of a standard British mug.)
~ 1 cup sugar (I'm an unrefined person, but white works fine, although it's not quite as sweet.)
~ 1 tsp baking powder
~ 1/2 tsp salt
~ 4 tbsp butter
~ 2 eggs

Ingredients (filling):

~ 2 large Bramley apples. (We use Bramleys. Proper French people use dessert apples, since they don't really have sour apples over there. You can use dessert apples, or actually any apples, but use a little less sugar if you're not using cooking apples.)
~ 3/4 cup sugar
~ 2 tbsp flour
~ 1/2 tsp cinnamon
~ 1/4 tsp salt
~ 1 tsp vanilla
~ 1/4 cup water

Equipment:

~ 1 chopping board
~ 1 peeler
~ 2 large bowls
~ 1 small bowl
~ 1 electric mixer OR 1 french whisk and 1 wooden spoon
~ 1 sieve
~ 1 spatula
~ 1 cobbler dish. You can use anything made of ceramic or pyrex - lasagne dishes work well - but it should be about 2 inches deep. You can use deeper if you need, but you have to double the cooking time.

Method:

1 ) Fill your first large bowl with water, and add a couple pinches of salt. (This will pull out any bugs in your apples, and keep them from going too brown.)

2 ) Peel and chop apples into slices. (Thin slices or chunky slices - it's nice either way.) Put the apple slices in the bowl of water.

3 ) Mix all filling ingredients (except apples) in small bowl.

4 ) Add sliced apples and mix around until all slices are coated with filling.

5 ) Beat egg in other large bowl. Add all the other topping ingredients, sifting flour as you add it.

6 ) Lightly grease your cobbler dish. Doesn't need to be as heavy as you'd do for a cake, since you're not expecting it to come out of there in one piece. You can get away with not greasing it if you have a dishwasher.

7 ) Pour apples and filling into cobbler dish. Dot topping around on the top, using the spatula. Don't worry too much if it doesn't cover perfectly.

8 ) Bake at #6-7 for 35-40 minutes.


Makes one large cobbler, which is good eaten hot or cold (although I like it hot), with cream or ice cream or just on its own.

There's Only One Acceptable Reason To Hide Under The Covers, And This Ain't It

Yes, I'm still alive, but spending a lot of time trying to catch up on the sleep I missed last week.

Money is extremely tight - worryingly tight - and that always makes me want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head. I do have to go see the bank manager sometime this week, though, and make an appointment with my financial consultant to figure out how to pay off the overdraft. Because at the rate they're taking it from me, even if I put all my wages into the account and spend nothing on anything other than basic groceries - which is what I've been doing for the last month - the reserve fees are so punitive that the debt still gets larger. They're actually taking more from me in overdraft fines than I'm earning at work, the scoundrels. So I need to find out if I can get a short-term loan where fixed interest rates are calculated into the monthly payment, or a (horrified gasp) credit card, or what. Jaz will know, I just have to stop being an ostrich and go see her.

(Ja, I know ostriches don't really bury their heads in the sand...it's just one of those images that's hard to break.)

Of course I'm having panicky nightmares of having to declare bankruptcy, and having the bank steal my car and clothes and shoes. You hear stories about people who borrow fifty quid from a moneylender and end up £15,000 in debt even though they didn't borrow any more money, because the print on your contract that you need an electron microscope to read said that you're willing to pay 4000% interest. Compounded weekly. And if you don't, we'll repossess your babies and sell them to Madonna, and break your kneecaps so we can collect on the insurance.

Um, did I mention in the last couple of months that I've been overreacting? To everything? I think it must be hormones, or lack of sleep, or something. Every minor mishap feels like a crisis. (Actual crises I deal with just fine, but that's just how I roll. I usually work better under pressure. Except for the times that I retreat and ignore the world.)

Curt went to Jersey a couple days ago. And there were promptly six murders on the island. An island with basically zero violent crime. I swear, that guy has the worst timing in the world. It doesn't appear to be anything to do with him, but somehow he always manages to be around when things go to hell. So of course when he gets back, I imagine I'll demand a visit and frantically examine him for bullet holes - even though the news reports say that all the victims were Polish, and I don't think anyone could mistake a tall skinny black guy with a very proper British accent for a Pole from Jersey.

I have to sign up for college this week, if I can get the money. I don't even know that I want to go this year. Right now I'm so tired I don't want to do anything. But if I don't, then I'm not moving forward with life, and life isn't going to get better unless I have more money, and that means work, and THAT means education. I'm totally unemployable right now. Your self-esteem has to take a bit of a hit when you're so unwanted in the workplace that you can't even get a job in Wilkinson or McDonalds.

I know. I've tried.

Plus, there's Kurisu-San. I miss him. Like, a LOT. If he doesn't sign up for school then I don't know that I'll have the heart to continue - oh, I'll probably do it, I'll just feel weird - but if I don't sign up, then I definitely won't get to see him. So I suppose I have to take my chance. He still isn't answering texts from me, and with any other man that would be a warning to stay away, but this one is different; he thinks differently to other people I know - and I think that if I can talk to him in person, things will be okay.

I know some of you will feel duty-bound to give me your opinions on this, but all I can say is: you don't know him.

Of course, he may tell me to leave him alone. I'd be surprised if he did, but he might. Even that would be better, though. I don't like silence, I like to know what's going on. If I've caused offense, I like to know why, so I can either try to make amends, or at least consider changing my behavior in the future. And if I just knew that he was OK, then I could get rid of this sick feeling of dread that I sometimes get when I think of him.

And the only things I can imagine are that either I've offended him, or there's something wrong with him that makes him feel like he can't talk to me. Logically, there must be something wrong, yeah? For a guy to be happy and open and friendly with you at night, and cheerfully planning to come and see you in the morning, and then totally block you from his life in the afternoon - something must have happened. I just need to find out what. And I imagine I WILL ferret it out sooner or later; I'm not a person who can let things like that lie.

But Lord, I miss him. It seems so strange, to miss a person so much when you haven't actually seen them in a year or more. I don't remember going this long without talking to him, though. Oh, there probably was a period this long, but I don't remember it. I think it's only been about four months, but it seems like forever. I think maybe that's one reason I've been so crabby over the last few months. Every time something goes wrong, whether it's a major crisis or just a stupid little thing, I think, I wish I could talk to K. K always makes me feel better. And when I have nightmares about him, which I often do - ones where he's really sad - I think, I wish I could talk to K. K always says that I make him feel better.

I have friends and family, of course, and Curt, and I even talked to my ex the other day - but one person is no substitute for another.

Well, this note has certainly taken a depressing turn.

Hopefully autumn will come soon. That, or some nice hot August days. Either way I hope we'll get some dry weather. I always feel like shit when it's damp outside.

Waffle Sundae

I was having such an awful time today, what with insomnia last night - I haven't slept in thirty-six hours now - and pain that I couldn't shake off, I gave up on the idea of salad for lunch, and had waffles with ice cream, banana and cinnamon sugar.

I know you're jealous. It's OK, you can admit it. 'Cause I have the recipe here. It's actually fairly healthy - more so if you use low-fat ice cream or frozen yoghurt, and make your own waffles - and so easy even Wayne Rooney couldn't fuck it up.


Ingredients - for the waffle batter:

~ 125g butter or vegetable spread
~ 150g sugar (I use unrefined for just about everything, but any kind of sugar except powdered should be OK, depending on your tastes)
~ 250g plain flour
~ 1 cup (250ml) milk
~ 3 large eggs
~ 1tsp baking powder
~ OPTIONAL: 1tsp vanilla extract
~ OPTIONAL: juice from one lemon

NOTE: Please bear in mind this recipe is to serve 6. That's 6 fairly large eaters. You can freeze the extra batter for up to two months though, which is what I usually do, or refrigerate it for two days. It's easier than trying to scale down, unless math is your thing.


Ingredients - for the fixin's:

~ Vanilla ice cream
~ 1 banana per person
~ Ground cinnamon
~ A sprinkling of brown sugar (just a teeny bit - or leave it out if you want)

Alternatively you can swap the cinnamon and sugar for maple syrup, or chocolate sauce. I'll give you a recipe for chocolate sauce at a later date, I don't like the ones that come out of tubes.


Equipment:

~ 1 set of scales
~ 1 mixing bowl
~ 1 sieve
~ 1 cup (that's an American cup - about 2/3 of an average British mug)
~ 1 teaspoon
~ 1 waffle iron
~ 1 balloon whisk
~ 1 ice cream scoop
~ 1 serving bowl
~ 1 spoon to eat with


Method:

1 ) Measure out dry ingredients and chuck together in mixing bowl, sifting flour as you go.

2 ) Add wet ingredients.

3 ) Whisk together until you have a runny batter.

4 ) Lightly grease your waffle iron (or don't, if it's non-grease) and heat up.

5 ) Gently spoon batter into iron. Don't overfill, it rises a bit, although not a huge lot.

6 ) Cook until golden. Or a bit more brown if you prefer.

7 ) Place waffles on the bottom of serving bowl. Top with ice-cream, banana and cinnamon sugar.

If you don't have a waffle iron, or don't like to cook, you can use pre-made waffles from the supermarket - just make sure to get the sweet or plain ones instead of the salted ones. If this is the way you're playing it, you get to skip steps 1-6, lucky you.

See - idiot-proof, and it's really good!

Somebody Tell Me What's Wrong With This Picture...

...How long will it take before it hits ya
And you begin to understand
The dirty underhanded kind of plan
To place pandemonium upon the land
Face to face with the faces of death
On a daily basis
To the point we embrace this
Demonic debauchery
Negatively affecting the psyche
That's why we like to see
Some type of monster, chasin'
Erasin' people from the face of the earth like Jason
When that was just a movie really illustratin'
The illy type of shit that they really got waitin'
And I can't be condoning 'em
Sick minds perpetuating pandemonium

~ The Pharcyde


I am completely torn in half right now. Torn between anger and sadness. Between understanding and condemnation. So angry at both sides, for completely different reasons. (Thanks, Kidfos, for putting that so simply and clearly before, in a way that I was unable to.)

In this, as in so many other things, I straddle the line.

I haven't been back to London, but I understand things are a little better. Not good, but better. I don't know if this is just the eye of the storm, so to speak, or if the rioters have burned themselves out. Or perhaps it's just that the city's basically on lockdown now, and the police now have permission to use water cannons and plastic bullets.

A YouGov survey today said that nearly a third of people surveyed were in favor of using live ammo on the rioters. Evidently totally missing the point - or not caring - that use of unnecessarily strong force by the police was what sparked this crisis in the beginning.

These are our children. And they're in pain. Yes, they're dangerous. Yes, they need to be stopped. Yes, they need to be brought before a judge and held responsible for their crimes, and find a way to pay their debt and help rebuild the city. They do not deserve to be killed because of a feverish madness that has infected them briefly. And it is a form of temporary insanity, or they would do this all the time. Perhaps it takes someone who straddles the line to see that.

I'm supposed to be at work. I hate that I'm not. If I were a bank cashier or a shop assistant or a veterinarian, I'd be perfectly justified in staying home. But I'm not. I'm a youth worker, and a crisis support worker. Dealing with situations like this is my job, although we've never had anything on this scale. Public transport isn't reliable enough to get me in every day, even if I could afford the train tickets, but if I had someone in London to stay with...but then there's Mom. Perhaps that's the biggest area in which I'm torn in two. Wanting to go out and do my job, do what I know is right - but morally bound to stay home and protect the family and castle.

Times like this are when I most resent having people who depend on me. For so many years my job has been to look after my mother. And I love my mother, of course I do. I love her more than anything - evidently more than my kids at work, which is why I'm here instead of there. Yet I am past the stage in my life where I'm content to protect the home front, and it chafes on me that I am unable to go out and perhaps help a dozen people, because of that one who requires me above all others.

Stay home and ignore my job, and the kids who rely on me. Or go to London, do my job, and leave my mother unprotected. Nothing major has happened here - we had a gang of kids outside the front yesterday evening, talking loudly about wanting to loot, but after awhile they just went home - but you can never be sure. If they're kicking off in Gloucester, for pete's sake, then there's no reason they won't here. It's not so much the idea of leaving the home undefended, though, it's more the risk to me that going into London would cause. My heart and soul find this risk low and perfectly acceptable - I am not a coward, not someone who runs from danger. My mother does not find any kind of risk acceptable when it comes to me, no matter how long the odds of being hurt. And because of that, because of that refusal to loosen the bonds, my brain constantly bombards me with the same question - If you put yourself in danger and something happens to you, how will Mom survive?

This is not a question that most children have to deal with. Usually the people you have to protect are your kids, not your parents. But since I started walking and talking my main focus in life has been to make sure that mother is okay. And that means *I* have to stay okay.

I wonder how many parents feel this way. How many feel the burden of love that precludes putting themselves in any danger, not because they're scared of dying, but because doing so feels like abandoning their families. How many men want to join the military and fight for their country but feel unable to leave a clinging wife and children, amid unspoken accusations of desertion. How many people want to do the right thing, even when that involves some physical risk, but the guilt keeps them at home. Obviously not everyone feels that crushing burden, or nobody would ever leave home at all.

I have always known that love can smother as easily as warm, but at times like this that knowledge is amplified.

So I sit here, watching other people doing my job for me, and feeling totally useless and unnecessary.

Your Values Is In Disarray, Prioritizing Horribly...

...unhappy with the riches 'cause you're piss-poor morally. ~ T. I.

Romance novels. Pokemon. Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. The smell of freesias. Hiragana. Kurisu-San.

Focus, Sati. Focus and breathe.

I do not do well with fire and explosions. I have far too many memories where burned-out cars and buses and homes - and eyes - feature highly. I remember the Brixton riots of 1995, and I believe I remember the Brixton and Broadwater Farm riots of 1985, although I was still toddling around in diapers at the time. Loud noises and smouldering cars have the ability to send me into a post-traumatic state. So no, to answer your texts and messages, I am not okay. I am at home in Alby now, where it's safe and mostly peaceful, but I am not okay. I am, however, safe, which is more than I can say for Curt and his sisters, or my ex boyfriend Siji, or several dozen of my friends.

I can feel it out there, all that anger and fear and hate, and I can barely breathe for it.

I am full of rage. Full of sadness, and full of rage. And that is precisely why I can't judge the people I'm angry at too harshly - because I know where they come from. I know what it's like to scream and scream and know that nobody hears you. I too have felt that free-floating anger, that ire without a focus, that lividity that bubbles through my veins and obstructs my vision so that I cannot see where to aim it. I see so many people causing others pain, and I want to hurt them back. I want to grab all the looters and smash their heads in. I want to do the same to Cameron and Clegg and all the politicians who live in luxury while their people struggle to feed themselves. I'd gladly smash in Dumbya's face, too, for starting a war that led to a global recession. And all the faces of the fundies-who-call-themselves-Muslims who attacked on 9/11, and precipitated the war. And all the people who taught them that hurting people is ok - their teachers, their leaders...and the westerners who bombed their people way back when, to make them want to take their vengeance on America.

In fact, bring me everyone who thinks that hurting people is okay, and I'll have to restrain myself from ripping their fucking heads off.

Oh, I'm sorry - irony, you say?

This is the problem with cause-and-effect, of course. You can never trace a thing back far enough.

Rebel without a cause. Rebels with plenty of cause and without a focus. They come to mean much the same, in the end.

I see so many people wanting to judge. To place blame. I see very few willing to accept it. They did this. Nothing to do with me. It's the fault of all those pampered kids who sponge off the government. I have a job, I don't sponge or steal. It's the fault of the government for not providing enough help for the poor communities. Not my fault - I didn't vote for Cameron or Clegg, I didn't vote at all. The blame goes to the parents who raised their kids with the same lack of values that they were raised with, to the poor role models portrayed in the media, to the ministers who cut funding to schools, to everyone else. I didn't do this, THEY did this. We all have such set ideas of who to point the finger at.

We all did this. We, as a society, have a lot to answer for.

What do people need? They need food and water and shelter, obviously. And they need love and affection, and they need to be heard, and they need to feel like they have choices. Lack of choices are what cause depression. Eating disorders. Suicide. That frantic need to take control of your life, at any cost.

I do wonder how many of the fingers that are pointing are attached to people who have spent significant amounts of time in Tottenham or Brixton or Peckham. Choice - or more accurately, the feeling of having choice - is rare and valuable there. Whether the kids who are raised in those areas ACTUALLY have choices available to them or not is almost irrelevant - they FEEL like they don't. Oh, there are always success stories, about kids who were smart and motivated and found a way out of the ghetto that didn't involve a life of crime, and those stories are wonderful. But the flip side of them is that people who weren't raised in that kind of poverty think that those cases are the norm, that everyone should be able to make a success of themselves if they just tried a little harder. We forget that behaviour is learned. Nobody - or few people - are born bad. People are not born miserable. We get that way because of how we are raised, and then we raise our kids the same, unless we're lucky enough to have an external influence that teaches us another way to live. You cannot break a cycle from inside without help.

I am not justifying. There are no justifications for what we've seen over the last three days. But there are reasons. There are always reasons. We, as a community, as a country, need to be able to look back and try to find out the why's and how's of this situation. And the why is not simply that a bunch of bad kids spontaneously decided to take what they wanted and harm people for fun. Happy people do not harm others.

I'm so mad at the rioters for shooting themselves in the feet. Again. And yet, I understand. I understand a mentality that says, even if unconsciously, maybe if I shoot myself in the foot then someone will notice and give me the treatment I need for this gangrenous arm.

I don't have the answers. Not any of them. I don't know if we can trace anything back to an original cause or if the pain that our children feel goes back right to the beginning of time. I don't know how to fix a society that's broken. But I know a place we can start. So I'd like you all to do a favour for me, if you can. Tonight when you go to bed, and you get to feeling righteous about the way you've conducted yourself this week, give yourselves a pat on the back for being a good person. Congratulate yourself for resisting temptation. You could have chosen to be part of the violence, could have chosen to sacrifice others to take what you want, and you didn't. That's significant. That's wonderful. And then, after you've congratulated yourselves for making the right choice - think for just a minute or two about how lucky you are to realise, to have the knowledge, that that choice is yours to make. And be thankful.

Kickstarting a New Blog

A first post should always be a happy post, I think. Start as you mean to go on. Things are not happy now, but they were, and will be again, so I shall give you this post from a month ago.


My name is Sati, and I love people. That is what I do. It is my job, my passion, my compulsion, my need.


There's a London based rapper and singer, who's been around for a few years but really rose to prominence this year. His name's Example, and he's more than a little bit fabulous. I intend to write more about him in a post soon, but for now, it's not actually him that I'm concerned with, but one of his songs.

Kickstarts. Like when your bike stalls out, and you have to get it going again. At least that's what my biking friends tell me - although what do I know, I've only ever ridden pillion.

He's doing mostly dance music right now, so it's repetitive. One verse, repeated. One hook, repeated. That's OK. It works.

You should probably YouTube the video, if you're interested. You don't have to or anything, it just might explain this post a little better if you had the images to go along with it.


You want me to come over, I got an excuse
Might be holding your hand, but I'm holding it loose
Go to talk, then we choke, it's like our neck's in a noose
Avoid the obvious, we should be facing the truth
Start to think it could be fizzling out
Kinda shocked because I never really had any doubts
Look into your eyes, imagine life without you
And the love kickstarts again.

And that's me and Light of My Life, right there. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is, as yet, unclear - and really, it's moot. It's us. It is what it is.

Ten years. Half of our teens and half of our twenties. Many partners for both of us. A handful of whom I've loved, and been in love with - really, truly. A couple times when we tried to make it as a couple, only to be tossed aside by fate and chance. Countless times that I've fallen in and out of love with him, and then back in again. One episode of cheating when we were just getting together, one rape, one miscarriage, one year of amnesia, one bad marriage.

And always, just when - like now - I think we're fizzling out, I look at him and my engine catches, and my heart remembers who it beats for again.

I do have more to say, but...but.