Lost things lie under closing water...

Very very tired and achy. Went out today: Holloways, Italian restaurant, long walk. I've been out every day since last Tuesday. Out of the money I have earned this year I haven't saved a penny, but my gap year has yet to begin, and this summer has been overwhelmingly good. Just put all my washing on the line in the gloomy breeze and about twenty seconds later it started to rain. My legs hurt from cycling and walking and working. I miss school. I can't wait for my new job. I'm so glad the heatwave has ended. I love Kat & Lou.

Haven't been eating or sleeping enough, until pasta and salad today at a lovely place in Soho, and Louise never finishes her meal, so there's more for me. Haven't felt that full in days. I've been eating the minimum in an attempt to save cash. It hasn't worked. I've crammed my days with work and fun: charity shopping for hours, watching the lights at Canary Wharf, eating Haribo in Burnham, and then stayed in this strange, surreal, magnificent boarding school near Reading, playing the recorder in the day. Everyone in the orchestra is now younger than me, and I forgot how irritating those skinny, upper-middle-class, whiny, allergic-to-everything, mummy-hasn't-ironed-my-dress little girls are. When in doubt stick with people from Swansea. Concert was strangely mesmerising, coffee in Starbucks, hasty goodbyes.

Dangerous habits I need to get out of: waking up late, skipping meals, living off Pro Plus, forgetting to wash my clothes, filling in forms wrong, stealing stamps and Strepsils from work.

Actually, forget that last one. Nine days left. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PS Can you get your money back?

Going to Berkshire via Burnham-On-Crouch

It's a bit like going to hell via death, isn't it?

Then I'll wake all fresh and new tomorrow...

I have a fucking job! A better one! Eight pounds fucking seventy-five! I am also completely high on caffeine tablets after having had less than five hours sleep for the last five days. I felt completely physically and emotionally drained this morning, particularly given the last 24 hours, which have been a completely surreal rollercoaster ride, so in my break I went to the greasy spoon cafe on Wanstead High Street, ate a jacket potato with cheese, drank two cans of coke and took a whole load of Pro Plus. I am feeling dangerously alert and energetic. When the caffeine wears off I will probably fall asleep on my double bed for the first time in four days and sleep until Monday morning. It will be weird not being woken up by sheep, my mother or someone's phone. Tomorrow I'm not going to scamper around a pharmacy, I'm not going to wake up hours before I should. But there will be no singing the Kooks while cycling across sunny valleys and eating Full English Breakfasts in teashops and making friends with Northerners. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

The Peak District was fucking marvellous. I miss Sheffield accents and rural charm. Three days holiday feels like paradise when you hate your job and spend every moment you're there wishing you weren't. Getting back to London was thoroughly depressing, I think I was a bit overwhelmed by the chaos and smoke and humidity, although cliched as it sounds walking across the Thames at 2am watching the lights and the water made me realise why I love it. Living in London is like living in a million places at once. There's so much choice, so much glorious mayhem and so much that I still haven't discovered. Last night came close to wonderful, despite missing buses, not getting into the club, and getting emotional and disillusioned and exhausted at various times throughout the night. The horrible oppressive London heatwave finally broke at 4am under a pale orange sky.

Still getting over the fact that I have a new job, and I'll be doing something I actually love rather than settling for the first tedious shop vacancy I came across. I think I was more excited about getting this than about my exam results. (Although the caffeine tablets may have contributed to this...hmmmm.)

Everyone's gone away, it's just me here. Even the cat has been shipped off on another adventure overseas. It's weirdly quiet and empty, and this isn't a house for one. It barely feels like a house for four. I love noise and bustle and coming and going. For once, though, I have absolutely nothing to worry about. I have my results. I have a job. I've booked my holiday. I have money in the bank. I have wonderful friends. What else is there?

My mother left the following note for me before she left:

Things to Remember

• Please LOCK the back door.
• Shut and LOCK toilet window.
• Please water plants once a week.
• I have cleaned the freezer. Please leave the door open, unless you switch it on and use it.
• Please pick and eat the home grown tomatoes.
• Please put out recycling by the gate (on street) on Sunday evening or early Monday.
• Haven't had time to cancel milk - he came early and delivered 4 pints. Put a note out on Sunday evening. Put note in bottle.
• Couldn't get money out, police incident in Forest Gate. Cash points cut off. Left you my change.
• Fruits and chocs for you and Jack! (In my room.)
• Take care that windows are shut in thunderstorms.

See you soon. Love Mum and Dad.

My mother is bonkers!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shut up and drink your gin!

I'd forgotten what a good musical Oliver was. Also I had forgotten almost the entire plot of Romeo & Juliet. Two school plays, two nights, I'm shattered but impressed. There hasn't been a time all week when I haven't felt like falling into an endless slumber.

So... a celebrity came into the shop! The highlight of my working week! Jessie Wallace, otherwise known as Kat from Eastenders... with her baby Tallulah Lilac. Incredible. Naturally my boss had no idea, he spends his time counting his money, not watching Eastenders. I'm bored of my job now. I'm beyond the stage of hating it, it hasn't been too bad, just exhausting. I'm ready to move on, and to break through the minimum wage so that I can save some money. I love the uncertainty of next year. I love people's reactions when they hear I'm not going to uni, and how they pretend they think having a gap year sounds like fun whilst failing to grasp the entire concept. I love having money.

My dad was completely engrossed in "Fox In Socks" this evening, and I'd forgotten how beautiful Dr. Seuss books were, they are utterly mesmerising. "Not in a box. Not with a fox. /Not in a tree. You let me be! / I do not like green eggs and ham! / I do not like them, Sam-I-am!" Now that's perfection. No one else can write poetry like that. Not to mention the amazing journey to Solla Sollew, "on the banks of the beautiful river wahoo, where they never have troubles, at least very few". Dr. Seuss just captures the harshness of reality so comically and so tenderly. You wouldn't expect so much powerful insight into human emotions from a children's book. He's a lyrical genius.

Following a strange debate I had, Tammy Wynette is perhaps not as much of an anti-feminist as people claim. Of course she strives for a conventional, male-dominated (albeit happy) family, and the lyric 'stand by your man' appears to represent the opposite of female liberation. However her songs are about striving for a better life, and 'stand by your man' is more about being faithful than being helpless; 'after all, he's just a man' implies that having a faithful wife is not an entitlement but a priviledge. When you listen to 'woman to woman' it becomes obvious that the emphasis is on positivity and solidarity rather than imprisonment. Dismissing her for an anti-feminist is completely missing the point, anyway: Wynette was renowned for her passionate country ballads and not for her unradical but thoroughly unoffensive choice of lyrics. Modern pop innuendo has done more to hinder the feminist movement: portraying women as sexual objects is much more damaging than emphasising their lack of independence.

*End of country music rant*

Everyone should follow this link and stop wikihoooligans from deleting a valuable article about hacking. Keep keep keep.

I'd love to stay here and be normal... but it's just so overated.
x

Lost in coffee rings and fingerprints.

I'm all mixed-up tonight. Exhausted, restless, headachy. A little too thoughtful, lost in the clouds. Went to Starbucks with Sarah, and I've eaten enough calories for a week.

I keep wondering when I'll change and get a better job and move on and study and get somewhere, but there's nothing I want to do at the moment, I've reached a standstill, or a plateau, or something. My parents hate me earning my own money. They say they don't, but they can no longer control me financially, and that loses me any obligation to do what they say. There's no way of penalising me, because I don't want anything from them. At the same time, this infuriates them so much that they are keeping their distance, and refusing to support me next year unless I go to uni, even if I went back to college. I don't want to go to uni. This is exactly my problem. There's no one to tell me what to do now. There are no guidelines. There are no limits. I don't have a life-plan.

My floor is coated in dirty washing and last year's schoolwork. It depresses me so much I spend all my time lying on my bed resting my elbows on the windowsill, listening to music, dreaming. I have escaped tidying up for a month.

And there was Gaby's, yesterday, where the company was worth it, but the music was atrocious, and suddenly I've realised exactly why clubbing's overated. It's loud and trashy and antisocial, and, after a while, pretty fucking dull. Oh well. Louise, Liam and I know how to have fun. And when to leave...

I owe the library £20 again, all of a sudden. In the last few years I must have paid them a triple figure sum. The library system is completely twisted, and centred around making money, rather than promoting reading. There's something illogical and unnecessary about paying library fines in the first place, without the librarians' scary, superfluous ruthlessness. My books were a week late. And seeing as they don't even operate their alarm system these days, because people steal books too often for them to handle, I may just fight the system and borrow my books without declaring them. That's if I manage to find books in that place, amongst the DVDs, Playstation games and coffee machines.

And while I'm wasting space complaining, the monster (my brother) is eating me out of house and home. He ate twelve packets of crisps, all the apple juice and a whole packet of cereal in two days. He doesn't even like Special K, in fact he recently complained to my mother that it 'lacked calories'. I don't eat it for the calories, I eat it because it tastes good. And it gives me something to do besides complaining.

I stole my dad's Allen Ginsberg book yesterday. It's unusual and obscene and I haven't decided if I like it yet.
x

Like plates from shaking hands...

Life is bittersweet and full of surprises.

No work tomorrow. I'm going to sleep in for hours, and then go and watch the football. Romeo & Juliet on Friday, crazy dancing on Monday. Party on the 17th. Peak District on the 19th. I have plans. I passed the IB with 37 points. I've realised life is just beginning, and there's no room for angst or regret. This is going to be the summer of my life.

Maybe I should stop thinking things through and start taking risks.

I got paid today and it's weirdly quiet in this house. It's just me, and the cat and a whole load of food after I dragged my mother through Tesco's this afternoon. Most of what she wanted to buy was gourmet cat food. After five years of Whiskers the cat has been promoted to Sheba ('tender terrine') and Gourmet Pearl. My mother cares more about the cat than me. She hasn't bought me any food in a month.

In other domestic news, my dad got ambushed by some Muslim intellectuals today and came back with a whole load of free pamphlets and books, including: 'a Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam', 'The Empire and the Crescent', 'Meet Your Muslim Neighbours', 'He Who Purifies Himself Succeeds', 'Muslims of Britain', 'Discover Islam', 'Who Is Allah?', 'Understanding Islam', a copy of the Qur'an and a piece of paper with John Grahl written in Arabic. Maybe after 40 years of being a disillusioned communist my father has discovered God.
x

And then I'll dream of moons and horror shows...

Why did the torrential rain have to start just as I was leaving work? I am soaked to the skin.

I declare myself the second person to write about camping. It was incredible. A whole field to ourselves, food, drink and continuous merriment for three days. Although I am covered in cuts and bruises from tripping over, playing cricket and walking through forests it was worth it, I am no longer as depressed as before, and it was a marvellous break from working (despite Monday's crazy Debden-to-Wanstead commute.)

****************

A mental woman came into the shop four times today to ask if we sold Ribena. (Ribena! In a pharmacy!) I looked on her prescription and discovered she was 96. She didn't just look bonkers and forgetful either, she looked lost and completely panic-stricken. It scares me how lonely and confusing old age can be. Later on my boss got ridiculously pissed off just because I charged someone the wrong amount on their credit card. He made me do three hours of dusting because apparently my brain "clearly isn't ready for work like this". It was not a good day. I had to leave everyone this morning at 6.30am to get back home, having had about four hours' sleep. I also feel a bit ill and sleep-deprived, unsurprising as the whole trip was pretty reckless...

In a good way though. x