Shoes For Thought

Currently Loving: An art project that threw me back twelve years to the films I watched as a small child. I now have the soundtrack of the Swan Princess and Thumbelina to accompany Anastasia and The Silver Brumby on my MP3 Player.

Another insomnia-filled night. I suppose I'm lucky I got four hours sleep. I don't need this now, but I guess it's better than having it in exam time.
Unfortunately I doubt it's one or the other.



Backpacking. To Marks and Spencer. On a Sunday afternoon. In the snow...
With a basset hound.
Nice.
Apparently, however, this kind of behaviour is not as exclusive to the Seller family as was first thought. While I sat outside M&S in increasing YouthOfToday fashion (twisted around a trolley barricade refusing to move for anyone) tugging a embarrassingly nosey hound out of the way of cars crawling along at about two miles an hour, I saw numerous brave souls in varying degrees of personifying the phrase Death Warmed Up trudging towards the collective beacon that was the tiny shop.
Then everyone seemed to freeze. More than we already were (British Spring? Are you kidding?)
A woman in a black skirt and suit jacket was walking across the car park. Her hair was immaculate, as was her makeup and posture. What set her apart however was that, while everybody in the vicinity (including the floor staff and management) was wearing either walking boots and hiking socks or wellies protruding over layered legs, this woman was wearing golden pumps with black lace stitched around the top. There was a single intake of breath from every backpacker and weatherbraver as they stared at this lunatic prancing past with snow on her feet and no a care in the world.
Again, this says so much for our community spirit. We do not meet other eyes. We certainly don't speak to one another. But if there is a break in the norm or a particularly outspoken rebellion and were there with our hisses and our stares.
English nature at its best.

Confessions Of A Teenage Insomniac

"You've made your bed, so sleep in it..."

Yeah, I bloody wish.

So, here I am, bright eyed and bushy tailed after my first insomnia-related all-nighter: went to bed at 12, gave up and got up at 6:30. Not a wink of sleep between those hours.
It's been getting notably worse since the return from Slovenia; a sleeplessness (real word? Don't know) that used to get me, say, every other- or third- night has now been every singe day I go to bed. Usually it's just a few hours, I end up dead to the world anyway. Not last night.

So I'd been to my mum's friend's boyfriend's (still with me?) party. It wasn't the liveliest of dos and the worst thing I managed was being pressed to try a mouthful of flat Gin and Tonic (simply spontaneous, right?)

Cept that night I go to bed and lie awake for six and a half hours, occasionally breaking the boredom with a chapter of the phenomenal graphic novel The Watchmen (read it.)

However, it wasn't as fun as you might think. In fact it was pretty shit.

There comes a time when you realise, four hours into your reluctant all-nighter, that if you don't fall asleep now you will feel this way for the rest of the day ahead. Feel like what? you ask.
Like you are totally and blissfully asleep every time your eyes shut to blink. Then, as they open again, you're utterly and frustratingly wide awake.

Another terrible stage is when your brain splits. Not literally of course, although by this time of the night you're doing very well not to have a headache of some kind. But I do not know whether it's a human reaction to the solitude, or simply proof that I personally am insane. However, the brain starts talking back to itself.
"Don't be soft," part of your mind says. "You're obviously not tired or you'd be asleep. Logical, no?"
"But I AM tired," another bit of your brain argues. "If you'd just shut up, maybe we'd get some rest."
A third part of your consciousness is wondering vaguely how this is even possible; the brain is one organ designed to control, help (and hinder) it's host body. It shouldn't be sniping at itself and referring to itself in the first person.
A still further bit of the mind is ignoring the other three all together, caught up in a desperate personal struggle to dispel the highly annoying (and insanely catchy) voice of the lead singer of the All American Rejects from looping over and over to only it's tortured ears... while simultaneously wondering if said singer is really Kermit the frog (listen to Her Name Rhymes With Mindy, then listen to the green Muppet’s voice: IDENTICAL).

Later on in the night/morning, you don't know whether it's from the hours and hours you have spend staring into darkness, or the fact the sky is finally beginning to lighten, but forms of you familiar things start to take shape. Then, every time you blink, as well as being ridiculously disappointed when your eyes open, you are somehow always surprised that the room you are in is lighter than the inside of your eyelids.

You think about a lot of things in a tiny amount of time when you're in the same place for hours at a time. A couple of the things flashing through my mind were:
● My Year 11 Media Project ● The difference of the words Glamour and Glamorous ● The fact the Cullen's aren't actually real vampires ● The fact I really need to post a blog soon ● What the bloody hell time is it? ● Oh, only five minutes past the last time I checked ●