Things

Ridiculous things I found out today:

1) Obama, Bush and Clinton are all going to be in Newport in September for the Ryder Cup. AirForce 1 is going to fly into Cardiff Airport. LOLZ.

2) Cardiff Central Train Station doesn't have a platform 5! BUT, it does have a platform 0! Weeeeeird.


In other news:

1) I saw my sister play a bully in a play, and made evil eyes at the girl who has been bullying her in real life. IIIIIIIrony. The little bitch wasn't scared to hold my stare though. She made me feel a little inadequate as a scary "defender" figure, but I felt better when two girls greeted me like a celebrity. "THE SISTER FROM LONDON". Sort of. I'll take it.

And Biz was amazing in the play. obvz. Front row, standard. PROUD.

2) I went to a book launch tonight of a photography book called Present that has my writing in it. I'ma start clawing my way up the alphabet now. I feel I'm somewhere around "X-List" in famous terms.

3) I'm too sleepy to write about any of these things properly. I'm all muggy like the morning sun. I have one of those milky sort of sheets that lingers somewhere between the sun and us before 9am and doesn't quite let it be officially daytime yet wrapped around my brain. It's quite nice actually.

4) It's good to have a keyboard with a working "Q". Queen. Quim. Quintuplets. Quizical. I feel a "Q" poem coming on.

5) ENOUGH.

Hanging Hannah

The artwork below is by Hannah King, and it was used as part of a magazine project by Ciara Ip. I wrote this piece to go with it.

My name is Hannah and I like to run with no shoes or socks on. Wooden floors are hard but have no secrets; you know where you are with a wooden floor. Grass is a bit slimy and sometimes has worms in it. I don't like worms, or grass really. Grass is a carpet you can't trust. Carpets are the most fun. I can curl my toes around the fluffy spluffs and grip them tightly. I don't think you would be able to pick me up with my feet gripped like that. My Mammy would think I was very heavy if she tried. If people put carpets on the ceiling, they would have no problem walking upside down if they gripped it with their toes just like I do.

I woke up one morning all squirmy, squirmy. I had been dreaming about the seaside, or I might have been remembering a visit I made one time with my Mammy. There had been a park near the beach and I had spun on the merry-go-round and slid down the slide. I did those two activities over and over again until I was bored. I don't have any brothers or sisters, so there was nobody to play with. The other children seemed wrapped up in their own games - pretending to be pirates or parents or shop owners. I listened to their conversations, closing my eyes and playing out their stories in my head. Soon everybody started to leave as the sun was setting, but my Mammy was having a little snooze on the park bench... so I decided to run! I wasn't trying to get away from anywhere, neither was I trying to go somewhere, but I needed to do it! I sped off towards the promenade, the wind from the sea blasting against my face and my feet barely touching the ground. Down the steps I went, trampling over the pebbles and slowing down as I reached the sand. And there I collapsed and remained still, gazing at the sea which shimmered under the setting sun, until my Mammy's arms blinded me. And then I woke up.

Mammy always does everything the same. She puts me in my high chair and feeds me lots of mushy from a bowl. It is really tasty porridge, and I put the jam from the middle all over my lips to decorate them. Then she dresses me. It is a normal day in 1990, or around about, and little baby me is just jumping on the bed, happy as Larry, while my Mammy tidies up the house. She pulls her hair back tightly so she can see everything. But she doesn't have eyes on the back of her head. She can't see me bouncing and I am bouncing very high. The blankets feel good under my feet, but the air feels even better. I like jumping just as much as I like running. There is a rushy, gushy feeling of freedom and flying. But when you are flying, things can move underneath you when you aren't looking. Sometimes things can move when you are looking too of course. But I'm not looking, and the whole world is moving! The bed is far behind me and I am soaring. Flying is better than running, there is space everywhere, and the air takes hold of me like it does a lost feather. But then I am falling, and my belly does big flips and I grab the curtain. The curtain is surprised and grabs me back, but I am caught and hanging from the rope and I don't know how it happened. I want to cry but my mouth won't let me breathe. The rope is really hurting my neck and my toes are going tingly and just when I feel like I am about to go to sleep...

... my Mammy comes back and sees that I am not on the bed anymore.

"Hannah!" she screeches, with a voice I have never heard her use before. She yells and it sounds like she has thousands of tiny animals inside her all screaming and trying to get out. She grabs me around the waist and yanks the rope away and then I am free and she is hugging me very tightly. Holding me up to her face, she shudders like she is scared of me. I start crying and my Mammy cries with me. She cuddles me and I can smell her and my neck stops hurting. She strokes my hair and my face and tells me that I am very naughty.

But she doesn't know that I was bouncing. Cheeky.

Oh, hello.

This seems like a jolly nice place to hide some ramblings and secrets and stories. I don't really understand this blog malarkey and I've never had one before, so I'm just going to use it as a pocket to keep some words in so they don't burst out of my face when my head gets too full.

My name is Catherine. I live in Kingston upon Thames, but I'm only here for two more weeks! I've just finished a degree in Creative Writing and Journalism and I'm waiting on a result which will decide whether I've got a First or a 2:1. Grim. To be honest though, I neither expect or deserve the First. It's not that I don't believe in my work, I just didn't really put the effort in that I should have. Aside from a few modules I never really got too excited about uni, but now that I don't have it I've started to become a scary kind of bored. I've got plenty to do, I write just as much as I used to, but I'm not a student any more. I've always needed something solid like that on the side to justify my hobby, but now I need to figure out how to turn the hobby into the solid thing.

I'm dreaming of New York. I went there at Christmas time in 2009, and I was stunned by it. You blink and the colours change. I wanted to know everything that was going on inside all those incredible buildings, and that impossibility just drew me in more. To work for a New York magazine would be the best situation I could possibly imagine myself in.

I couldn't stay there forever though. I have a vision of myself owning a shop in London that sells home-made cakes that are so good people come back for them again and again and again. Then, upstairs, is my room where I write. Seeing as I own a cake shop, I'm earning off my writing by this point. I am much older, in my forties perhaps, and I can't see who else is there with me. I'm definitely not alone though, which is reassuring as I'd go mental without people to talk to.

... but what about now? At the moment I see no chain of links or a list or instructions about how to do Real Life. I work in a cinema, I write features for a marketing website and I draw silly pictures in a big sketch book. I know I have the drive in me to do something when I really want to. I proved that to myself when I lost a lot of weight two years ago. I just need to figure out how I'm going to morph myself into an 8ft Pimm earning a bajillion pounds a day writing about a hamster with a passion for canoeing.

I guess I'll just keep on scribbling. I generally write little bursts of fiction, a few poems and occasionally dip into the book I've been trying to write since I was 16. I will draw and I will read and I will have a good summer at home in Wales. In September I will move to Brixton, which despite being terrifying should put me in a good place to find some journalism work so I can build up a portfolio and find a Real Job. And then go to New York. And own a cake shop. If I actually achieve all of these things I will run around very fast. I'm not sure where yet, but I will be naked. Yarp.