Hmmm... suspicious.
Generally, I'm not particularly observant, in fact, my parents once redecorated the kitchen and bought a new fridge whilst i was on holiday and it took me about a week to notice, but my father's recent strange behaviour has been totally impossible to miss.
Yesterday, when he came home from work, he kissed my mother (yuuuuck) then, as we were eating dinner, he said to my mother, for no apparent reason, "I love you , darling" AND he's just gone and bought her flowers.
This is:
a) very sick-making
b) not normal.
It's not like the hate eachother... ok, it's not like they hate eachother all of the time, but they've been married for 15 years, it's just not right.
Recently, I read Wilma Tenderfoot and The Case Of The Frozen Hearts by Emma Kennedy and from this, i know that i would make an amazing detective...
I put all the clues together and the first thing i thought was: He's probably having an affair.
And because i am rather indiscreet and had no better ideas, i asked him:
"Daddy, are you having an affair?"
His response was this:
"No, i don't have the time."
So, i crossed "having an affair" off of the list. then, to be honest, i was stuck, as "having an affair" was the only thing on the list.
Now i am stuck for ideas. It's still very suspicious behaviour... i mean, he bought her flowers!
_______
Apparently people can be divided up into "morning people" - those who enjoys mornings and "not morning people" - those who don't enjoy mornings.
I am not a morning person.
Actually, i'm not sure if i've ever met one of these "morning people". Do they exist?
I have managed to survive 5,409 mornings but in the last couple of months they have stopped being quite so horrible. You see, i've finally perfected a routine. My brain rarely need to actually start working until 9 o'clock, i thought i'd explain to you what happens every single weekday morning.
My alarm goes off at 6. It is a radio alarm, it's tuned to radio 2. I wake up at 8 minutes past six, i immediately turn the radio off and go back to sleep. I'm not really sure why i bother with that alarm.
At 6:50 my dad phones me. I leave my phone on my shelf above my computer before i go to sleep. I listen to it ring (it played the Big Bang Theory theme tune). Then he phones me again and i launch myself out of bed to answer it, usually smashing into a bookshelf, keyboard and wheelie chair on route.
Our conversation goes like this:
"Stephanie, are you out of bed?"
"Yes"
"Really?
"Yes"
"Ok, it's [insert day of the week] you need to remember your keys, phone, lunch money (latin folder, hockey stick, colouring pencils, pyjamas - depending on what day of the week it is)"
*short silence*
"Now, what is it you need to remember?"
"(repeats list of things to remember)"
"Good, now set to it"
*hangs up*
Then i get back into bed.
At 7o'clock i actually get up. My clothes are all set out and dress in about 2 minutes. If i'm feeling particularly cold/lazy i leave my pyjama top and shorts on underneath.
I sit and listen to the news on the radio then i wash my face and brush my teeth and stare at my face in the mirror for a while. I don't brush my hair.
I don't eat breakfast, it makes me throw up, but i stand in the kitchen for a bit thinking about making a cup of tea. Then i don't.
I pack my school bag, throw the cat out my room, close the windows and put a happy song on my iPod.
Then i wake my mother up. And say goodbye to her.
I put my shoes on and leave.
_______
I am 14, almost 15.
I like to think i know quite a lot of stuff.
Not everything, obviously, no one knows everything.
Not as much as someone who is 24, almost 25.
But still quite a lot.
The basics, you know, i can have a conversation without making a fool of myself (usually), i can pass tests and write a blog that a handful of people read.
I'd say i learnt about 30% of the stuff i know from school, the rest from books, TV, the internet, other people.
But there are gaping holes in my knowledge.
For example:
- chav speak. It come so naturally to the people around me yet i have no idea what they're on about. If you stumbled across me whilst surrounded by my peers you might think i were mute.
- how to deal with stuff. Mostly situations where my, or someone else's emotions sort of... take over. I just sit there, staring, completely frozen. In films people say comforting words, they hug eachother and everything is ok. It's physically impossible for me to move, my arms and legs turn to stone and though i can think of appropriate words to say, they refuse to come out of my mouth.
- why are people ticklish?
- why am i scared of certain words and why does thinking about people's toenails bending back at right angles make me feel sick?
_____
I am in Somerset. Yet again. I don't really like it here, i like seeing my family (well, most of them) and i enjoy the occasional trips to Bath or Exeter or Glastonbury but apart from that, i find it a little bit scary. Someone on twitter, i can't remember who, might have been @katcal, said to me a while ago "why are you scared of somerset, London's much scarier". It's really not! There are 7 and a half million people in London and just 912,900 in Somerset with an area about 8 times bigger than London.
When i'm here, i feel... claustrophobic. People know me, we can't go into Morrisons at 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning without bumping into several people my Grandparents want to have a conversation with whereas where i live, i can go shopping for a whole day without seeing one person i know. And i like that, it's nice, nobody constantly knows where you are and what you're doing, as strange as it sounds, with so many people, you have privacy. You can listen to your iPod and be nicely isolated for hours on end, never having to stop and speak to anyone.
Yesterday we walked into The Old Vicarage, i've mentioned it before, it's a lovely cafe/hotel where my grandparents hang out. We were greeted by Paul, the manager - "Morning Charlie, morning Jean, morning much talked about grandaughter". After going bright pink, we sat down and he brought us over our drinks. A cappuccino for my grandmother, a double espresso for my Grandad and a hot chocolate for me, "How did you know i wanted a hot chocolate?", "I remember your Grandad once mentioning you like hot chocolate". It was really nice, just... surprising. and a little worrying, these people who live hundreds of miles away from me get told things about me and REMEMBER them.
My Grandad's computer had a virus, which he mentioned to Paul whilst drinking his coffee, Paul recommended that he go to a computer shop in the high street, "there's a nerd in there, he knows everything about viruses", so off we went to the computer shop. I explained the problem to the humourless greasy haired nerd, who then turned to me and said "did Paul tell you to come here?" to which i replied "yes, who did you know?", "oh, he mentioned that Charlie's grandaughter was coming to stay, i assumed it must be you, i haven't seen you before" now THAT freaked me out.
Paul is gay. I have always known this because my grandparents always refer to him as "our gay friend Paul". It's not that they're against homosexuality, they're not, they just find it a little difficult to understand. Whereas a fair few people have made a point of not going to the cafe after finding this out. I find this attitude completely baffling and i think that this is what scares me most about the people round here. Of course i know one or two people who think that way who live near me but they're mostly just my mother's middle class friends. Other than that, i can't see a cafe owner's sexuality making a significant impact to business in London. Can you?
I was with one of my cousins the other day, he's a few months older than me and doesn't intend on staying at school for 6th form or going to university. We were talking about what he's going to do once he's left school when he revealed to me that for the last few years all he's wanted to do is be a chef. He'd only been brave enough to tell his dad a few months ago and his dad had laughed in his face, then told him it was a "gay" thing to want to do and that he should "get a trade, like a proper man". I thought that was sad, very sad.
It's not only homophobia but racism too, i'm not sure if it's intentional but it makes me feel very very awkward. There's very few people in this town who aren't white. Three of my cousins all go to different schools and in a discussion the other day revealed that they only know one black person, and she's the person who works in the Co-Op near their house. INSANE.
_____I am in Somerset. Yet again. I don't really like it here, i like seeing my family (well, most of them) and i enjoy the occasional trips to Bath or Exeter or Glastonbury but apart from that, i find it a little bit scary. Someone on twitter, i can't remember who, might have been @katcal, said to me a while ago "why are you scared of somerset, London's much scarier". It's really not! There are 7 and a half million people in London and just 912,900 in Somerset with an area about 8 times bigger than London.
When i'm here, i feel... claustrophobic. People know me, we can't go into Morrisons at 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning without bumping into several people my Grandparents want to have a conversation with whereas where i live, i can go shopping for a whole day without seeing one person i know. And i like that, it's nice, nobody constantly knows where you are and what you're doing, as strange as it sounds, with so many people, you have privacy. You can listen to your iPod and be nicely isolated for hours on end, never having to stop and speak to anyone.
Yesterday we walked into The Old Vicarage, i've mentioned it before, it's a lovely cafe/hotel where my grandparents hang out. We were greeted by Paul, the manager - "Morning Charlie, morning Jean, morning much talked about grandaughter". After going bright pink, we sat down and he brought us over our drinks. A cappuccino for my grandmother, a double espresso for my Grandad and a hot chocolate for me, "How did you know i wanted a hot chocolate?", "I remember your Grandad once mentioning you like hot chocolate". It was really nice, just... surprising. and a little worrying, these people who live hundreds of miles away from me get told things about me and REMEMBER them.
My Grandad's computer had a virus, which he mentioned to Paul whilst drinking his coffee, Paul recommended that he go to a computer shop in the high street, "there's a nerd in there, he knows everything about viruses", so off we went to the computer shop. I explained the problem to the humourless greasy haired nerd, who then turned to me and said "did Paul tell you to come here?" to which i replied "yes, who did you know?", "oh, he mentioned that Charlie's grandaughter was coming to stay, i assumed it must be you, i haven't seen you before" now THAT freaked me out.
Paul is gay. I have always known this because my grandparents always refer to him as "our gay friend Paul". It's not that they're against homosexuality, they're not, they just find it a little difficult to understand. Whereas a fair few people have made a point of not going to the cafe after finding this out. I find this attitude completely baffling and i think that this is what scares me most about the people round here. Of course i know one or two people who think that way who live near me but they're mostly just my mother's middle class friends. Other than that, i can't see a cafe owner's sexuality making a significant impact to business in London. Can you?
I was with one of my cousins the other day, he's a few months older than me and doesn't intend on staying at school for 6th form or going to university. We were talking about what he's going to do once he's left school when he revealed to me that for the last few years all he's wanted to do is be a chef. He'd only been brave enough to tell his dad a few months ago and his dad had laughed in his face, then told him it was a "gay" thing to want to do and that he should "get a trade, like a proper man". I thought that was sad, very sad.
It's not only homophobia but racism too, i'm not sure if it's intentional but it makes me feel very very awkward. There's very few people in this town who aren't white. Three of my cousins all go to different schools and in a discussion the other day revealed that they only know one black person, and she's the person who works in the Co-Op near their house. INSANE.
Do you know what i mean by a complicated situation? I'm not sure you do, they usually occur when the rest of the world fails to understand the unique thought process that lead to an action i took.
Like when a member of your family walks into the bathroom to discover you holding your own face into a sink full of water and automatically jumps to the conclusion that you're trying to drown yourself and demands you explain yourself.
I find that in a situation like this, it's best to start from the very beginning, or they'll just ask questions and it will get difficult.
It started when I was staring at my arm. I have a freckle, just above my elbow, i was sure it had moved. Anyway, I noticed I have very dry elbows, something I always have and, in an attempt to fix this problem, I went looking for some moisturiser. The moisturiser I usually use lives in the bathroom but it seems that someone left the lid off and there is now a muddy cat paw print in the middle of it. So I went to the cupboard to find some more but got distracted by a bottle of olbas oil....
