partying like it's 2001
Dec. 3rd, 2011 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenYesterday I had a horrible morning (well, it involved being hauled into my supervisor's office to discuss the week's major fuck-up, let's put it like that) and a lot less horrible afternoon, and then I was just leaving work and realising I'd left my phone somewhere. So I turned around, went back up the stairs to my windowless third-floor office and my office phone. One of the associates, who is foul-mouthed and constantly exasperated and shouty and very, very kind, and was in his office drowning in papers because of a deed he'd said he'd do for my terrifying supervisor, said: "I swear to God I saw you turn off your computer and leave the building. For fuck's sake, do that."
I promised him I would. And when I finally did, I had a really nice evening:gavagai came to see me, and we sat in a pub and had dinner and drank mulled cider (lovely, hot, warming, doesn't taste remotely alcoholic) and then pink cocktails (Me: "So, there's this one that's basically sauvignon blanc dyed pink with raspberry Chambord." / Laura: "So, all of your favourite things?") and I don't remember an awful lot about what we talked about, but when we first went in the two people sitting at the table next to us were, from the content of their conversation, mildly-riled-up academic theologians. So they sat there and talked theology, and in the meantime in came this gang of guys who clearly had set the theme of the evening to be "wear your ugliest, most fabulous Christmas jumper". Our favourite was the jumper with the 3D snowflakes on the shoulder, and snowman with a pointy-carrot nose. And after a while I said, "I didn't think the Christmas-jumper guys knew the theologian-guys" - and it turned out they didn't. They merely wanted to drape themselves over total strangers and talk about Jesus.
Laura and I retreated into another corner of the pub, drank more cocktails and had the sort of conversation that starts with Serious Thoughts About Deep Space Nine and ends with you just saying, "Garak!" with jazz hands and laughing a lot. It was very lovely. And then I was too drunk, really, to cycle home, and piled self into taxi, and the driver volunteered to carry my bike as well as me, and I seem to remember advising him on how to amend his will. Ye gods. When I got home, Shim was grateful I had not been squished by a bus, seeing as my phone had been dutifully taking his messages on the bedside table where I left it.
The flaw in the plan, though. The flaw in the plan is that I am viciously sad. It's the job, of course. Three months in have already taken an eternity; and another eternity is not an alluring prospect. So I am trying to see as much daylight as possible, and drinking too much and feeling sad, that kind of sad that is not vaguely melancholic and romantic but just rubbish.
Nothing to be done about it, though. When is there ever.
There is an age meme, percolating.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
highfantastical gave me an age.
So, when I was 14:
I was dating: ahahaha, no. I did not date, at fourteen. It was on my radar, though, and I think I was worried about it; I was surrounded by people who did, and it really does give me a lot of comfort now that if anything in life is totally and utterly lacking in significance, it's who you're "dating" when you're fourteen.
I have a vague suspicion, though, that from a great distance I was tumbling towards the idea that I might not be, ah. Normal. At fourteen it's hard to articulate "The reason I am not so interested in fourteen-year-old dating and magazines because I am queer, bisexual, a little kinky, sex-positive and mad as a brush", but much easier to go with "I am not like the other girls". And of course I'm sure I wasn't those things at fourteen - the intervening period has been one of growth as well as articulation - but I think it's interesting that I knew something I knew not what.
I wanted to be: myself. Fourteen is a very interesting age to pick for this meme, because I remember it so very clearly as a turning point: at fourteen, I had a sense of self for the first time, I think, and I wanted to be myself but older, out of secondary school, away from the people I had grown up around. I had this persistent thought that once I got out of school, I wouldn't be a fundamentally different person but it would be much easier to be myself every day. And here's to you, fourteen-year-old me: you were quite right about that.
This is tied up, of course, with the fact I discovered organised fandom when I was fourteen, and for the first time hung out with people who were all over the world, who were older than me (but like me, in certain key ways) and who offered an alternative to the people I spent all my life around. I credit that with many things.
I was living: in the house my parents still live in, at Formby Point. We'd only been living there for three years at this point, and I was still excited at having a room of my own - I did, before, but it was a boxroom you couldn't actually spend much time in - and not moving around, and then after all that time without feeling at all grounded, here we were, living by the sea. I still love that house utterly; the house itself, the totally ridiculous setting with the wind, trees and water. It's a beautiful place that hasn't got less beautiful to me over time.
Now, it is 11pm on a Saturday and I am sitting on my lurid green couch under my lurid orange throw from Ikea. Fourteen-year-old me, you never knew life could get this cool, admit it.
I promised him I would. And when I finally did, I had a really nice evening:
gavagai came to see me, and we sat in a pub and had dinner and drank mulled cider (lovely, hot, warming, doesn't taste remotely alcoholic) and then pink cocktails (Me: "So, there's this one that's basically sauvignon blanc dyed pink with raspberry Chambord." / Laura: "So, all of your favourite things?") and I don't remember an awful lot about what we talked about, but when we first went in the two people sitting at the table next to us were, from the content of their conversation, mildly-riled-up academic theologians. So they sat there and talked theology, and in the meantime in came this gang of guys who clearly had set the theme of the evening to be "wear your ugliest, most fabulous Christmas jumper". Our favourite was the jumper with the 3D snowflakes on the shoulder, and snowman with a pointy-carrot nose. And after a while I said, "I didn't think the Christmas-jumper guys knew the theologian-guys" - and it turned out they didn't. They merely wanted to drape themselves over total strangers and talk about Jesus. Laura and I retreated into another corner of the pub, drank more cocktails and had the sort of conversation that starts with Serious Thoughts About Deep Space Nine and ends with you just saying, "Garak!" with jazz hands and laughing a lot. It was very lovely. And then I was too drunk, really, to cycle home, and piled self into taxi, and the driver volunteered to carry my bike as well as me, and I seem to remember advising him on how to amend his will. Ye gods. When I got home, Shim was grateful I had not been squished by a bus, seeing as my phone had been dutifully taking his messages on the bedside table where I left it.
The flaw in the plan, though. The flaw in the plan is that I am viciously sad. It's the job, of course. Three months in have already taken an eternity; and another eternity is not an alluring prospect. So I am trying to see as much daylight as possible, and drinking too much and feeling sad, that kind of sad that is not vaguely melancholic and romantic but just rubbish.
Nothing to be done about it, though. When is there ever.
There is an age meme, percolating.
highfantastical gave me an age.So, when I was 14:
I was dating: ahahaha, no. I did not date, at fourteen. It was on my radar, though, and I think I was worried about it; I was surrounded by people who did, and it really does give me a lot of comfort now that if anything in life is totally and utterly lacking in significance, it's who you're "dating" when you're fourteen.
I have a vague suspicion, though, that from a great distance I was tumbling towards the idea that I might not be, ah. Normal. At fourteen it's hard to articulate "The reason I am not so interested in fourteen-year-old dating and magazines because I am queer, bisexual, a little kinky, sex-positive and mad as a brush", but much easier to go with "I am not like the other girls". And of course I'm sure I wasn't those things at fourteen - the intervening period has been one of growth as well as articulation - but I think it's interesting that I knew something I knew not what.
I wanted to be: myself. Fourteen is a very interesting age to pick for this meme, because I remember it so very clearly as a turning point: at fourteen, I had a sense of self for the first time, I think, and I wanted to be myself but older, out of secondary school, away from the people I had grown up around. I had this persistent thought that once I got out of school, I wouldn't be a fundamentally different person but it would be much easier to be myself every day. And here's to you, fourteen-year-old me: you were quite right about that.
This is tied up, of course, with the fact I discovered organised fandom when I was fourteen, and for the first time hung out with people who were all over the world, who were older than me (but like me, in certain key ways) and who offered an alternative to the people I spent all my life around. I credit that with many things.
I was living: in the house my parents still live in, at Formby Point. We'd only been living there for three years at this point, and I was still excited at having a room of my own - I did, before, but it was a boxroom you couldn't actually spend much time in - and not moving around, and then after all that time without feeling at all grounded, here we were, living by the sea. I still love that house utterly; the house itself, the totally ridiculous setting with the wind, trees and water. It's a beautiful place that hasn't got less beautiful to me over time.
Now, it is 11pm on a Saturday and I am sitting on my lurid green couch under my lurid orange throw from Ikea. Fourteen-year-old me, you never knew life could get this cool, admit it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2011-12-03 11:08 pm (UTC)I'm so sorry you're sad (and that there's nothing to be done) but so happy you're living the life 14 year old you hoped you'd be living, in a way.
ETA: I really love the idea of that age meme, so if you feel like continuing it, feel free to give me a number.
no subject
on 2011-12-06 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-03 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-06 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
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on 2011-12-03 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
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on 2011-12-07 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-03 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-04 12:16 am (UTC)May I have an age for the age meme, please? :-)
no subject
on 2011-12-06 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-04 01:10 am (UTC)At least it's the weekend now? I hope you have a relaxing one.
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on 2011-12-06 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-04 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-06 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-04 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-06 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-12-04 10:31 pm (UTC)Blah, work. Blah being a grown up. Sad is rubbish.
foul-mouthed and constantly exasperated and shouty and very, very kind I love this description of a person. Such a good kind of person to have around.
Very responsible of you not to bicycle while drunk, too. Am glad you are not dead under a bus.
The person I was dating when I was fourteen was and still is hugely significant to me, but I know that's not common. We were also not exactly making a public display of being significant to each other then, for various reasons, though we were among the first in our community to come out. Fourteen is kind of an interesting, difficult, magical age.
Your parents' house sounds wonderful. I have a soft spot for anywhere by the sea.
no subject
on 2011-12-06 10:58 pm (UTC)