I'M NOT REALLY LIKE THIS, I'M PROBABLY PLIGHTLESS

"Perhaps they'd desired a lively take-charge type and I'd seemed dull, slow to get involved. It had started to worry me that if I wasn't careful my meekness could become a habit, a tic, something hardwired that my mannerisms would continue to express throughout my life regardless of my efforts - the way a drunk who, though on the wagon, still staggers and slurs like a drunk."
- A gate at the stairs, Lorrie Moore

IT'S ALL DISHONEST, ALL OF IT

"(...) My attitude has always been that you have to try to get through life, for as long as possible, without deliberately making things worse but, also, aware of the fact that you can't make anything better. In the end, there's probably no four-dimensional being watching us too see if we make the right choices. There is no judgement. You live your life and hope that you won't be involved in any wars and then what? It's all over and you become earth."

- PopCo, Scarlett Thomas

I'VE BEEN IN AND OUT OF HAPPINESS

PopCo is really good, but all the maths...There are so many codes and mathematical equations in it and I was always terrible at maths. See, a lot of people say that they're bad at maths but honestly, they've got nothing on me. I didn't even study the B course in Maths in school, which is mandatory but the teachers realised it was beyond me so I did a Psychology course instead. However, I do kinda like reading about it though. Know how to write a simple code now. Feels good that I understand something that has to do with numbers.

Haha, I found the first book in English I ever bought down in the basement today. It's called The story of Tracy Beaker and it's by Jacqueline Wilson. I think I bought it when I was around 9-10, in London. Never read it, but I was a bit obsessed with it anyway. Also remember I bought a NIKE sweater as well, which I can still wear. Weird. It's the same thing with this dress I wore when I was 9, it still fits perfectly. I mean, what the fuck? Has my body not changed at all in fucking 12 years? What's up with that? Anyway, I think that maybe I'll read the Jacqueline Wilson book. It might be fun.

Reading PopCo. It's awesome.

Finished reading The bell yesterday, trying to decide between PopCo by Scarlett Thomas and Lady Chatterley's lover by D.H. Lawrence right now.

I'm currently reading The bell by Iris Murdoch. The first two sentences could possibly be two of the best first sentences in the world:

"Dora Greenfield left her husband because she was afraid of him. She decided six months later to return to him for the same reason."

It's simple but good.

HELP HELP! HELP I FEEL LIFE COMING CLOSER

"I live for my work. I live for my work. I live only for my work. One day I will do work deserving of my talent & desire. One day. This I pledge. This I vow. I want you to love me for my work. But if you don't love me I can't continue my work. So please love me! - so I can continue my work. I am trapped here! I am trapped in this blond mannequin with the face. I can only breath through that face! Those nostrils! That mouth! Help me to be perfect. If God was in us, we would be perfect. God is not in us, we know this for we are not perfect. I don't want money & fame I want only to be perfect. The blond mannequin Monroe is me & is not me. She is not me. She is what I was born. Yes I want you to love her. So you will love me. Oh I want to love you! Where are you? I look, I look and there is no one there."

- Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates

PLEASE AGAIN DO WHATEVER YOU CAN DO TO PREVENT LARGE SCARS. THANKING YOU WITH ALL MY HEART.

"To love a man is not to know him but rather to not-know him. And to be loved by a man is to have succeded in creating the object of his love, which then must not be jeopardized."

- Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates

ALWAYS THERE IS A SCRIPT. BUT NOT ALWAYS KNOWN TO YOU.

Finished reading Lady Oracle two days ago, and decided to re-visit Joyce Carol Oates' Blonde. Stopped reading it back in December, but got back into it yesterday. It's so fucking amazing, what a fucking book! This is actually the first book I've read by Oates, unless you count her YA books back when I was 12-13, but Jesus Christ, it's good. My sister used to have an obsession with Marilyn Monroe and now I can see why. Can also see why all the critics loved it; it really does feel like you're in Marilyn Monroe's head.

PRESENCE OF MIND, FORESIGHT, THE TELLING OF WATERTIGHT LIES

"I planned my death carefully; unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it. My life had a tendency to spread, to get flabby, to scroll and festoon like the frame of a baroque mirror, which came from following the line of least resistence. I wanted my death, by contrast, to be neat and simple (...) At first I thought I'd managed it."
- Lady oracle, Margaret Atwood