THIS IS A LIST #5

Guys, here is a shitty reason explaining why I haven't updated this blog in a while: on Valentine's Day this year, I had a date with a bottle of beer, The Simpsons, and some pizza (courtesy of my little brother, of course). It was supposed to be magical, and it was - up until the part where I decided it would be an awesome idea to balance my pizza slice and pot of garlic dip on the arm of the couch so that I could rest my laptop on my knees, therefore allowing me to do some googling and pizza-ing at the same time. I am also the clumsiest person in the world (this is probably shamefully close to not being hyperbole) and hadn't even really lifted the pizza from it's couch-arm base before the garlic sauce kind of tipped over and exploded all over the keyboard of my laptop. It was such a Peep Show moment: disgustingly predictable. Anyway, now most of the keys don't work unless I mash my hand down on them and do a little prayer, and the 'N' key is gone for good. I found this weird touch-screen keyboard on my desktop that I would like to think is some kind of emergency keyboard made for moments like these, but I've decided to go the old-fashioned route - mashing and copying 'n' pasting the letter 'N' from other websites. So far I'm still managing to spend most of my free time internetting, so I'd like to think that in this particular battle of (wo)man vs food, woman has won. I'm trying to write an entry about Neutral Milk Hotel and how they changed my life a few weeks ago at All Tomorrow's Parties, but I'm starting to get this weird claw from copying and pasting too much, so this is my stupid break. Seriously, I was so close to becoming this:

Anyway, today I went to work wearing the shirt I slept in because staying up until 4 a.m. watching Six Feet Under is probably a really bad idea if you have to wake up for work at 6 a.m. and don't want to resemble a zombie. Speaking of Six Feet Under, guys I am so completely obsessed with it - I mean, the main themes are death and dysfunction and fucked up surburbia, how could I not be? And I am also in love with Claire Fisher and kind of want to be her best friend and we can hang out and get high and talk about how stupid boys in high school are and also, Claire, maybe you could introduce me to your brother because it is almost weird how much I relate to Nate Fisher and I'm kind of in love with him and his weird way of talking and I know that I will die when he dies in season five, etc.

this is how I feel about everyone in the world ever, Claire

I see so much of my family, and my friends' families, in the Fishers. The whole aspect of repression and resentment and not having that perfect, harmonious, Walton-esque relationship that is so often televised is strangely comforting. What's also strangely comforting is how Six Feet Under manages to perfectly express the conflict and turmoil of being part of a family and feeling the pull of your own life taking you in one direction, and your loyalty and concept of 'family' desperately trying to cling on and pull you in another. I can see how loyalty would win, and that's what terrifies me - because the family you are from and the heritage and history you have and the class you were born in and the first street you lived down and the house you grew up in and the council estates you roamed around are all such a fucking huge part of you, of who you are. And to denounce your family, to move away from them and make your life your own, is somehow transformed by guilt into being less of a personal choice and more of a denouncement of your history, your class, your background. It seems to me that we just can't seperate the two, or figure out how to hold onto the past without letting it control and potentially ruin us. How many people end up living lives they never really wanted, because of this? That's something that's unbearable to me, and this might sound stupid but I think that's why I've always wanted to leave this town - because if I don't, it won't ever really be my life. I think I'm kinda talking in riddles now, who knows. Writing a blog entry when you're sleep deprived and pill-less is probably not an awesome idea.

Ruth Fisher manages to beautifully express how I feel 99.999999999999% of the time

When I think about this, though, it doesn't begin and end with family - it also makes me think about other things, like how my concept of my own unhappiness is so tied up in the fact that I'm back here, that I've been back here for almost two years now, that (to quote Morrissey, when the things he said were more poetic and less...troll-ish) this town has literally dragged me down. Is it really fair to blame your state of mind on something as simple and obvious as a place? I was unhappy in London, too. I guess the reason I blame Northampton as being the root - if not always the cause - of my unhappiness is because the alternative sort of terrifies me. I could move to Prague, to Montreal, to Berlin, to Amsterdam, to the other side of the world, and nothing could change. You can't run away from yourself. What if I finally get out of Northampton and find that the problem isn't where I am, but who I am? 
Also, like the best dude I know pointed out when we were hungover and giving our friend a tour of the Northampton bus station this weekend, we say we hate this town but we're also kind of obsessed with it. We talk about it all of the time, and most of all, we keep coming back. I guess everyone suffers from this weird kind of masochism - not being able to let go of the thing that you think is ruining you, because in a weird way, it's a huge part of you. Kind of like Chief Brody and Jaws, which probably isn't the greatest example, but I watched Jaws 2 the other day. Once again - how disgustingly predictable.