Current mood:	busy
Current music:	Toy - Dreams

So Hollow . . .
Urgh . . .
I am going to have SO little time between now and the beginning of November. And I'm behind on this journal as it is.
I'll do my best to catch up now so at least I'm more or less up to date.
I finally got some temp work so now we can at least do a slightly better job of keeping our heads above water, although we'll be doing much better when Niccie get's some work as well.
The first one was at the hospital, working on the front desk in Audiology, dealing with old deaf people. It was actually great, great fun and I miss it terribly. I wish it could have lasted for more than just a week. Of course, it helped that I had SO much time on my hands that I got more actual creative work done than I do at home.
For more on that go over and take a look at my LiveJournal.
Haven't managed to get The Perfect Lie finished yet, and that kind of bites, but I'm sure it'll get done eventually.

So Hollow See the city streets around you So full of hope and loss. See the city streets surround you Teaming with all that was. Say: Good night Sleep tight And keep telling yourself everything's all right How can you sleep when your dreams are hollow? Trapped in yourself, seething with the sorrow. Scared of the night That holds you so tight And drains you life away. Dream of a world that's so cold around you So full of grief and pain Dream of a world that's so old without you So lost against the rain Say: Wake up Chin up Try and believe that we're all happy, close-up. How can you live when you life's so hollow? Pray for like there's no tomorrow. Lost in the night That tells you you're right To dream your life away At the end of the day you're still lost and alone Trapped in the city and so far from home How can you die when your death's so hollow? Thrown in the ground like it's all so shallow. Trapped in the night That holds you so tight As your life is drained away

I'm working non stop on Hollow Dreams at the moment, trying to get the database up and running before opening night on the 29th October. It's hard going, PHP is difficult in the extreme and it's going to take a lot of hard work before I get there. But hopefully I will get there. The radio station I'm in charge of for the chat, The London Underground is up and on the air. Niccie still needs to get the other one sorted, but at least I've done my bit, and it's sounding pretty good. I'm happy with it anyway. Speaking of Hollow Dreams, I was in the bath yesterday morning after getting 4 hours sleep, and got to thinking about how Hollow Dreams needs a theme tune. I mean, I was working on adapting and singing Lucifer Over London for City in Descent, although Adrian probably would have said something about us not needing one and it sucking. But I thought it was a good idea at the time. Much better than that Leonard Cohen track of his anyway. Anyhoo, after much thought, I couldn't think of anything that would suit Hollow Dreams. Annoying . . . Or at least it was until all these words started popping into my head. A couple of hours later, and with Niccie's help, I had the lyrics down, and a tune for the chorus recorded as a Wav file. I sent them to Jade and we're recording our very own song for Hollow Dreams. So Hollow is all the way down the side here, so feel free to read it. When it's recorded, which will probably be sometime this week, I'll post the link up here. I spent a good few hours on the phone to her last night and it's coming along really nicely. It's nice to see her so driven again. So enthusiastic and in her element. The song's gonna be great, I know it. I can feel it in my bones. She also sent me a whole bunch of her music that she's been promising me for months. I've got my fix, I'm happy. For now at least. I hope she realises how insatiable I am though, that she's going to have to keep giving me new music or I may have to hurt people.

I'm starting another job tomorrow. It's a month-long position in Caernarfon, working for a company that deal with hospital records. It's only part time, Mondays, Tuesdays and half a day Wednesday, but it's better than nothing. Much better than nothing in fact.
Niccie's mum's paid the rent three months in a row now. And they're sending us some shopping through TescoDirect today. I'm so incredibly grateful for them. My family wouldn't even sign a bit of paper to stop me from loosing my house (That's to Mel for doing that one, you're a star hun). Still, I don't want to have to rely on them much longer.

Urgh, I've just realised how long it's been since I've written in here and how much stuff I have to catch up on. I think I'm gonna be here a while.

When Niccie's parents came up, we went to Conwy Castle.
It was tipping with rain and freezing cold. But it didn't seem to dampen their spirits.
So we had hot tea and scones and jam and trekked around the castle in the pouring rain and all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. They've got such an enthusiastic, light-hearted attitude to life. Even his Dad who pretends to be all professional and business-like. He's not though. He's a riot when you get him going.
I'm so glad that we have them. So glad that I got the chance to try and get on with them again. They're both wonderful people really. They've helped us so much.
I wish Niccie would grab hold of some of that enthusiasm I see in his parents. He can be such a stick in the mud sometimes. Still, I suppose it's because he has so much to worry about. Maybe when we're more financially secure he'll be a lot more care-free about things.
Anyway, the castle. I was talking about the castle.
I fell in love with it. They had to almost drag me away.
And even then I made Niccie go back the next day so I could buy some books about it from the gift shop.

It was weird because usually I'm not bothered about things like that. To be honest, the last time they came up, and we went to Beumaris Castle, I was bored out of my skull. Something about Conwy was different though. It wasn't the false, plastic, perfectly cut grass and billboards like you get at Beumaris, it was wild and wet and crumbling. An ancient thing standing up high on the hill and staring down at the strange, twisted walls of the town below it. This is when I had an idea for a novel. I don't know whether I'll work with it or not, but it's worth putting in here just in case I look back on it at some point and decide it was a really good plan after all. It's basically the story of a group of Romantics, I think that the group consisted of a young man and his wife and her brother and serving girl, and another guy who's just tagging along for the ride. Set in the late 1700's or early 1800's I wanted to mirror the Shelley's trip to Geneva in 1816. Basically what that means is that they get incredibly high on opium and wander around all these ancient castles and abbeys having incredibly lucid visions. One of them was going to be about living in a monastery in the 1300's . . . That was about as far as I got with it, but I may pick it up and do some point and work with it.

Finally, here's one of the pictures of Tasha's wedding that got me in such a state the other day. I still don't know what the problem was then, why I just couldn't stop crying. I think it had something to do with suddenly realising that a part of my childhood was gone forever and there's never ever going to be any getting it back. More than that, it was a time when I was really happy, inspired and enthusiastic. The time in my life I spent roleplaying Vampire with Tasha and Kate was a good time for me. A good time in a childhood that was often very hard on me, filled with all sorts of angst and hurt. Realising that that is gone forever and is never coming back is horrible. And the only reason I have my suspicions that it may be that is because when Niccie suggested that, then it made me start crying all over again. I guess Tasha getting married and Kate having a baby has made me realise just how far they've passed from the people I knew 12 years ago, how much their lives have changed. The fact that the things that used to matter to them then don't matter any more. Or maybe they do. The thing about Kate calling her daughter Estelle really got to me, maybe because it makes me think that all that I was talking about has happened, that these times we spent together are long gone and we can never hold them again, and we all know it, and it hurts us all, and we're all looking back and missing and hurting and can't do anything about it. There's something very tragic and painful about that. I don't even want to think about the idea that Kate didn't call her baby Estelle because of the game, because of all the time we spent playing it, truly happy. That she did it because she just liked the name. I don't what to think about that. That will bite in a whole new and unpleasant way.

Anyway, that's about everything I'm going to say for now. I think I'm more or less up to date, or I hope I am.
Hopefully I won't get so far behind again. I probably will. But I'll deal with that when I get there I guess.