Posts (page 2)

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
In life...love, calm, quiet, enough money to not worry, time to travel, adventure.
A moment... Tone and I, doors locked, words, kisses, skin on skin, no time frame.

2. What is your greatest fear?
That I'll become so lazy/demotivated that I won't write and thus I'll lose the ability to do it well.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My ability to avoid the important things until they become unavoidable.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Presumption.

5. Which living person do you most admire?
I admire elements of lots of people's characters and lives.

6. What is your greatest extravagance?
Food, eating out or in. I spend most of our left over budget on food. I should be a lot 'bigger' than I am.

7. What is your current state of mind?
Hard working and determined (aswell as a little tired)

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
I agree with cori- physical beauty is highly overrated. Who cares what you look like? It's about the kind of person you are and the way you choose to live your life that matters.

9. On what occasion do you lie?
When I don't want to give everything away but feel trapped in to doing so.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
The bluish white hue of my skin.

11. Which living person do you most despise?
Despise is a harsh word. I really don't despise anyone.

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Being masculine without being chauvanistic or unemotional- the perfect amount of manliness.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Genuine friendliness. Inner strength.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Alright?
Aw bless...
It's stoopid.

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Tony.
Words.

16. When and where were you happiest?
So many times in the last four months of 2007, because of where I was, who I was with, the state of mind I was in, the potential, the peace, the beauty of the moments I'll never forget. Because of the way I felt.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?
To sing well.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My tendency towards laziness.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Having the courage to fix what was wrong. And persevering when things were at their worst.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A cat, a beautiful, sleek, graceful Persian blue.

21. Where would you most like to live?
Hawaii.

22. What is your most treasured possession?
The books in which I wrote my poetry. My holiday scrapbook. My laptop. A few precious books.

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Being unloved and unwanted.

24. What is your favorite occupation?
Teacher (I think it's one of the most worthwhile occupations in the world, despite my personal experiences).

25. What is your most marked characteristic?
My new-found ability to take it all in my stride and not get stressed with the little things. Being able to see the bigger picture.

26. What do you most value in your friends?
Taking me for who I am- flaws and everything- and not giving me too hard a time about my inadequacies. The ability to have fun and laugh. And dance like crazy people, just for fun.

27. Who are your favorite writers?
Jodi Picoult, Shakespeare, Sister Hazel, Sylvia Plath

What’s the hardest part about looking for a new job?
Sponsored by Monster.

Companies not acknowledging your application or not giving a closing date. How are people supposed to know if their application has even been received, let alone whether they've been successful enough to be shortlisted? The whole job-seeking scene is a waiting game that can be very, very frustrating. I've learnt this over the past 18 months. A courtesy email would decrease the frustration factor.

The feeling of being in love with Tony.

Singing loudly and badly with my sisters in the car.

The freedom of travelling.

Surprising my grandfather by picking him up from work.

A random night out with Katie in Swansea.

Breakfast with Mum the day Kelsey was born.

The humour of Craig's emails.

Tony's face when he looks at me through the windscreen glass as he picks me up outside work.

Christmas Eve 2007.

Sex.

Playing Beanie with Louise on holidays.

Niagara Falls.

Turkish Delight.

The feeling of contentment that follows a good book.

How are you financially planning for your future?
Presented by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow.

Ummm...I'm not. I'm just living from paycheck to paycheck. :-/

Sometimes, this guy is a genius.

The Inscription

"This is how I love. This is how I love. This is how I love.

Touching you, in case there comes a time I can't."

On Sunday, I had the worst hangover I can ever remember having. On Monday, I felt worse. Tuesday brought some relief from the high temperature and sleepiness of the previous day. But yesterday and today, I've just felt...weird. The only way I can explain it is by saying I feel... Heavy.

Everything about me is dragging me down. Physically. My head feels heavy. The front of my skull is being leaned on by an invisible thing. My head feels 'blocked' as a result. My chest feels like it's being pressed in. I struggle to breathe every now and then. This sensation coupled with the palpitations is interesting. My ears ping and the bridge of my nose is under some sort of pressure. It's sinuses, right? But it doesn't feel like sinus issues I've had before.

Big sigh. I wish it would go away. I wish somebody would just lift it off me (whatever 'it' is). Like I said, ill isn't what I feel; weird is the description. Kinda numb and listless and heavy and uch.

Back to work tomorrow though. My boss hasn't phoned today which makes me think she's pissed off with my sick day. That should be fun to deal with tomorrow. Urgh. Something else to add to the heaviness.

God I'm in a stinking mood. Got PMT much, Michelle? Um, yeah.

Sent from my iPhone

What's the last movie you saw in the theater? Rented?

Theatre: The Time Traveller's Wife
Rented: Casablanca

Liked the first; gave up with the second.

What's one thing you can't say no to?

Two things:

Tony and chocolate.

Not the film though. This hangover is all real. Believe me. I can feel every little pinch and twist of it.

Last night was good. Alcohol fuelled. Sambucca. Yum. Today, I am suffering with a real hangover. I'm usually lucky. I can drink lots and only ever feel tired and mildly hungover. This is possibly the culmination of all those escaped hangovers from years gone by.

I actually feel like I have full blown flu. I can't breathe properly; my nose is blocked and my chest is wheezy. My mouth is dry despite having drunk my own weight in liquid today. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is quenching this thirst. My head has gone from feeling like I've been punched in the back of the head to oh my god someone's tapping continuously inside my skull. Even my teeth hurt. Tony just opened a bag of crisps downstairs and it physically made me wince because every sound is amplified through the hangover haze. My chest muscles ache, as do my biceps and neck muscles. My heart keeps having mini palpitations. And my eyes won't stop watering. I look like I'm constantly crying.

It's hard to believe that alcohol is the cause of all this. Maybe I actually do have the flu. I guess we'll know tomorrow. Tune in then for the next installment of Michelle's Moans. It'll be equally as riveting, I'm sure. (insert hungover sarcastic smilie here).

Sent from my iPhone

I never thought the town in which I grew up, the town in which I still live, was affluent or picturesque or particularly spectacular. Okay, there are some wealthier areas and some beautiful spots to be found here. But, on the whole, it's pretty mediocre. It's slowly going down in my estimation though.

To gather a little extra cash, I've been delivering phone directories this week, mostly around my street and about two or so miles out. This hasn't been a nice experience, in all honesty. Some of the streets I've had to deliver to have been rundown, even poverty-stricken and delapidated. Some of the people have been, well, common, to say the least. And scary.

On the first day, I was told by a guy (who was drinking from a can of lager at ten am) that he didn't want any junk mail; when I informed him it was an information directory, he looked me straight in the eye and said with much venom "I don't want any fucking junk mail. Don't you dare put it in my letterbox." Needless to say, I did not post it in his letterbox. This left me kind of shaken for about ten minutes and I avoided any small, secluded streets for the rest of the day, saving them for when Tony would be with me. Today, during the five minutes Tony wasn't with me, a man opened his front door after I had delivered a brochure  through his letterbox, threw the brochure into the street and yelled "For fuck's sake!" for all to hear. When did it become acceptable to act this way or to speak to a complete stranger this way? I'd like to know when manners were taken from the "how to live in the 21st century" manual and replaced with swear words. I must have missed the memo on that one.

Now, we live in the middle of these wonderful (said with much sarcasm) streets. We rent. It's not been much of a problem really. We get the odd drunk passing the house in the early hours of mid week, a stranger or two who accidentally knocks on our door instead of next door's and annoying neighbours who take pleasure in parking their cars outside our house. But, all in all, it's not terrible. Last week though, we left our front door unlocked over night (something that, if I'm honest, happens every so often- we're only human after all) and, during the night, someone took the liberty of walking in through our unlocked front door, taking my purse from my handbag, along with the ten pounds that sat on the dining room table. We had slept through this, oblivious. The whole thing could have been a lot, lot worse. They could have taken the tv, the Xbox, the laptop, the car keys (and thus, the car), Tony's rugby season ticket or my diamond earrings that were on the table next to my bag; or they could have harmed us. In the grand scheme of things, the theft of an empty purse and and two five pound notes is not the end of the world.

But, some stranger still came in our house. They walked in through the front door, without our invitation, whilst we slept in our bed upstairs. Yes, we made a mistake; we left the door unlocked. But that does not give someone the right to just walk in to my house. When did that become ok? Along with bad language and anti-social behaviour, burglary and trespassing seem to be a common occurrence in this area at the moment. From what I can gather, we weren't the only house to have items taken from it during the weekend.

I sound like my great grandmother when I say this but I'm going to say it anyway. The world wasn't always like this. Only a decade or so ago, it was safe for kids to play in the street, people to leave their front doors open and their cars unlocked, one could walk up the street without a drunken stranger yelling obscenities at you and more importantly, one felt safe. Maybe I need to move to another area to retrieve that sense of security and safety. I'd like to find it again though.