http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:MacDoherty&section=today deviantART RSS for by:MacDoherty en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:05:44 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/28494881/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/28494881/ Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:46:01 PST
I think a challenging MA is a fairly good excuse for my mostly-absence. I have completed a dissertation, a 14,000 word short story series that I have vague dreams of posting here, but it's such a lot to read. Moreover, I have lived and breathed it for such a long time that I think I need a cooling off period before I pick it up again. In lieu, please accept the occasional new stories and scraps I have shoved dup from time to time, including Snakehips, a story I started and finished this week alone, a surge of wilful creativity unseen for quite some time. Gosh!

There is not very much to say. I have participated in my first story reading, with "People Are Awful", which went very very well. "Blues" was published in exciting online arts magazine La Bouche. And, you know, Master's. With a bit of luck, before Christmas I should have my results and then I shall officially be your Master, and I EXPECT TO BE ADDRESSED AS SUCH.

(I didn't mean to type that last bit in capital letters, my computer has been badly misbehaving of late, but looking back, it is wildly appropriate, so it stays.)

I am still in London. It is exciting enough to hold my attention, and besides I have a lovely boy here still, and about as much chance of getting a job here than anywhere else (which is to say, nuh-uh, so let's say nothing at all). I have just returned for a God Help The Girl gig, where I spent quite a lot of time admiring Stevie Jackson's corderoy trousers and wondering if Belle and Sebastian have written a song for me yet. (I think - not sure - but I think "Photo Jenny" is about me. But I haven't managed to ask them so far.)

May all your puppies be cuddly and vivacious, but disinterested in attacking your shoes.

FYI, I'm tumbling sporadically: [link]

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/22223308/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/22223308/ Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:29:12 PST
I hope everybody's having a lovely Christmas. I have been fortunate enough to log back on and find I have a Daily Deviation for Arthur Nobody, which is about as lovely and unexpected a thrill as a thrill ever is. So all praise and wonderful things to ^lovetodeviate for being so kind and making me very happy. Hooray!

Also thank you to the people who have read and commented and stuff on my story. It's really sweet and I never think I'm capable to expressing how amazing it is to get any kind of a response to stories you have written. I have been exceptionally fortunate during my time at DA to have meet such lovely people who read and comment and advise and inspire me frequently, and their insight is invaluable.

Anyway, I'm blathering. My beloved is in New York right now. He has been my most adored partner for two and a half years now, and my best friend for many more. All my luck is down to him, I think.

I'm still in London, still surviving, still perspiring (mostly that last one), but I'm home now for Christmas for another week or so. It's very nice to be home, if only to remind me how my cooking pales in comparison to my mum's.

In class, they want us to write stories and make lots and lots of money, and change the stories so that more people will like them so that we make even more money. Which is silly, because it's not what writers should be doing. Writers should be making beautiful things. Writers should make art.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/20581456/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/20581456/ Sat, 20 Sep 2008 08:33:30 PDT
Well, I'm not going anywhere but I sort of am. I'm going to London town tomorrow to learn to be a writer, which is probably the riskiest thing I've ever done (aside from when I cross roads; I'm not very good at that but also know no fear). In fact, the greatest risks I've ever taken all centre around my search for personal happiness, and damn the eyes of all others. I guess other people get hurt, but I suppose everyone does anyway.

So anyway. I thought maybe I should write a little something here considering that this page and all you people who visit it have contributed massively to the direction my life has taken. I think if I'd put up a few pieces and no one had paid any attention I might have given up or just forgotten instead of giving writing an earnest go, which is what's happening now. So I think I'm trying to say thank you.

Hopefully I'll get internet access asap but who knows when that shall be. I'm having all types of anti-virus naughtiness but this isn't the time or place for this.

So I'll be in London, or sort of in London, or a bit outside of London, so really I'll be being frightened and confused by the tube map and stabbed and things, at least, that's what I've read. All sounds a bit exciting. I know where the zoo is and I think that's the main thing.

I had hoped to put a story up before I went but it needs redrafted and is also 28 pages long so perhaps not.

Anyway. Be happy and I shall return soon. I'm good at returning.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/19121128/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/19121128/ Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:32:00 PDT
New York was a good place. Let us say nothing that the only museum I attended belonged to Ripley's Believe It Or Not (such sacrifices are demanded when travelling with family) and instead focus on how good Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum was (they have a stuffed albino giraffe, gosh!). But yes, it was lovely.

And I'm just back from London as well. I had a nice time, met nice people, saw nice things. We went to the zoo again where I saw my tapir and my tiny tortoises. I also saw a sloth.

Sloths are funny things. I have a friend who hates them, repulsed by their inherent laziness. I read somewhere that if a sloth falls out of a tree and lands in a clearing, it'll just lie there and starve to death rather try to crawl back to a tree. I don't know whether that's true. Then my boyfriend wondered how the babies get born. Maybe the mother positions herself over a branch (because they're always upside down) or something. The one thing I know for sure is that I don't know nature.

I love pick'n'mixes. They're not confectionary, they're not treats, they are sweeties. Lots of sweeties. And I ate them on the bus back from Dublin last night, and there was licorice allsorts and those coconut egg nest things (that I don't know the name of but they sort of look like a nest) and razzles and jazzles and lots of flumps. I discovered recently that nobody knows what I mean when I say flumps, until I elaborate by shouting the words "MARSHMALLOW FUN TIME" then they get the general idea.

I'm going back to university to do a masters I can ill afford, but it's moving on. I might learn, I might be good. No sloth falling out of a tree am I.

I have 20,000 words of a novel that kind of isn't good, but that's okay because I also have 15,000 words of another novel that could be good if only I could think of how to begin it.

Hello. Anyone up for some marshmallow fun time?

Listen to the Monkees. They were much better than their reputation suggests.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/18001190/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/18001190/ Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:35:59 PDT
In truth, I wouldn't let myself come near this place until I had something new to submit, which would explain why I have a hideous backlog of unanswered comments to work through (I feel awful for not replying sooner, they were well-read and greatly appreciated, I'm constantly flattered and humbled that anyone takes the time to read the stuff I write and for that I thank you all), which I plan to do sooner rather than later.

I wish I could explain the things I've been doing since I last wrote. I haven't really. There's been little worth commenting on, to the extent that I'm considering lying. I'm a good liar, you see, but generally I don't like. Honestly, I've been dull and working. I've been wrapping myself in far-flung kisses and holding hands across the oceans. You know. The usual.

I have been haphazardly writing, by which I mean both the frequency of the writing and the standard of the work.

I have also been watching good good films - The Darjeeling Ltd, Une Femme Est Une Femme, My Favourite Year, Lars and the Real Girl. I liked There Will Be Blood maybe for the wrong reasons, but very much. I listened to songs and sang along loudly and out of tune.

I have also learnt that the popular internet catchphrase DIAF ("to find death within the flames") does not translate well to real life and instead makes you seem like a sociopath.

On Monday I go to New York for a week. Will I adore it? I hope so.

Thank you for being good people. I like you very much.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/13717714/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/13717714/ Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:46:10 PDT
Things I Should Be Doing but Am Not Doing:

1. Writing a CV.
2. Using aforementioned CV to apply for jobs.
3. Unpacking.
4. Repacking because I'm about to move house.
5. Digesting. My tummy hurts and I can't cook.

Good Things That Happened Lately:

1. Graduated with a good mark.
2. Getting one of my short stories published.
3. Number 2 is so good I'm going to have to repeated it in caps lock:

GETTING ONE OF MY SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED!

4. Wore nice shoes to the cinema last night.

I'm so, so happy about getting the story published. It shall be in BRAND magazine issue 1 if anyone's interested, but yes. I'm happy.

The real world is a scary place, but these days I think I'm ready for a challange. I'm also ready to go on some adventures. Anyone care to join me? We can wear pirate hats and skip on the grass.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/13029214/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/13029214/ Sun, 20 May 2007 18:00:36 PDT
I'm nearly done with the world, then I'm off to hibernate for the rest of the time/week/month/year/day, well, I'll see when it gets down to it. I have an exam very soon, and my revision is suffering due to my confusion between a documentary aesthetic and realism. There's a lot of crossover, so it's not totally down to my own stupidity, but half my notes are NOT ANSWERING THE QUESTION. Teachers used to write that on my book all the time. It's good, but it doesn't ANSWER THE QUESTION. Usually in red pen too, to burn the point into your mind. I close my eyes and I see red pen. I once had a teacher bring me up in front of the class with my workbook to show them how I couldn't write in a straight line. She used a ruler to demonstrate. But that's teachers for you.

University was different because the lecturers don't care, and I like it more that way. I'll like not being a student anymore. I don't understand people who talk up university and its means of cultural enrichment. I met a lot of people who were arrogant and pretentious and were undersecretary for the society of gender consolidation issues. There's an important place in society for people like that, and it's away from me.

I went to university to learn, and I did. I got a lot more out of it, lovely friends, lovely other people, I met the best people in the world here. I'd like to do that more.

I've been wanting to write for the first time in ages, but now I don't have time. I have to finish being a student and then go be a grown-up/bohemian something or other, and also I have to dry my hair.

I just listen to the music these days, that's all. I don't like listening to the lyrics anymore. Melancholy is still living.

Tomorrow I'm off for sushi with a Good Person. It will be Very Good.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/12341270/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/12341270/ Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:01:55 PDT
Not by doing anything practical by any means. Mainly spinning around in the spinny chair, trying to tidy my room in anticipation of house viewings. Wondering how I'll decorate my own home when I get it.

I'm very happy tonight, and not just because the work's done. I feel new. In minutes I'll be lying in bed looking at the moon through the skylight. It was the first nice weather day of the year. I wore a jacket outside all day and wasn't cold. I watched Raging Bull for class. Tomorrow it's Three Colours: Blue. I'd rather watch Belle du Jour again, but then I would.

Reading old e-mails is strange, I think. I've been eye-rolling my way through e-mails from old school "friends" (I attracted the type of angsty middle-class pathological liars that spend too much time online, you know the type, who would throw any real life trauma back in your face which is why you don't tell them anything of importance - I'm thankfully rid of that kind of parasite these days), and from old lovers and people I hardly know from when the internet was shiny and new to me...I'm not talking about progression here. It's more like a...I don't know. I don't recognise myself in the doormat who replied to them all. I couldn't do anything 'cause I hadn't got the noive, as the cowardly lion said. Sang, actually.

I've had some ideas but I haven't written them down. One of them's stolen from an episode of Family Guy I saw late last night.

I had a dream that involved a young Gerard Depardieu in Restoration dress finishing an outdoors gay sex session by ejaculating on the grass. I don't know what my position in the story was.

There was also a dream about me trying to get the Futureheads' autograph.

I have new glasses. I'm nearly done with fake life, and into the real world. It's scary, but I can't wait. Unless I flunk this year, but hopefully not. I don't think I can handle university housing anymore. It's very cold and we have spiders and slugs. If only I could cook them...or if only my local supermart sold aubergines, then we'd be in business.

I have a necklace that is a bird cage. It has birds on the floor and another swinging in a hoop. I wear it with a dress that has three cats staring up at them. It makes me feel like an installation.

I never write anything important or personal here. That's why I like it.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/12042880/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/12042880/ Sat, 03 Mar 2007 16:38:32 PST
Hello. It's been a long while, and although normally I wouldn't update unless I had a new piece to submit, and was in the mood to do so, frankly, it's been too long, and I was bored of seeing that old entry on the title page. That was a long sentence. Let's take a break.

Refreshed? Good. I haven't written anything, but I feel like something's going to come soon. I have a few ideas swimming about in my headplace and maybe they're getting ripe. I'm meant to be submitting for a magazine in a week, but they want something edgy, either in style or content, and my days of experimentation are long gone.

I turn fake twenty-one on the 25th of this month. I turn real twenty-one in April, but for reasons concerning my sister working abroad, and my mother's obsession with the fmaily being together to celebrate my birthday, I'm having a fake birthday soon. I'm quite upset by this. Firstly because I had no choice in the matter, and secondly because I don't want to be 21. Or a grown-up with a job (although that may not be a problem). I graduate this year too, with a bit of luck. And then to the real world, which is a prospect to keep me locked in my bedroom watching the Venture Bros on my laptop til dawn.

I'm frightened of getting old, or rather, the responsibilities that come with it. I'm terrible with money. I walk the streets alone at night. I'm thick as all-what. I mean, it'll be okay at the end of it all. I'm practical. But aging is a recurring them in my writing, along with pets dying and the word "vitriol" (an old favourite). I've been looking over a few pieces tonight. It's strange. The person who wrote them...it's not me, if you see what I mean. It's been a funny couple of years. But very much worth it.

And hell, if having a fake birthday is the worst thing that happens to me, I'm doing fine.

Modules passed, including the creative writing one, thank you very much. Thank you all for your critiques and suggestions. I found them invaluable, and so did my tutor apparently. I'm way behind on my reading and critiquing, which I hope to catch up on, and soon too.

I should be in bed. This has been an uninspiring entry. This is what happens when I try to force writing. Just imagine my livejournal. It's not a pretty sight.

There was a lunar eclipse tonight. It was very pretty. The moon looked red, and then disappeared. But then it came back, and all was well.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/11311652/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/11311652/ Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:11:39 PST
I changed my name by deed poll to Salvador Puppy, then to Jarvis Cocker. Both of those are lies.

Then I bought booties off the interweb, and they arrived three sizes too small. I'm very anxious as to whether they'll exchange them for me. They're gold and leopard print. Just like me. So you see, I was born to wear them. [link]

Dexy's Midnight Runners are more than just "Come On Eileen" gypsy fellers. "Geno" is a very good song.

But do you know what's better? Bow Wow Wow. Do I want to hold you, Annabelle Lwin [link] ? I think yes.

So, what's been happening in, what, three months? since my last post? Well, clearly my journals are sounding more and more like a muso-teenage girl who has discovered how to do links, and my grammar are fucked. But that's life. I'm not able to create profound thoughts before midnight, and it's not even 6pm.

Stuff I did:
Grew a moustache [link]
Shaved my moustache [link]

I still haven't done any writing, not, for a change, because I don't have any ideas, but rather because I'm not in the mood. I think I'm too stressed with essays and other stuff. That, and the fact that I keep staying up til 4am and sleeping past 1pm (which is sickening, I don't get anything done). Really, I'm just sitting around.

But things are good. Things are really good. I didn't do badly this year at all. I met Jackie, Lovefoxxx AND Fyfe. I fell deeply in love. I bought some nice shoes [link] . I learned that I really really like ricotta. Is ricotta what I'm thinking of? I don't know. Oh! and aubergines. I like those too. I really can't complain.

I have essays, and not my dream boots. But I'm really happy, when it gets down to it.

Hope the new year is treating you all well.

(Call it hate. Call it love. I, in the words of Serge Gainsbourg, call it art.)

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/10529145/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/10529145/ Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:00:28 PDT
Remember the back-spinal injury thing I had a few months ago? Well, it's back. It's at the irritating stage, but I fear it may soon reach the agony stage. Boo you, spine! I should stab you in the spine!

Yep.

Anyway, other stuff.

Firstly, I rewrote Arthur Nobody if anyone's bored enough to check it out. The reason is that it's my first submission for my creative writing course. It may mean that by Tuesday afternoon I shall be desolute because the class didn't enjoy the puns. I'll let you know how the retirement plans work out.

I got my hair cut for the first time in two and a half years (probably longer, but you get the general idea of that ballpark figure). My model was Lovefoxxx off of CSS [link] , and in truth it's nowhere near it, but I like it.

I like Hallowe'en so much more than any holiday. I think it was because my mother would buy much sweeties and not because I'm some goth kid who likes to dress up as the Crow. In fact, this year I'm dressing up as my beloved Louise Brooks [link] , I got a wig and everything, oooh exciting. Nice to look like dead icons. Of course, I look more like Clara Bow [link] , but fuck it.

Met my boyfriend's father for the first time this week. I managed to neither punch him or come on to him. I call this a success. Hooray! The first time I met my first boyfriend's mother, I happened to be straddling him on his bed (it was a circumstance thing, we were fully dressed and talking, but shit, there's no explaining away that position).

The best bands I've seen lately: 1990s, Guillemots, Maximo Park, The Pipettes, Dirty Pretty Things, The Long Blondes (TOP OF THE POPS), emmm...and some others that I don't recall at the moment. But soontime I'll be seeing CSS and hopefully the Young Knives ("tailors are the best..."). AND I met Fyfe Dangerfield and Jackie McKeown. Awesome. I'm a fangirl, not a groupie, there's a difference.

(It's hard, when writing in this headline style, to express how unexpressably happy I am these days. I honestly didn't believe people could be so happy. I'm beyond contentment. I want to shout from hilltops, but I want to keep it my secret. I smile to myself in the street.)

How are you all these days?

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/10164434/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/10164434/ Sat, 23 Sep 2006 17:19:29 PDT
I submitted something. And it was something I actually wanted to write (kinda). Hooray. Given that I have my first creative writing class on Tuesday, this is a massively good thing.

But anyway. I've been very down lately because I'm an awful judge of character and I manage to make friends who turn round one day and treat me like shit and not even notice. Nice one.

But then there's the outrageously good stuff that makes me live through it, like a warm take-away in the cold night air or a favourite song you haven't heard in ages coming on the radio, or being held by somebody you adore.

I'm back to university for final year, and am more concerned by the fact that I've started two paragraphs with "But". I'll push the nasty things to the back of my mind and try not to worry. I will worry, still, but it's my way. I'll just try not to make myself sick about it, but we all have our week moments.

My hair is wet, and these paragraphs are too short and make me uncomfortable. I'll celebrate instead, with Guillemots who I get to see live again, and for the first time since their album came out. I'll let you know if they open with "Who Left the Lights Off, Baby", or if they ask me to be their roadie, like in the dream I had.

I bought a Belle and Sebastian CD for quite cheap and feel happy. I have to renew my student bus pass and couldn't be arsed 'cause it means getting a new passport photo.

But shit, I think I can write again.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9999351/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9999351/ Thu, 07 Sep 2006 14:17:08 PDT
I know the rain is coming, and I know it will be a storm. But I don't know when. Clouds have been growing in the sky, and I keep hesitating about going outside in case I get caught up in it. Last summer I wandered down into my sleepy little town with a light cardigan and camisole top according to the splitting-weather. Suddenly it changed and I was too far from home and too far from town. I got drenched. I have never been so wet in my life. And I looked like I was naked. I looked like a fool, and a damned one at that. But I am damned, it seems.

Button, button, button, button

Needle, needle, needle, neddle

Cotton, cotton, cotton, cotton...


I'm not the workman of the week, I'll admit, or even the summer. With a bit of luck, I won't be working until next Friday, but I've got a feeling I said I'd do Sunday, and I don't want to. I'm on my week's holiday now (summer holiday that is, I'm very much about the tailend of the summer at the moment, it seems). Spent the day playing games with photographs. I never look the same way in pictures. It looks like x number of completely different women, granted, all with silly make-up and the crazed eyes of a serial killer, but none of them look like me, or at least what I imagine myself to look like. When I was younger, I looked very much like Clara Bow, in some lights.

Everything stays the same. Is there anything in this entry that I haven't mused about in past entries? I'm becoming very dull. I have eaten a lot of ice cream today, and lo, it was good.

I almost typed "and lo, it was food" there. I wish I hadn't changed it. It's a good pun. A pun that doesn't make sense, like that Killers song.

I do want to write. I have the word document open. I have a few ideas buzzing about my head. But then I want to scan photos onto my computer and then I want to rip CDs onto my nano, and then I want to lie down and sleep because I'm still recovering from three nights of camping and nearly twenty hours on buses, none of which I would change from the world, but, oh I don't know anymore. I'm just overheated, I promise you.

Right. Now I'm going to write.

Or maybe get some ice cream. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9830878/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9830878/ Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:23:29 PDT
But the real best thing in my life right now is Cansei de ser Sexy, for making the greatest song ever in the shape of Let's Make Love (and listen Death From Above) [link] want to marry this song. They're from Sao Paulo and sing in english so their parents won't realise they sing mainly about sex. And they're outstanding.

Now, you'll notice there that I was talking about music. What you perhaps did not realise is that it was in fact a cunning ruse to distract you from the fact that I haven't written anything in, well, months. I'm sorry. It was wrong and I do, I realise that. It was low-down, dirty wrong of me. I can only apologise.

But yeah. Not writing. I mean, I've mentioned that I've got pieces started, but actually sitting down? And furthering their development? Maybe a bit of editing even? Nope. I keep getting distracted by silly things, like youtube (which isn't working for me, the bastrix) and what I'm going to dress up as for Hallowe'en (I'm torn between Molly Ringwald in the Breakfast Club or Riff Randell from Rock n Roll High School, or perhaps David Hemmings in Blow-Up (I'll need a camera and some slacks)). The fact is, whenever I turn on the computer and sit down to continue working, I get distracted by checking e-mails, or abusing livejournal, or all those other stuff I already mentioned.

But I want you all to know that I'm trying.

Also, it is REALLY FUCKING ME OFF that I can't access my old journal entries. It says I have five pages worth of whinging, but I'm forever stuck on page one. Most frustrating. At least they've put the fucking titles under the deviations now, though I want my preview pictures back, I've got a really nice one ready for Tarantella when I finish it.

In other news, I got into the creative writing module (wheeee) and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who looked over submission pieces and gave advice. I really, really appreciate it, more than I can admit here without sounding utterly syncophantic, but seriously. I really appreciate it.

You should go down to Regina Spektor's official site and watch her videos. Fidelity in particular is lovely, also Us. Regina's one of the few artists who successfully melds her music and her image in her videos (another excellent example is Franz Ferdinand's This Fffire video). Performance videos are such a fucking waste of space, why do they bother if they're going to put no effort in? I hate that with a passion. But Regina's videos are just gorgeous to watch, I'm guessing she uses the same director for most of them. They are glorious to watch, regardless of what you think of her music.

Of course, if you don't like her music, you've got a piece of your soul missing.

(I'm somewhat of a music video...well, I'D say connoisseur, or aficionado, but perhaps obsessive is the more appropriate term, but you won't be laughing when I have my own series on BBC4 about the history of the music video. I'm planning it already.) ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9681552/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9681552/ Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:58:23 PDT
Or at least my attempts at romance, which are probably improper. I'm slowly writing again, despit ebeing more distracted by things in my private life. So I've been thinking about romance, and have started stories on polyandry (three people living together in a stable relationship with each other; wackiness ensues) and feminism (an idiot finds herself in a relationship with a misogynist and becomes besotted by a talker on the tellybox; wackiness ensues). So far, so unfinished, but hey it's me and I try not to finish what I start these days.

The new layout here frightens me. I'm just home from a simultaneously divine and ridiculous but mainly divine sojourn in Belfast (during which time my nearest city seemingly burnt to the ground escept for my place of work) and have internet access for the first time in five days after spending an entire summer spending five days on it at a time. Did that sentance make sense? Who knows. Perhaps you, and maybe you, but not you, because you only scan these things to get the general jist.

So, yeah. I'm struggling to get a handle, but it could as easily be the fact that I'm sleepy and generally computer illiterate. But I type at speed, so I win at life. What do I win? Points, perhaps. Or else...I could win you. I'd treat you well. I know how to cook pasta.

I assure you, I'm merely sleep-deprived and not high or drunk or in the throws of a stroke. I might go watch tv, it's hard to sleep these days.

Mood update for the week: Really, really, really, ridiculously happy.

Makes a nice change, don't it?

I did really want to go to the zoo though. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9428386/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9428386/ Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:43:49 PDT Futureheads prefect badges. I want one, partly because I love the Futureheads, and partly because I was never a prefect at school (stupid popularity contest). Damn my lack of credit card (though it's probably for the best).

Blah. Part of me is happy, and part of me is quite down and lonely. And another part of me is freaking out because I don't know how to use the shower in my new house and I won't be up anytime soon to check it out. Which, granted, is a strange thing to be concerned about, but I'm mental in those ways. It's displacement, worry not.

On the plus side, I've been having ideas for writing, but I'm just not writing them. Partly because I'm not, and please forgive the technical terminology I use here, feeling the stories. They don't speak to me like they should, and that contributes to the emptiness. Or maybe it's the fact that I'm already feeling quite empty that makes it hard to write. Hmmm. I think I've had a revelation. Stop feeling empty::heal world.

Or something.

It's too warm. It's so, so very warm. I mean, sweet Jesus what the fuck. I can't handle it. I want rain. I want to dance and sing melodies and conjour a downpour to cool me off. The heat breaks tonight, we're promised thunder. I live by the sea, thunder will come, tonight or not.

Until then, I must live through warm weather in my cold-weather clothes. I bought a plastic skirt off the interwebs. It arrived today, and it's strange. Debbie Harry is on it (don't worry, she's meant to be) and, well, it's plastic. And too short. I'll need alcohol to wear it (I wear many things under the influence of vodka; I'm okay with myself).

It's warm. I should write.

I have a cough. Everytime I exhale my throat catches and a pathetic "e-heh" emerges. It's really quite irritating. Phfft, life.

And Guillemots have been nominated for the Mercury. Yayee.

It's not all bad. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9345461/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9345461/ Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:15:22 PDT
It's pigeon Irish for listen to the music and adore. Well, the adore part isn't Irish. It's a phrase that thrills me, and I wish I remembered how to say it properly. At the same time, I'm not certain that it's wrong. Ignore me, I'm having a moment.

This past week or so I've been drifting, alternatively horribly and gloriously. I have glory in my life, but I shall come to that.

Suffice to say, in return for the glory, there's been heart wrenching pain, and I've been wholly alone. Now, I won't lie, there's other stuff in my life that's far too serious for me to throw away comments like lines from Beverly Hills 90210. I've been through worse in my life, but I simply don't consider myself a good enough writer or a coherent enough human being to attempt to express it with the stoic reverence it requires, so I don't write about it.

But this...uugh. It's been awful, but it's not going to haunt my dreams like the other stuff does. But as far as it goes, it's made me ill, it cripples me. I can't handle stuff like this. The context requires only a cursory glance over my entries on June the first and the second half of June the twenty-ninth to catch the gist, if you're astute. The two extremes of romance, if you will. And the first is the one that has blown back in my face somewhat, and quite rightly so, so I've bene told by strangers, friends and myself alike. And the seocnd is the one that's keeping me going.

I've quit and given up on fights and ran away with hardly my life intact before. And now it turns out I have something to fight for. Something I want enough to put up with the scorn and vitriol, not that it makes me feel any less like shit, and damn I wish I was more poetic so that I didn't have to write "like shit" there.

But the feeling that there is someone gunning for you, someone on your side, that's something amazing. Something I've never felt before. I feel like I could take beatings and spite and anything else they throw at me because I'm very fucking happy, thank you very much.

But enough of that. I risk becoming Austen-esque, and God knows that ain't right.

Things seem to be all right now, and that's a very strange feeling, because it happened so suddenly and without any action on my part. In fact, I'd readied myself with so much defensive hatred and now it's unrequired. And I'm happy, I am, but I still have an uneasy feeling that it will blow back in my face again.

But that's out of my control, and, in any case, I'll take the agony in return for the glory.

I'm suffering from writer's block, after a fairly prolific year. I don't even want to write - well, I do, but I can't bring myself to sit and do it. Which would all be fine except I have this creative writing module that's gonna need me to not be blocked. I haven't written anything of note, anything I remotely like since...Margot in Pieces. And that was in April. Shitbricks. Only two months to cure myself. It can be done, right? Eep. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9220225/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9220225/ Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:08:31 PDT twobefore-sunrise

Six strange things about myself:

1) I consider The Meaning of Life to be the superior Python film. Yes, including The Holy Grail. And the Life of Brian. And some parts of the tv series too.

2) I've started buying CD singles again, even for songs I've already downloaded or have on albums, and I don't know why. (and on that note, everyone in the UK should follow my lead and BUY GUILLEMOTS' NEW SINGLE MADE UP LOVE SONG # 43 BECAUSE IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE, a most beautiful song)

3) I can't straighten my little fingers on either hand. They make a perfectly charming hook shape that I use to frighten children.

4) My first crushes growing up were Mike Nesmith, Philip Schofield, and Snufkin, the bohemian traveller from the Moomins.

5) I've never cried watching a film. I have, however, cried reading a book. That book was Popcorn by Ben Elton. I think I was just so happy that it was over.

6) With very few exceptions, I hate it when food is mixed together. I don't know why. Mixed vegetables, salads, kebabs (well, I'm vegetarian, so that's a no anyway), they're all aberrations. Disgusting. Food should be served seperately on the plate, with a bit of space between each group, and then eaten in order of preference, least favourite to favourite. Usually, potatoes are eaten last.

I'm a mental, clearly.



****
And the second thing. you may have noticed some of my latest journal entries have been...sad, self-indulgent, just damned low. Well...

...it's over. I'm better. I'm happy, I'm really really happy. Any future journals that are whining about little things in university or work or whatever, just remember, ultimately, in the grand scheme, I'm really, insanely happy. Even moreso come September, but just...I'm so happy.

I'm so happy, I could exclaim.

! ! ! ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9098236/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/9098236/ Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:06:01 PDT
Apparantly, writing isn't working out for me. Bah. Stupid opposite of inspiration. I'm trying, dammit.

Went to see the remake of the Omen. It's funny how much London looks like the Czech Republic, down to the language on the shop signs. I never realised.

Trying to watch Goodbye Lenin, but my back is to the TV, I don't speak any German, and I've missed the first hour, so it's not really working out.

Still being inexplicably followed online by X, she's watching me here too.

I'm tired and I want to go to bed. But I also don't want to go to bed. Hmmm. I want to eat something.

This is an exhilerating insight into my mental processes, and how I can't spell exhilerating.

Whenever I work, I'm overwhelmed by the need to wash my hands. That place is filthy, and some people shouldn't be parents, especially if they think it's okay to hand you a tenner straight from their virus ridden offspring's MOUTH. Uck.

And I'm running out of time, to organise, much to do, much to do.
But...
...I think I'm okay, after everything that's happened recently. There's other stuff too, but I think I'm okay about that as well.

It's about as much as one can wish for, I suppose. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8986314/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8986314/ Tue, 06 Jun 2006 08:33:20 PDT
I want to write, but it's oh so hot. Normally I wouldn't complain, but now, when I'm indoors, with the window open but the breeze blowing the opposite direction, and feeling generally uninspired and NOT EVEN ONE ICE-LOLLY IN THE ENTIRE HOUSE, I'm a little frustrated.

There should be worthier things to do than to try and run down the battery on my nano while wishing I was watching "A Hard Day's Night" (but that would involve finding the dvd, turning on the tv, unplugging the aerial, plugging in the dvd player connecter thing in its place, setting it up, going to kitchen to get a cool drink, wandering around the kitchen for some time, looking for something to eat LIKE AN ICE-LOLLY, sullking when I don't find anything, coming back to find the dvd player has switched itself off because I've been wandering about for twenty minutes and anyway I didn't even put the dvd in because I'm an idiot).

Honestly, everthing's a fucking ordeal for me.

In other news, the stuff with the thing that I was wrapped in turmoil about in the last entry...well, on one side, it seems everything's going to be okay, in terms of friendships. The other, important side, I'm still unable to comment on, but I'll know by Friday, which is terrifying.

And I'm just trying not to think about it, as I have so much to do and I need to function (e.g. see paragraph #3).

I'm going to try to write.

But then I've been saying that since I was fifteen years old, so boo you.

I'm staying positive these days, appreciating the little things, and anticipating the big things (that mainly involve Venice). Now, to something... ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8894437/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8894437/ Sat, 27 May 2006 15:58:51 PDT
I should write something new, but I'm feeling uninspired, which doesn't bode well for a module where you submit something new each week.

Nonetheless, thanks in advance. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8865571/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8865571/ Wed, 24 May 2006 15:59:07 PDT
Tonight has been ups and downs, mainly due to myself, so I'll avoid my usual pseudo-intellectual musings (while a nation cries (not because of the lack of musings, regrettably, though that's not what I'll tell myself...)), and just...talk, if that's acceptable.

I am happy: Just been indulged with two clips from a Belle and Sebastan concert a few hundred miles away, and they were aurally splendid, and I'm thrilled. I've never seen them live, and I'm not likely to in the soontime (they are playing Electric Picnic, which is on a weekend, and therefore I cannot go 'cause I'm working, and am already taking the rest of September off to work on the film, so boo, and also, this goes in capitals for my pain, SPARKS ARE PLAYING AS WELL, man, Sparks and Belle and Sebastian? I'm sad, but this is the happy paragraph, so we'll skip this for a moment), so it was delightful.

"Box like houses where the girls like mouses..."

That's mouses as in mice, I'm not simply misspelling "mousse". That's crazy. Nobody likes mousse.

Also happiness is found in the new albums being released in the soontime: The Futureheads, Guillemots...

...okay, two albums being released in the soontime. Therefore, hurrah.

I am sad: Got an e-mail telling me that I didn't get into my sure-thing module for English as it was oversubscribed, so I'm now doing the second choice I put down, which I didn't really consider. It's Shakespeare on Screen and it's horrible. (That sentence made me sound like I'd regressed. I swear I'm trying to mature and practical about this. I've only cried twice, but that's mainly because I'm not getting the sympathy that neurotics like myself think I deserve. Ignore me, I'm prone to hysterics.) So I have to beg on Thursday to see if somehow they'll let me in, because a) I do Film Studies as well and I can't keep up with having to write about cinema in an English tone of voice (focussing on the content) and a Film tone of voice (focussing on the cinematic apparatus), they're going to assimilate, they're going to bleed into each other, and my essays are going to be bad, and I need to keep my marks up.

Also, it clashes with the creative writing module, which I don't know if I'm going to get into, and holy God, imagine the state I'd be in if it was that module I'd been rejected for...

So if the fucking miscreant doesn't let me do it (which is highly unlikely, can you imagine how many people he's going to have up to his office whining "oh please? Pleeeee-ase?"), I'm going to have to do some horrific Modernist module instead, which is slightly preferable to Shakespeare On Screen, and much more preferable to the other choices, but not very preferable at all, especially considering that I have had more trouble understanding Modernism than any other forms.

Bah.

I am also sad because my mother has diagnosed aforementioned leg pain as a problem with my cyatic nerve. Or sciaytic. Or one or other of those freaky spellings that the medical profession is so fond of. The big one that runs from mid-arse (if you'll forgive the vulgarity, it's my mum who works medically, not me, as is blatantly obvious) the whole way down the leg, which, granted, in someone as short as me isn't quite that far, but nonetheless. I'm having great difficulty getting out of bed in the morning (moreso than usual, at least) without screaming in pain. And sitting down, yeah, that's a bitch. I've pretty much spent the past four days standing. Which makes me lightheaded and cranky, because a lot of people have now noticed how short I am.

I've been forcing myself to write, and that results in horrible things. I don't think I've ever physically ripped up something I've written, I usually salvage them in case there's a line, a word, a curl of a "Y" that might be usuable. But nope, simply bilge. Le sigh. But I want to write. I'm just uninspired lately, and with exams and stuff, I'm so, so stressed, more than I should be, but I'm so highly strung I'm practically one of those little yip-yappie dogs that can't walk the length of themselves without having a coronery from outrage.

Nope, large dogs are the way to go. Labradors, or boxers, but mutts are best. There used to be this Irish Setter up the road from us, it was about eighty and still acted like a puppy. It was called Ructions, which is hilariously suitable. It got knocked down pretty much twice-weekly, and permanantly had stiches on its snout. And it would always come just bounding towards anyone who walked down the road, that was a great dog. Bigger dogs get a bad rep. They're so docile.

Wow, that was one deviation I didn't really expect. Umm...sorry.

Anyways, I'm sorry to just indulge myself in self-pity here. I'm awful sychophantic towards myself, don't ya... ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8847767/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8847767/ Mon, 22 May 2006 18:08:55 PDT
I've just finsihed all my essays for the foreseeable future, after an entire afternoon of my laptop (Windows Medieval) refusing to turn on, or off. Don't ask me how it managed to refuse both at the same time, but it did.

Anyways.

This will become a proper entry in times to come. But not now times. Now times involve handing in essays, photocopying informartion about Rebel Without A Cause, pretending I'm not watching Big Brother (you can't prove anything), having my mind appropriately blown by the Eurovision and vodka (together at last), studying for film studies, getting all packed up for my new home and the like, trying to get accomadated for three hooray!eee days in Venice, and other stuff.

Til then, I love you all.

And I have a trapped nerve in my left leg, so everytime I move I'm in AGONY.

But I'm still lovely, clearly.

And essays = finished. And then I got to have a take away with my best girl. Yum. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8694616/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8694616/ Sat, 06 May 2006 20:02:27 PDT
But I'll let the last entry lie, for whatever juices or memories I may glean from it in times to come.

"Remember that day I was in that odd mood?"
"Oh yeah."
"Wow, there's the entry I wrote. Goodness, I do indulge myself from time to time."
"I keep telling you that."
"Better than all the time, I suppose."
"Certainly, but next time, do it more quietly."

Anyways. I was at a staff do tonight, because one of the finest, most upstanding members of staff was leaving after four years to get a real job. Good on her, though the place is going to fall to pieces without her. In a year and a half, if the plan goes to, well, plan, I'll be leaving to, and moving to some city. I can't decide which. It was going to be London for the longest time, but then I remember how expensive London is, and how poor I am (I was meant to go to uni there, but couldn't afford it. Sunny, sunny Belfast has treated me well, though, so hurrahs all round. Good work, everybody ("hooray").), so I'm slowly deciding between places like Glasgow, or Leeds, or Aberyswyth (which I imagine I'd have to learn to spell before they'd let me live there), although the latter implies an academic plan that I in reality wish to postpone for a year of city life (me am librarian man! Me alphabetise woo-woot!*).

Hmmm. The point of that story is that someone managed to fall, full force onto the corner of a concrete statue, with my arm in the way, thereby bending the bone in a way that it generally doesn't like to be bent. It's swelling steadily as I speak, and so I'm a pit of self-indulgent self-sympathy (it's me, I'm whining. I never imagine people read these things, so I do over-indulge myself, for which I can only apologise to anyone who does take the time to read this). I wouldn't mind so much, but my mother, a radiographer for...almost twenty-five years, if my maths skills do me good, and frankly, they don't, diagnosed me with repetitive strain disorder in the same arm that was almost snapped tonight. And I have exams in two weeks. (To be fair, I had convinced myself that I had arthritis, so she may have said that to shut me up. My arm does tell me when it's going to rain, though. But I live in Ireland, so it's not exactly hard. It rains more or less 90% of the time.)

Really, I'm writing this to remove the last entry from my sight. It's not thrilling, I know. But it's four a.m and I have things to do tomorrow, like religious ceremony and being severely hungover in work, and travelling for two hours, and not doing any work for university. My schedule is so filled, I frighten myself.

And now, I shall sing a section from "Art Star" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to sooth you all to your rest:

"Do do do do do do DO dodo, do do do do do do DO dodo..."

*I always wonder why in my glib comments I often catagorise myself as a male. Perhaps if I was a post-feminist, I would blame society. As it is, I just really want someone to call me sir and mean it. I am a creature of whim, as is blindingly obvious. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8684283/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8684283/ Fri, 05 May 2006 17:41:23 PDT
Really. It's late at night and I've just spelt "here" wrong. (I corrected it.)

But here I am.

Goodness, what a lousy start to an entry. Perhaps the fact that I have another entry to write after this one is preying on my mind, considering I take so long to write these things. I should really give it up, but my arrogance usually wins through.

See? Like there, I was away trying to find lyrics to the Chalets because somebody burned me a CD but the track listing's all messed up, and I know nobody cares.

Anyway, it's been an odd week. And an odder day, in fact. There's silly stuff with my work and frightening stuff with my dad and wonderful stuff with letters from Venice...

...and then there's the thing that's confusing me. I got a phonecall in a morning sleep-thrilled stupor saying that I'd come third in a short story competition, with a story posted here that has been largely shunned for being flat and frankly unreadable. I'm confused. I should be happy (there's other reasons why I'm apprehensive which I'll come to...) but I'm just...confused and bemused and other words that rhyme. "Bella..." was always a piece I loved, that I thought had something that lifted it above my other writing...but then some comments came and I read it again and it was...shite. Frankly. I suddenly hated it, embarrassed that I had no sense of artistic control and allowed myself to indulge my whimsical side in something like this. But by then it was too late and I had entered the competition, and it was done. Humiliation complete.

But now...it's the first time I've ever won something for short stories. I've won silly childish competitions for poetry and stuff, but never for prose, so I should be unbearable with pride. I should have tears running down my face at the silent confirmation at what I have been dreaming about for years - that maybe I've found something that I'm really, genuinely good at. People read what I write and they like enough to give me cheques. That I could, shock, horror, make a career out of doing something I adore (pipe dreams, for sure, but I'm prone to such fantasies). But because I've spent so long being convinced that "Bella..." is simply schlock, that I'll never prove more than an amateur with a nice turn of phrase (I subscribe to the school of thought that a bad writer can become a good writer, but a good writer can never become a great writer), that I'm just utterly bewildered by the victory. I don't like it, I can't enjoy it, are the judges the fools or am I?

Christ, it's insane. I am. At this point, I wish to emphasise that I'm not writing this because I want comments of congratulations, nor do I wish endless fawning from people who know the truth but are too nice to admit it, and instead say "Oh, but you *are* good..." I'm only writing this because I need to say it, I need to empty it from my head so I can go on with my life.

I'm not proud of myself. I feel utterly desolute. I did the Big Thing and told my mother about it. She laughed. She wants these notions to vanish from my immature mind. It's nice you have a hobby, but you should have a realistic plan.

She wanted me to be a lawyer. She asked me when I got my results whether I could change my university course to something she wouldn't be embarrassed to tell her friends about. She's finally realised that I'm not going to be a teacher. Now she wants me to be a lecturer. I think she's missing the point. I wouldn't be the vaguely well-adjusted person I am today if my education hadn't been so wonderful. I have had teachers and lecturers who have inspired me, supported me...I know I could never be that person to a student like myself. I would stifle them, and lose their coursework. I couldn't handle that responsibility. I am not the person you want shaping your young child's future, believe me.

But to be inspired...it's the most amazing thing, the most amazing feeling. You read a word, a sentence, one redeeming feature of a horrible film, reading someone's work on this website, letters from a friend, even the idea of somebody twice as wonderful as you could ever hope to be. A strain of music, how your tongue feels when it's burnt. A phrase that appears in your head. Something odd happening...

...and then you think, I could use that...

Yes. I want to be inspired. I, however, cannot inspire.

I'm sorry for this. You nice people who give me your attention deserve better than this, but I admit, I'm in a ponderous mood tonight. Goodnight, as Bernard Levin I'm sure said once. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8460859/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8460859/ Thu, 13 Apr 2006 16:14:05 PDT
I sit before you with very wet hair. It curls at the ends, and at the top, but nowhere in between. The red dye fades even more, and I'm more little Jimmy Crankee than Rita Hayworth (story of my life, although on the plus side I look super snazzy in a school uniform...back in the day). My hands smell like that water smell that reminds me of swimming lessons in the local pool, which causes me to worry why there seems to be chlorine coming from my shower. No matter.

The problem with late night showers is that I can't go to bed until my hair is dry, and my hair is long. My hair is long in italics, and so it doesn't dry at any speed. Sometimes it doesn't dry at all, and I lay my head back at night and feel tendrils of if not ice then certainly something very cold, like a child's tiny moist hand straining through my skull. And that, sirs, is not a nice feeling.

I want to be called sir the same way I want to play Mephistopheles in a production of Marlowe's Dr Faustus.

But I like the night time. I've said this repeatedly, not only in the real world, but I believe in this journal. Even in my shakey attempts at writing, even in every word I think, I love night. I don't want to see things in daylight. Daylight is full of bad tv where people have to be polite and conceal what they really think and not swear. Real things come out in the night time. I know what people think at night, whether they're wandering the streets hiding from a constant moon, or beating strangers because they feel like it, or naked for the sake of titillating, anything just to feel...I know what the people of night think. People in daytime, they wander around Tescos and try not to bump into people on the street. I don't know what they think. They could be just as easily thinking about machetes slashing as the trimming of a hairdresser's scissors.

But the problem is, I have stuff to do during the day, and my endlessly consuming desire to stay up late and write or watch the fools walk the streets or watch late night TV and discover hidden gems of films that no one has seen in years, well, that kind of desire is difficult to beat. I aim to be in bed by 12am (a reasonable hour in my little head), but I never am. And if I'm not in bed til 4am, well osh gosh be-gosh, I'm not up until after 12pm. And that's just silly time.

The thing is, if I decided to wash my hair in the morning instead of tonight, I'd still be sitting here at 3am, and oversleep, and my hair would be unwashed. And God knows, nobody wants that.

I'm twenty years old and two days now. That's quite frightening, not so much for me, but for society.

Submitted the first part of "Tarantella" to scraps. I wouldn't bother if I were you.



(Think yourselves lucky, this was originally going to be a rant on why I think my housemates hate me, and why it's okay for a story not to have a plot, but I turned out to be in an unseasonably good mood. Hooray, exclamation mark.) ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8336176/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8336176/ Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:58:29 PST
...and I'm so tired...

Well, it's not that late, it's not even 2am, but that's not the point. The point is I was up so late last night, I slept in til 2pm today. Yes, sir, I haven't even been conscious for 12 hours. I completely wasted my weekend off work til August by being unconscious. That's not a good thing. I'm a fool, a damned, dirty fool.

I hate that I'm more productive post-midnight. It's really not healthy, although the fact that I'm productive at all should be celebrated. I've written more since Summer 2005 than I have in the previous eighteen years of my life, so I should be grateful...

...but then again, I should also be asleep.

What's worse, I haven't properly read a book in ages. Aside from university (I do an English degree, but I really only scan the books, because they're generally awful), my reading's completely veered off the right path. The last book I finished was...a lot more recently than I give myself credit for, well, February anyway, but it was about porn and repressed Catholic girls like myself don't really want to trumpet that sort of thing about. I mean, I've started books, but I get distracted. I used to read on buses and in stations (I still do a lot of travelling back and forth between two cities, each marginally worse than the other), but recently I've fallen in love with music, and endlessly have headphones in, lost in words and sounds and performances in my head. I wish I was reading more. I certainly buy enough books, but they lie untouched for months. It makes me sad.

A Franz Ferdinand concert is on the TV, Glasgow, September/October time if my obsessive nature recalls correctly. Around the new album's release anyway. The sound is down too low for me to make out the songs (the rest of my family are asleep), but Alex is saying something. I'm sure it's witty and deleriously charming.

Hmmm...actually, it was the opening of "Jacqueline". Ivor Cutler, the 'Ivor' in that song, died recently. Not that that's related to anything, but I thought I'd mention that.

I hate the way people are two-faced. That's not related to anything either, but it's a foible that's been preying on my nerves for weeks. I know a girl who's very strange in her two-facedness. Her friend hates me, I dont' especially love her friend. Yet the girl is a complete delight to me. Or else, she's making snide remarks about my weight and how I look (she doesn't know me well, else she'd realise that after ten years of similar bullying I tend to let slights of a physical nature roll off me). When she's with her friend she blanks me. When she's with me, and this is the odd part, she blanks her friend, and her friend blanks her back. I've never seen that before. Normally they like to come over and gang up and rub your face in how good friends they are and how they're so wonderful and how you're shit, but...no. It's strange. And sometimes I think I like this girl, because when she's being nice, she's being soooo nice. And then she'll do something, and I'll remember how two-faced she is. It's silly, and I'm too old to be getting caught up in all this.

Old and getting older. It's a strange feeling. That was a strange rant. I didn't realise I was in the mood for a rant. How strange. Things are strange, blah blah.

Well, this isn't getting my story finished, or any sleeping done. It's just bloody typical, you know.

But nevertheless. Good night to you all.


ETA: April 2nd, 10.12pm, "Death is the Shaman" completed. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8200084/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/8200084/ Sat, 18 Mar 2006 17:40:44 PST
That's an untruth. If I were me, I'd be doing this essay that lies forlornly minimised before me in a sparse word document. It is my shame. For some, a child at a too-early age. For me, not doing my essay.

I have no real excuse, but I'll try. It's too hard. It's all too hard at the moment, and I just want to sleep. I haven't even managed to read through my notes for it. It is my shame. Anyone fancy doing it for me? It would be easier for somebody with a level head, but I'm lacking.

It gets very lonely where I am. I want to be spoken to. I want to rhapsodise about things I love with someone who loves them too on a warm night on a grassy hill.

Alas. It's lonliness, word documents and TVs in the background for me.

Rather, I spent the night submitting scraps to dA. I want to write, but I'll feel guilty about the essay, so I deprive myself. Instead, I throw in bits and pieces of things I love and hope that will relieve me. They are there if anyone cares, but it's nothing special. Only out of habit, I suppose.

Somebody told me they loved me this week. It's a first, it was strange, but I didn't recoil. Hurrahs all round.

I've gotten very tired of university and the people I know there. The people I care about I hardly get to see, and the ones that leave me cold are everyday intrusions into my unquiet life.

So it goes, I suppose. I want a quiet week, but I have to scream in a negligee for a film. If you don't understand, you don't want to know.

Anyways. Modernism. And Victorianism. It's all a bit of craic really. I would however much rather be finishing the story about Camille and what happened when she died.

If I were you, I'd stop reading.

This, I mean, not reading in general. That would be a shame. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/7669693/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/7669693/ Sat, 21 Jan 2006 18:43:41 PST
I'd politely disagree. The night belongs to loners, those who lie awake for the midnight hours so they don't have to watch those adored few adore their adorers back. The night is for the people who want to avoid those who love the day to avoid those who love the day.

Let the lovers have the daytime. We will have the night.

In other news, I was tired of that last, downbeat entry, and so, at 2.39 am, I decided to write this new, dizzily sleepy but rather jovial in comparison, piece. I trust it is adored by all.

Happy happy happy. I may accidentally be in a short film on Tuesday. I'm overcome by the ominous aspects of this story, but don't wish to ponder on them.

Night all. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/7347774/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/7347774/ Sun, 18 Dec 2005 17:34:11 PST
I should be able to think of another word for dialogue to make the above less...blaaargh, but my mind's a blank. Moreso than usual.

The story is at the moment called Tarantella.

Can I write a story set in and mostly about Glasgow without any knowledge of the city? It may be a problem. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/7151259/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/7151259/ Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:55:46 PST
I think of all the good things in my life, and I wonder why I get so low. I think it's because they never coincide. If I'm happy in my relationship, my friends are annoying me. If I'm happy with them, I'm being drowned by college work. If I'm on top of things there, my job's destroying me. If I've had a rare good day in work, I've probably been crying over my relationship. I never have one good day where everything seems to be all right.

I could take it in easy doses, a day where it all goes right, a day where it all goes wrong. I overdramatise at the best of times, and let's face it, a bad day's a bad day, whether one thing's gone wrong or a thousand. It's still going to make you feel horrible if your watch has been stolen by the neds in your job (true story), or if you've just been fired, dumped, and beaten into smithereens within a three hour period. Aside from drastic events like illness and death, the petty things that make you miserable wouldn't make you any more miserable if it all happened at once. So let that happen, and then I'll get over it and have a really really really good day.

I would give anything for a 3x really good day.

The above may make no sense, and for that I apologise. I'm trying to write an essay on Communist philosophies vs Soviet filmmaking of the 1927 anniversary, and I haven't even began my research. The paragraphs above are a prime example of the fuzzy logic that clouds my writing style. This is way I languish always, permanantly at the 63 mark. Oh, for the days of 75s! I really want a first at university. My degree means shit, but I want people to think I'm smart. I'm not, but I don't have a whole lot going for me, bar my skills in self-delusion. Hooray!

In work today, I wrote a symphony. Things were coming into my head that made me laugh out loud, I was creative in the fitting rooms, explosive by the tills, I wrote a rhapsody by customer services. However, I lacked a pen, paper, and a good memory, so it's all gone. I can only apologise that I have no new writing to offer, unless you want an extract from my essay for retribution:

"Question Four: Engage critically with the constructivist theorist Alexei Gan’s contention that ‘film which demonstrates real life in a documentary manner – not theatrical film playing at life – that is what the new cinematic production should be’ with reference to appropriate films you have viewed during the module.

Answer: October vs The End of St Petersburg and The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty?


‘Foreign cinema dominated the Soviet market of the Twenties’ – p55 Pudovkin and the Classic Hollywood tradition, Vance Kepley jr"

This is why I'm not getting a first class degree. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/7006703/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/7006703/ Thu, 10 Nov 2005 07:14:56 PST
Anyone who's been a deviant longer than I have a clue what just happened?

...help?

ETA: I notice I'm subscribed for a week. Was there some kind of raffle that I missed? Was it something to do with that guy with the tombola in the street earlier? This is most perplexing. Quite cool, but perplexing.

]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6980652/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6980652/ Mon, 07 Nov 2005 12:21:03 PST
Anyways, I have nothing more to add, so I'm just going to go and teach myself how to play the piano on my brother's twelve year old Casio keyboard. There's no way that couldn't end well.

Phffft, you won't laugh when I'm a multi-millionaire keyboardist with my sixteenth studio album Two Wilson plays Burt Bacharach is released to critical acclaim.

The fact that I don't know the names of the notes probably won't stop me. Yay! ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6955709/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6955709/ Fri, 04 Nov 2005 17:07:11 PST
I also leave a plagerised song:

"Tiny little skellington,
Sitting like a fellington."

It's a pun on skeleton and fella. Hurrah for all involved. Night then. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6552859/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6552859/ Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:09:15 PDT
No, I'm not going to rewrite that sentence.

I don't like my life these days.

*dances a happy dance*

I don't know how to dance sadly. It's an oxymoron, I believe. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6433479/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6433479/ Tue, 06 Sep 2005 15:37:12 PDT
It's really frightening me.

It has drugs in it. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6295529/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6295529/ Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:17:36 PDT
Damn. Everytime try to write about that particular subject, I seem to fail to express how excited I am for him. I wish I was going somewhere else. Anywhere, frankly. It is a very very very cool thing (so cool that it doesn't even warrent commas), and I would wish him luck if there was one iota of my being that didn't believe that Italy wouldn't adore him like we do and want to keep him for ever and ever and ever. It'll be *craic* (a colloquialism I adore almost as much as my wandering buddy Johnbert).

I'm still stuck in the depths of rage, though I can't explain why. I should be excited, what with going to see two of my favourite bands tomorrow and Wednesday (eek for Franz and the Futureheads), but I still feel slightly, I don't know, muddled and lethargic. Just a little bit low. I'm sure I'll snap out of it soon. I blame my job, my stupid whore's job. I'm trying to work out if I'd get paid more if I quit and went to work in that stripclub in Dundalk. I've got moves, yo. I'd dance to Time Is Running Out by Muse, it has a suitably throbbing bassline. Not that anyone would want to watch me, seeing I'd have to be pretty drunk before I worked up the nerve, and well, nobody dances when they're drunk. More sort of...flailing.

Sorry, bit of a detour there through my sordid fantasy land. Although it does remind me that the elastic's gone in my favourite pair of stockings (one of a kind! Ohh...). Such is life, I suppose, but I loved them so.

I miss being in Belfast. I miss uni work. And I miss my favourite poet/actor/consumer of inordinate amounts of coffee.

"Waiter, waiter, percelator." ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6209431/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6209431/ Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:45:43 PDT Or does everything unravel in the end?
I promised myself that I would roam
And now I want to go home.
But I'm already here,
And find I am that which I fear.

Complete.

Unedited.

Don't speak of fixity

when you can't even fix me;

Soothing words are empty promises,

Now I've emotional dysentry.

Thank you all. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6166326/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6166326/ Mon, 08 Aug 2005 07:45:31 PDT
On the vaguely plus side, I remembered the name of one of my characters, which I had forgotten and was forced to replace with a number of pseudonyms that didn't fit. It was June, by the way. And her companian is maybe the name I'm most proud of: Nicholas "Johnny" Copenhagan. The Nicholas is obsolete. The rest is suitably film noir-ic for the story. June is a tart with a heart with a day job as a stripper and bi-polar disorder. It's a musical.

Spent the weekend in Liverpool, to see my sister (she moved there for a job) and although I loved both seeing her and Liverpool, which seems extremely cool, I didn't appreciate a crowd of thirty-odd year old doctors feeling me up when we went out. I mean, I've been groped and manhandled in clubs before (which is why I usually stick to rock clubs, where people aren't full of Dr Strangelove-style pree-versions) but I've never had anyone attempt to put their hand down my skirt. That...what? I still feel ill when I think about it, and it kind of put a damper on the weekend, what with all the evil and all.

I think I like "Street Spirit" by Radiohead a little more than I should.

Is it really a good idea to have the Grim Reaper as a romantic lead in a novel, or is it a little...weird? Weirder than my usual ideas in any case. ]]> ~MacDoherty http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6113439/ http://MacDoherty.deviantart.com/journal/6113439/ Tue, 02 Aug 2005 14:20:39 PDT
No, no, not another confused and depressive journal entry, although that is still how I feel, but they are bountiful in this world and make for terribly dull reading (not that this should be anymore emotionally fulfilling).

I spent last night at a party for the friend of a friend of a friend, or to put it more succinctly, my boyfriend's friend's boyfriend, which is the way of saying it that confuses me. Too many apostrophe esses I fear, but then that is the peril of the written language. Much as I love it, it is beyond inept. Shame on it, shame I say, you and your apostrophes and your...parenthesiseses.

Where did my summer go? Oh, the shame. Shame on me, in fact. I apologise to the English language, when it is clearly me who is at fault. My summer was the subject of the opening paragraph to a letter to a friend of mine, and you don't see a sentence structure like that every day. In retrospect, it was embarrassingly self-indulgent, and I hope he will forgive me in time. Self-indulgence is another flaw of mine. I have a list of my flaws, but, in a similar sense to the thoughts of the confused and depressive, it is certainly not exciting reading. I am decidedly troubled about the letter, not just the content (which is garbled to the nth degree) but the actual sending. It's more of a package, really, and seemingly I have to send it via the Post Office. I enjoy the luxury of the bish-bash-bosh-postbox, and to queue? And to weigh? And to pay? And all before 12pm on a Wednesday? I haven't woken up before 12 since...July 13th, and that's the God's honest truth (I'm certainly not boasting either, I wish I could rise earlier, but I have very little to rise for, aside from work and...well, I don't wanna.). So I'm aprehensive. And hoping that it's all delivered good and well. Valuable cargo. Well, not valuable, but I'd quite like it if it wasn't destroyed.

On a vaguely worrying note, I accidentally finished that sentence "I'd quite like it if I wasn't destroyed". Hmmm. I agree with the sentiment, but...still, eep.

I like the way Translink, the Northern Irish transport operative, are now putting puns in their warnings. If you're not careful, you WILL get mangled by one of our trains, and...I quote:

"That's a DEAD cert."

Ba-boom-tish.

There was going to be a point to this entry, but I forgot. A kind of microchasm for my summer, perhaps.

Might dye my hair again tonight, though it's getting late. Won't have time in the morning. Hmmm, and the like. Hmmm... ]]> ~MacDoherty