Pop Kids Signed Copy

I finally got my signed copy of “Pop Kids” last week. It still fills me with an excited feeling to know that someone I admire as much as Davey touched it. It also smells a bit of oriental spices and made me wonder if he’d been eating Indian or otherwise Asian food while signing all the pre-ordered books. It makes me feel like I’m thirteen but I still enjoy little daydreams like that. After I’d touched, photographed and sniffed it, it went straight onto the shelf, though. This is so not me. Usually, I treat my books quite poorly, I’m sorry to say, and I think my shelf is filled with what can only be described as paper veterans. Somehow, they’ve survived me reading them.

I’m not gonna go as far as to say that it had anything to do with this book – some kind of ‘epiphany’ maybe – but last week, I also figured I’m a terrible failure as far as losing weight and being healthy goes. I hadn’t even checked my weighed in weeks. So I decided to do so on Friday morning and make Fridays my weigh-in day. It’s quite convenient because if I’m gonna have a cheat day, it’s probably on a weekend and I can have that after weighing in. The result wasn’t quite as bad as I’d feared but it was still terrible. I don’t know. For every kilogram I lose, I seem to gain three more. Each time I’m a little successful, I get even worse after that. I even thought of trying to talk to my doctor about it and ask if she thinks I should see a therapist. I’m nowhere near as down or depressed as I used to be ten years back and yet, it seems like a totally psychological thing. I have no problem understanding what I need to do and why. but while I sit and think that I should probably have a light soup for dinner, I reach for the take away menu and call them. And while I think about going back to the gym, I stuff my face with icecream and chocolate. But I don’t know, just the thought of trying to find a therapist I could trust exhausts me…

At the moment, I’m totally motivated to do something again, though. I found some nice recipes for smoothies that are easy to make and actually quite tasty and I’m trying to replace the occasional meal with them. I think you’re supposed to replace one meal per day, preferably lunch, but seems too much like a diet to me. I don’t want to do something like that and then get sick of it. But two or three times a week, I could probably do without feeling terrible about it. The smoothies are also quite filling because they contain ingredients like oatmeal, bananas, almonds, etc. Each has about 500ml and I feel quite full for a few hours afterwards. I may be able to stick to this for a while and then maybe mix it up with a few other light recipes on days when I’m not in a smoothie mood.

Also – and this is gonna make me sound like such a sorry little person – I’ve found a picture of him with a girl who looks exactly like I would love to look with about half my weight off. She was thin, yes, but not model-thin and not fake-perfect, just…natural. And I know I could be pretty in a similar way. I’m not ugly, I just find it hard to smile when I hate the way I look so much. It’s stupid because even if I was exactly like her, he wouldn’t want me, I’m sure. But maybe it’s that I feel like maybe I could find someone like him or maybe because if I was thinner, at least I could say it isn’t because I’m a fatty and it isn’t only about me. I have no idea. But that picture was a huge inspiration for me to get serious about this again. I just really want to look better and be happy…

Rollercoaster Ride

A lot of things have rattled the cage that is my little world lately…

I’ve received a blast from the past, so to speak, that came quite unexpected and was not entirely unpleasant but awkward. You know the “What if…?” games you play with yourself? When you play it all through in your head and you’re sure you got it all down and you know exactly what you would say or do? And then it happens and it’s nothing like that at all. I’m not upset with how things did work out but I haven’t wrapped my head around it all so far.

Then the thing that I’ve been looking forward to forever now happened: Davey Havok finally released his book. Now, I know we’ve only known about it since February. But I’ve been hoping, praying for him to release some kind of written art at some point. A book, poems – even an official blog would have been fine. I pre-ordered the book, of course, but then couldn’t wait and got it on my Kindle, too. I’m not sure I would have wanted to ruin my signed pre-order copy with my fingerprints anyway. It’s another thing I haven’t fully grasped, yet. I finished reading it today but I’m still not sure what to think. It’s not a question of whether I think it’s good or not. I love it! But it was also so dirty on so many different levels that I hadn’t expected even though I’ve been following the guy for years. I’ve listened to his tongue-in-cheek lyrics, I’ve heard him speak of several kinds of fetishes in interviews… It really shouldn’t have been such a surprise. But it’s different to read about it all in so much detail. And I know he said the book isn’t autobiographical. But there are so many parallels between the story of this book and what things appeared to have been like when he was a teenager, or even now when he’s hanging with his friends. It’s so hard to see the protagonist, Michael, and him as two different persons. The almost-vegan lifestyle, the fashion sense, the obsession with being center stage… I don’t know, I just had to actively remind myself that I wasn’t reading his old personal journal or maybe even a current blog. Maybe that’s what made all the sex scenes so hard to stomach. When I was a kid, I had a rabbit that I absolutely adored. One day, however, the rabbit started humping my foot and I found it so hard to accept he was still my little furry friend despite his…urges. This feels like a similar situation and I need to get over this before I can fully digest the – amazing! – commentary and criticism on the Web 2.0 Generation. So yeah…it wasn’t at all what I expected but I feel like that’s the best thing that could have happened. When someone you look up to and who is one of your favorite people still manages to surprise you, it’s definitely a good thing.

Oh, and my digital California money pot – also referred to as “The Savings Account” – has been filling up nicely. I got a decent tax return last month and then, fully unexpected, I got a letter from my landlord today, informing me that he’ll also pay me back a generous amount of money from the maintenance costs that I apparently paid way too much of. I have no idea about these things and I tend not to question them when they’re good, but I’m slightly paranoid that he’ll find out he’s made a mistake. Two years ago I had to pay a huge additional sum, then last year I got a nice one back and this year, the refund has doubled. I shall make sure to transfer it to the Savings Account as quickly as possible in case he wants it back. Either way, that means I have suddenly got half the amount I’ll need for the trip to California and it’s driving me insane that I have to wait so long now!