Due to the almighty shock of being in full-time work and the fact that there is nothing much going on in my life (that you'd want to read about, anyway)

this blog is temporarily on hold

In the meantime, please feel free to browse the archives and post comments

Sara xxx

Yeah, I know I'm a schmuck

Apologies for not posting since before New Year. I know my postings are getting more and more infrequent but there is a good reason - mainly that I've licking my wounds. Plus I've been working full time (yes, I know, shock horror, talk about a major lifestyle adjustment), so I don't have the time I used to have to devote to the blog.

Anyway...

New Year was a major fuck up. I know that fuck ups have been a particular speciality of mine since, like, forever, but I really thought I was on the up. I guess it lulled me into a false sense of security because New Year ended up being a cataclysmic disaster.

OK. My idea of extreme fun isn't ever going to be trying to stay sober in the company of a pack of sharp-edged Fulham fools, but I was all into the 'New Year, New Me' thing. Like, 2006 will be the year that Sara gets it together and this is the first rung of the ladder. I was convinced that if I could get past this then the rest of my life would be an effortless climb to the top, scaling the heights without breaking much of a sweat. Let's face it, I'd just gone through a couple of months of painful cold turkey so how hard could one night be? What a Grade A idiot I proved to be.

Anyway, James and I get to this house in Hampshire where the party is taking place. The usual suspects are already in residence, including Kate (the bitch), a spectre in sky-blue skintight satin. God knows what's on her mind but she's being scarily friendly which kind of freaks me out. In fact, the whole lot of them are being friendly, which makes me think that James has said something in advance. Either that or they've all undergone personality transplants. Who knows?

Not drinking on New Year's Eve turns out to be harder than I anticipated. I cave in and tell myself I'll just have the one... I'll sip it... this one glass will last me all night... oh hell, I've finished it... oh OK then, one more...

By the time pudding arrives I realise that my body isn't the temple to depravity it used to be and that my legendary tolerance is kaput.

You know that moment when it suddenly hits you that you are totally pissed? That you haven't been conversing in a witty fashion and entrancing the other guests with your elegance and style. Instead, you have been laughing too heartily and for a beat too long at comments that were not even intended to be funny, your elbow inexplicably keeps slipping off the edge of the table, and your dress is not only rumpled but soup-stained as well.

I slope off to the loo to try and get my head together. I stare at myself in the mirror. My hair is a 'before' advert for Frizz-Ease, I have red-rimmed panda eyes, a strand of spinach stuck between my front teeth and my nose is flaking. So much for a healthy lifestyle. I looked much better before I got clean - cocaine, my number one top beauty aid.

I'm not quite ready to go back to the table so I head to the kitchen for a glass of water, then go into the sitting room for a bit of quiet time. I'm lounging in what is possibly the most comfortable armchair in the world, smoking a much-needed cigarette, when I hear James' voice in the hallway. I'm about to call out his name when I hear Kate's dulcet tones. I keep quiet - the last thing I want right now is to be in her company. They stop practically outside the sitting room door, Kate goes, James, are you all right sweetie? James is like, shouldn't I be? Kate says, well, I thought maybe you'd be feeling a bit strange, being here without Karen. I mean, Sara's not exactly Karen, is she? No, she's not, James replies. He's about to say something else but Kate interrupts, Look James, I might be out of turn here but I really don't know what you're doing. Why are you wasting your time with someone who you have nothing in common with? James sort of clears his throat and mutters something I don't catch, and Kate continues, look, I realise that you probably need a bit of fun right now, what with the divorce and everything, but you shouldn't lead that poor girl on. A shag's a shag, James, you don't have to make it out to be anything more than it is.

It's at this point that the night turns from being boring but bearable to utterly shit.

I probably should have gone back into the dining room and acted like I hadn't heard a thing. Or maybe I should have stormed into the dining room, thrown a drink over James' head and a punch at Kate's smug nasty fat face, then walked off into the night. Instead, I take the coward's way out and go upstairs to bed without a word to anyone. When James comes in, presumably to find me, I pretend to be asleep. I lie in bed, crying, listening to the cheering downstairs as the clock strikes midnight. I pretend to be asleep when James staggers in and falls into bed beside me hours later. When dawn breaks, I creep downstairs, the rest of the house still sleeping, and call a taxi to pick me up around the corner. Then I have to persuade the reluctant cabbie to drive me all the way to London (which costs me big time, making me even more pissed off).

I spend the entire journey cursing James, cursing myself, and cursing anyone and everyone else I can think of.

Unsurprisingly, I haven't spoken to him since.

Happy 2006, everyone.

Christmas Cheer

It's all going on chez Sara.

Here I am. It's Christmas, and I'm clean and sober for the first time in years. This is not to say that I've given up the booze as well as everything else, it's just, like, everything in moderation, you know? Kind of a scary thing for me.

Most of the Christmasses I've experienced over the past ten years have been spent in a haze of alcohol, starting with champagne for breakfast, moving on to wine at lunch and a naughty vodka or six before dinner. Last year, if I recall correctly (and my powers of recall are certainly not that reliable) was the year that Helen and I shrugged off our families and had Christmas together; we started with a line of coke each for breakfast and the day deteriorated from there.

So this year has been a bit of a shocker. Just Mum and I in our echoey old house, all glammed up and nowhere to go - my mother being a bit of a stickler for formal dress (her idea of casual is a heel lower than three inches). Turkey for two is a difficult act to pull off at the best of times and resulted in a fist-clenching, gritted teeth show of forced cheer. But we got through the day without killing each other, something I never would have thought possible.

No word from my father and the Ice Queen. I guess they wouldn't want to interrupt their month-long holiday in the Far East to lick a stamp and slap it on an envelope. Oh well, whatever. Merry Christmas, you old bastard.

I spent today being elbowed viciously by the hordes of desperate bargain hunters rooting around the sales racks in Selfridges, in the vain hope of finding something drop-dead sassy for New Year's Eve. Forget it. It's the same thing every year, and every year I neglect to remember all these garments are cut-price for a reason - that nobody else considered them hot enough to pay the full price before Christmas.

I'm seeing in the New Year with James. I'm a bit nervous about it considering that his friends are, on the whole, a bunch of gormless twats. However, it's either that or spend New Year in an orgy of narcotic excess with my friends - not a good idea considering the pain I went through last month to detox myself after years of enthusiastic abuse. So James and I will be swanking around some crumbling country pile for a sit down dinner and God knows what else. And I have to survive the whole thing without the comforting fog of being utterly shit-faced. This promises to be a true test of my resolve.

Wish me luck!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I did promise that I would post soon, and it hasn't happened as I still don't have my broadband connection and it looks as if I won't be getting it until the New Year. I won't bore you with the details; let's just say it's been a major cock-up and leave it at that. So, this is yet another quick blog post using someone else's computer...

I've moved into the new flat, which despite being the size of a postage stamp and next door to a guy who enjoys top-volume Dire Straits first thing in the morning, it's kind of great. I miss Helen though. You get used to someone being around all the time, and although we see each other and talk on the phone a lot, it's not the same. Plus I can't scrounge a ciggie from her when I'm too lazy to go to the corner shop to top up my supplies.

And as for James... it was a little awkward at first but we sorted stuff out, up to a point anyway, and I think he's turned into my boyfriend. It's weird and scary to be in what could be termed as a relationship - I keep getting freak-outs that he's going to start suggesting Sunday afternoon trips to B&Q to look at paint charts - but I've resolved to take it as it comes. We'll see what happens.

I'm spending Christmas with my mother, oh joy, followed by major New Year's Eve party action.
I'll try to post again soon, in much more detail.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and looking forward to a new and shiny 2006.

Another pause

Hello everyone - just in case you're wondering, I haven't disappeared again. I've been moving house, so I've been occupied with shifting boxes and trying to figure out how I've managed to accumulate so much junk over the past few years.

I will be around over the next couple of weeks but unfortunately my broadband isn't due to be connected until 21st December so posts will be sporadic until then.

And as for James? Let's just say that it's looking brighter. A full update will be forthcoming, I promise.

a new chapter (hopefully)

I'm back. Finally.

I was away for a bit longer than I originally intended but it's taken me a bit longer than I thought it would to sort myself out to the point that I feel human again. I think I'm almost there.

It's been an emotional whirly-gig of (almost) a month. So much has been going on in my head that I couldn't describe it here, not without sending you all to sleep. So here's the abbreviated version: a month of hurdles and facing up to some unpleasant facts about myself; a month of re-evaluating this skewed blueprint for life that I seem to have developed over the years; a month to realise that I have wasted a lot of time, hiding from everything and anything and anyone likely to cause me pain, or likely to force me to do anything but coast. I've come to the conclusion that my lifestyle is not big, nor is it clever, and there have been some changes.

First of all, I've stopped taking drugs. Not an easy process and it's left me feeling quite ill - which is partly why I've stayed away for so long. The withdrawal process, even for someone who couldn't really be classified as a serious addict, has been unsettling - emotionally and physically. I won't go into the gory details but let's just say it hasn't been pretty. Since I hoovered up my hopefully last-ever line, I've been suffering from a permanent cold and extreme fatigue, which tells me my immune system is totally up shit creek. Funny, isn't it, how an unhealthy lifestyle only really hits home once you've given the stuff up? I'm popping multi-vits like crazy and keeping my fingers crossed.

Secondly, Helen and I are moving out of our semi-squat on Wednesday. Our landlord finally gave in to a lucrative offer from a property developer and we're out. So Helen is moving in with Karen and I've found a studio in Earl's Court. I'm really sad about it because I'm going to miss Helen badly - we've lived together for years -but she is a major stoner and my partner in all kind of crimes and misdemeanors, so it's probably for the best. My self-control only goes so far.

And James... well, that's a whole other story. I'm seeing him tomorrow for the first time in a long time, so you (and I) will just have to wait and see...

Thank you for all your comments while I've been away - it's meant a lot that you guys have been out there wishing me well...

One thousand years of solitude

It's been a strange weekend, a very introspective one, and some stuff has happened to make me think that I need to take a couple of weeks out to reassess my life and myself and pretty much everything.

My life is a fucking mess, and I'm a fucking mess, and something has to change.

I've been coasting on empty for so long I think I've forgotten what it's like to live, to really truly live, to grab every moment as it comes and to experience, to really experience, to open my arms out wide, to open my heart, rather than hiding behind that oh-so-effective protective layer of mine that keeps me safe but doesn't let much through. I need to pull myself off my hamster wheel, dissolve my comfort zone and let myself feel, properly feel, probably for the first time since Sam broke me.

I need to let myself heal. I need to really look at myself, to meet my eyes in the mirror and not be afraid to look into the depths. I need to learn to like what I see.

And I know I need to stop the drugs and all the other excesses I indulge in to keep myself emotionally numb.

I'll be back when I've managed to make a dent in that Teflon hide of mine.

In the meantime, I found a poem today which I wrote after Sam left all those years ago. I'm not sure it's particularly good but it probably says quite a lot about me, so I thought I'd share it. What does make me laugh a bit is that when I wrote it I obviously imagined myself to have achieved some kind of high-powered business-type job by the year 2005. I guess my life hasn't quite turned out like I imagined all those years ago...

Alternative Vistas: 2005
It is your eyes I see when I close mine
and pull you out of the dark recesses
of my mind at the end of each long day.
Finally relaxed, shards of light slanting
through the blinds on to the bed, I lie back,
shedding suit, briefcase, reams of paper,
smart shoes; my uniform, my armour,
guarding raw flesh, smothering me,
saving me from harsh real world life, forty-five
to fifty hours of every working week.

When I smell you on strange passing skin, you
leap out of the cubby hole constructed
for sometimes longed-for long-gone lovers.
The soundtrack of my life swells with
bitter-sweet thoughts of could-have-been.
I walk to work, city smells surrounding
my fragile frame; my mind filled
with alternative vistas and the look
in your eyes when you realise that you
could, possibly, might well have, loved me.