I totally forgot to post this way back when:

a_little_lower <<<--- that is me. Add me if you like.

I don't think I'll be keeping this journal anymore. I'm not this person anymore. Who knows though. I feel the need to disappear.


I saw this poem in a cheesy movie I saw today, and thought it was somewhat appropriate.

One Art - Elizabether Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.




I'm still around, of course, elliemcbelly@gmail.com

I'm really rather bored at the moment. As in, I really don't know what to be doing with myself when I'm not at uni or work.

Probably should be homework. Not as obvious as it sounds.

Okay, well...

Go Swannies I guess!

Definitely the lesser of two evils, though I don't hate West Coast either.

But where are the Vics?!

Needs some work.

( colours )

There's a storm a-brewin outside - wind, rain, thunder and lightning. I'm just in the mood for a good storm. Or it suits my mood or something. I've been quite irritable all week actually. I wonder if it will set off my car alarm. I discovered today that I can put Tiggy in the car and set it, and it won't go off. This is interesting to know.

I was wearing my hair in two plaits, but when I looked in the mirror just then, I realised that they were sticking out like pippi longstocking.

Oh, I'm still at Liquorland. Myer was too unstable in the end, and I don't know if I mentioned that one of the guys left and I now have good hours again. Christmas is approaching, this is good in retail terms. Summer is too. This is even better for alcohol. I think I should wait out another Christmas before I abandon ship. Yes.

I've been offered a casual seasonal job at Myer.

The question is, is it worth quitting my permanent part time job at Liquorland for?

I really want to, I just don't know whether I can take that risk.

It's so effing cold today. It cheered me up a little actually, that bite. I hate when entire winters pass by without a little bite, it feels like it never quite got here.

I was so hoping it would snow today. It's snowed all of twice since I've lived in Melbourne. The first time when I was about 5, and my mother told me it was snowing, and I wanted to go outside, but she told me I had to put my shoes on, and I didn't want to, and by the time I did, it had stopped snowing. The second time I was in year 8 in textiles class. It wasn't even all that cold that day, I seem to remember. Alas, it was not to be. Or at least not over this side of Melbourne.

On the hottest day of summer last year I bought a beautifully coloured scarf marked down from $40 to $7. What a bargain huh? Anyway I was looking forward to wearing it, but since it was summer, I threw it in the boot of my car and didn't give it a second thought. Until this morning when I realised that I wasn't dressed warmly enough to face the day, and a scarf like that would do the trick. So uh... I opened the boot of my car to get it out. Duh.

I went to the gym in my break today. I felt good afterwards, indeed. I also got paid today which also made me feel good. And I had bible study at Kerrie's where we sat around and watched Forensic Investigation or whatever it's called. Yesee. Oh and I won an auction on ebay for a murder mystery game. I've never done the ebay thing before, but I did it today, yessir. I would like the shakespeare one, but it doesn't seem to be up for grabs currently.

I can park now. Really.

To all those people who have ridden in my car and laughed at my parking, I told you it wasn't my fault. Really, it had an awful turning circle. I now park with the best of them.

Or maybe still not with the best of them, but I don't have to start as far away as I did, and I don't have to go back and correct 95% of the time, which is such an improvement.

So I'm going to stop bitching and moaning now. I've bene feeling rather poorly done by the past few days, after discovering that the insurance company is only going to pay for about 60% of the cost of the car, which was what I thought I had it insured for. I would like to dispute their idea of market value for that car, but I doubt it's possible, just very annoying. Anyway, yeah, I've been feeling sorry for myself, having to pay for a replacement car and all, but fucking hell, I have no right to feel like that. It's just a car. And yeah, it was a nasty crime that has really impacted on my feeling of security and such, and robbed me of my $3000 tax return, but much nastier stuff happens to people. I was even lucky it happened when it did. And to look on the bright side, I have another interesting story to tell. And I was in the local paper... or at least my neighbour was quoted in it, talking about me. My lovely magna found fame in its passing.

It wasn't a person. I didn't lose any person.

Time to shut up. I've been feeling miserable all week, but I've just started getting things done again. There's been a whole lot of paperwork that I just haven't felt like doing. But I got my replacement car two nights ago, and it's lovely. Not sure how good it is, but in terms of bells and whistles it's got it all (at least for a 1994 automobile it does). I'll get it serviced on Monday. We'll see, it drives real smoothly, but I'm sure I can smell something that nobody else seems able to smell. Hypersensitive? I hope so. Tiggy managed to christen the back seat with charcoal paw prints the other day, my fault as I allowed him to run through the remains of my trusty old magna before jumping into the back seat. I'd swept most of it up, but there was still bits and pieces lying around.

I do need to get back on the job hunting thing. I feel these days I'm struggling to keep my head above water. It could be the weather. I always feel like this at this time of year. It's just that this year has seemed like one disappointment after the other. Some harder, and much more private than all this stuff. Regret is nasty. Just doing these little things like job hunting seems to be just about impossible. And yet I feel now, more than ever, I need to get out of here. I just can't seem to find the energy to do it. And my boss has cut my hours yet again. To an illegal ammount this time, so I will refuse to sign the agreement. Bitch. I'm slowly trying to work it all out though. I just need to get it all together to do my resume. I guess I'll do that this weekend.

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: peace train - cat stevens

I'm having difficulty getting to sleep this evening. This is no good as I have to be up at 7 in the morning.

Last night I slept fairly easily. It took me a while to get certain images out of my mind, but I slept okay, and awoke this morning feeling "Oh, it was just a car, nevermind." I can't feel quite so blase about my yellow blanket though. You can replace a car, but Yellow Blanket will never be replaced. How dumb, right?

Tonight I can't get over how dramatic it was though. And how dangerous everything seems to be now. I feel violated. The last several months have seen a load of secuirty breaches for me, and that unnerves me. This particular one though... it's nasty. And although 99.9% of me says "It's a random act of arson" the 0.1 % of me says "Oh fuck, what if someone actually has it in for me?"

Like, I don't know who, maybe the phone woman. Or one of my customers. The day before someone I'd refused to sell alcohol to because she'd been too intoxicated promised to treat me the way I treated her. But nobody from there knows who I am or where I live.

I'm looking forward to getting my car. I've had to bug my parents for lifts all day today and yesterday. And Paul. They've been obliging to date but it may wear down soon. I should be getting the new one Tuesday night though. I'm just worried about where I'll park it. My father has advanced me in what he hopes I'll get back from insurance and what I know I'll get from tax. I just pray that the insurance will come through without a problem. You always hear about how they try and pin these things on the owner. Obviously I didn't do it, so they can't find anything that'll say I did, but I don't know that they have to prove anything to deny claims, do they? It may be one of those things where they automatically reject claims first up. I shouldn't worry. The used cars dealer just put a little bit of fear into me. But with the police and firemen saying it's happening heaps, and with the fact that I have witnesses who heard a car take off after two loud explosions, surely they couldn't do it right?

I bought Harry Potter today. I need to stop worrying and read myself into a state where I can no longer dwell on this.

Okay, so I've put a deposit on a 1994 Mistubishi Verada. So basically it's almost identical to the car I've just lost (a 1994 Mitsubishi Magna) except it's a little more up market. It has a cd player, keyless entry, cruise control, power windows and climate control. And it's blue. Yay for blue cars! I dunno. I'm feeling a bit better about it all this evening. I wish I had a car right now, but that's impossible. I feel a little trapped by that fact but I'll get over it. I'm hoping I haven't purchased a lemon, but what can one do?

At 5am this morning I'm blissfully lying in bed dreaming about my tax return when I get a bang on the door, my dad shouting "Ellie!"

I get up, in a daze, thinking it's the evening and I've had a nap or something, and get told "Your car's on fire..."

So I go outside and there's a huge blaze outside, and neighbours standing on the streets. I'm still thinking it's 5pm. "Why?!" I start shouting. It makes no sense.

One of my neighbours had heard a bang and a car drive off, and gone outside to investigate. They'd come and banged on our door to tell us, in the meantime they'd gotten the hose and called the fire brigade.

According to the fireman, this has happened in the immediate area 15 times in the past few weeks. The only weird things were the time (instead of 1am or so it was 5am) and the fact that it wasn't stolen, just firebombed. He aplogised to me "I'm sorry that happened to you" he said. "That's okay, there's nothing you can do about it... well except put it out, which you've obviously done!" I said. Gah.

I have third party fire and theft insurance. Thank god I didn't skimp on the fire and theft.

I feel so violated. After the incident with the phone a few months ago, and the fact that my car got broken into a few weeks ago, I really shouldn't be surprised.

The worst thing of it all is that in the back seat was my yellow blanket. My security blanket from when I was a little girl. I can't believe typing this makes me cry, but it does. Sentimental value. I used it in fish eye last week as an illustration on little children, and didn't take it out of the car. Because nobody would bother stealing it. Ugh. Sentimental value.

So I'm without car. I will be looking for a new (second hand) one in the very near future, but in the meantime... Gah. There is some fortunate stuff about this. I'm getting my tax return very soon. It should be about $3000. I was planning to spend about $700 on a cd player and keyless entry for the car. That's an extra $700 I still have to get another car. I'm also insured for the exact ammount I paid for the car, which is unusual so hopefully I get that all back. I'm very upset. It was all sort of surreal, but I'm lucky.

My car got firebombed this morning.

Okay, so here's where I go on hiatus for a while. Not that I've been writing anything in here about anything other than work these days anyway.

I've been spending way too much time online recently, not because of any particular reason other than it's always there, and it's easy. If I have nothing to do of an evening, it helps pass the time. But I know killing time isn't good. I had a dream last night that I had grey hair. I'm 23 but I've been feeling particularly wasteful lately. Like I've wasted the best few years of my life already and all I have to look forward to is old age. I know it's not true. I have the rest of my 20s and my 30s as well ahead of me (and 40s and 50s as well before I should consider myself old.) But I'm feeling regretful. 4 years ago I promised myself I would never let myself feel regret again, but it's all I'm doing these days.

I need to get my life in order. I woke up, or rather, got up after spending several hours trying to sleep, the other night, and was stricken by the fact that it was July 1. Half the year had gone, and I hadn't made any real progress with anything. I'm about 5 kgs lighter than I was at the start of the year, but the rest of it... I'm still at Liquorland, still wasting time on the internet, still around the same old haunts. It's all stagnant. This month, July, is supposed to be when it all changes, but it scares me that I haven't made any progress towards that. Why? Because it's too easy to procrastinate. I hate the way I procrastinate. I was speaking to some very-nearly-random person on the internet the other day who said something along the lines of "You're always procrastinating Ellie" and it struck me so painfully. Of course he was right, I always am, but that's not really me. It can't be. I always come up with reasons why I'm always procrastinating, but really it's because I have absolutely no self discipline. That "no regrets" promise I made myself 4 years ago has brought me a long way. I changed the direction in which my life was going absolutely. I became a real person, and I stopped playing around. But now I've been in a holding pattern for months, and it's time to pull myself out of it.

Which means getting me some discipline.

So it's no more internet for a while for me. I know I'll probably break this. I'll probably check my email, but I do hope I can stay away from livejournal and other forums that I visit. I haven't done it for a while, so we'll see. And I have to limit the dvds too. This week I watched My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany's which I absolutely loved, but I also watched a load of bumph. Stuff with Lindsay Lohan. Stuff that was Buffy. I saw the Simpsons on dvd which isn't bumph, but given channel 10s habit of repeating stuff, it's not what I need to be watching.

So uh, yeah, that's what's going on with me. I'll be back here soon I guess, hopefully with some news that is actually news and not babble about how boring my day is.

It's not that I'm lazy. (Well I am sometimes but I've proven to myself I have a great work ethic too.)

It's jsut that the rest of my life takes precedence over my schooling. Always has. I love studying history, but my stupid short sited job is where my priorities lie. Why? And running the youth group which is important.

I don't know if I've passed history this semester. I was doing so well and then the last few weeks ran away and I was suddenly doing it last minute again. I should've passed English, but history is a problem.

I know which subjects I'm doing next semester. If I didn't pass history I'll be doing Ancient Israel and the War in Vietnam. If I did pass history I'll be doing those two plus Medieval Narratives for English.

I had a nice day today. I don't think I've had a Saturday off since Christmas, or perhaps I had one off for Easter, I've just realised. I didn't really know what to do with myself, but I suggested to my dad that he'd like to come down to Borders on Lygon St with me, and he did! I bought Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides because I keep hearing good things about it. Then I took dad to Brunetti and although being a diabetic he couldn't have Italian hot chocolate he seemed to enjoy the experience. 'Twas nice.

Oh and my parents have invited me for dinner tonight. That's nice of them, although I did just cook a lentil soup that will last me half the week. I was considering seeing if I could get into the footy this evening, but dinner with the folks is more important than footy by myself right?

So, what comes next? I need to get my resume done, that's what. What's stopping me is that I already did it up a few weeks ago and then my computer lost it. Incredibly frutsrating.

31 days are counting. What's it gonna be?

Ding ding ding, It's July! It's July. Ding ding ding.

a little behind schedule, but wanting to get a move on. Indeed.

Augie March is great to study to, because the singing isn't overbearing. (I have a habit of concentrating on lyrics when I'm supposed to be studying.) However, only having the one cd means that I'm getting sick of it. I'm going to try something else. Radiohead perhaps.

Current Music: Augie March

Only 2,300 words left. Although I've only written 100 words in the last 20 minutes, and not 1,100, I've discovered the word limit is 2,500, not 3,500. It makes me feel like I've done more.

100 words! 100 words! Ding ding ding! Only 3,400 to go. Too bad I think I'm gonna fail this subject anyway. But I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I'll either have failed, or passed, but at least I won't have to worry about this damned essay or this stupid subject anymore. Yay.

I have to get up in three hours for a full day. I haven't slept yet.

I keep imagining scenarios in which I quit my job.

I just wanted to say what an awesome person patty whack (axeman2ooo) is for not only making me a cd, but brining it to my place of work, being my workplace. Yay for patty whack!

(Today was another day. I don't know where it went. I spent only 4 hours at work, yet the rest of the day appears to have disappeared.)

Tess and I started Pilates classes yesterday. That shit is HARD. Why did nobody say "It's hard!"?
It was good though, really felt it, which you know is good. I'm too unco to work out the whole breathing thing though. That's gonna take a while.

That said, I had trouble getting out of bed just then, and not because I wanted to keep sleeping, but because my stomach muscles hurt so much I couldn't sit up. I think I'm not gonna do the sit ups at gym this morning. Gah.

I keep having the same kind of dreams. I wish they'd go away.