Granddad and I have this terrible habit of gossiping on the neighbours across the road - they live on a decent bit of land, house plonked right in the middle and surrounded by gardens and trees maintained by the grandfather. He's an old man, fit like Granddad - I see him go for walks during the evening. 

But anyway, the gossip: there's a middle aged woman that lives there, the old man's daughter. She goes to work in a carpool, and there is always this one man that parks his car in the front of their yard and stops and talks to her, takes her bins out, collects her mail for her. They seem like good friends, but Granddad and I and our dirty minds have decided that they're having an affair. The man's wife used to collect him and on the days that she was already there, outside the house waiting, he and our neighbour never talked, only briefly waved good bye and quickly parted directions. But now he has his own car, a monster 4xwheel drive thingy and they spend aaaages talking and laughing and Granddad and I smirk at each other while Rowan goes off about how we're a pair of noisey bastards.

Which we are, but it's funny. I thought it would be hilarious writing love letters to the both of them - I'd never do it, but it is a funny thought and it made Granddad laugh.

I'm not sure what to do at the moment - not having a job is crippling, but there is nothing in this town. The fast food chain that we do have won't take me; they hire highschool students, cheap labour. My mother's turned her shrewed eyes on me and is suggesting sending me to my aunt's further upstate so I can "start a career in the Hospitality industry". She doesn't believe I'll make it to Uni, doesn't really see the point in it. She believes that it's just an option I'm taking so the family will continue babying me. I haven't decided if she's being cruel or not; I know she wants to help me out of a really pathetic and unhealthy way to live, but I can't. I want University, and I want to stay with Granddad and Rowan and Kyle and Aunty Cate. I'm worried about Granddad - he's been saying lately that he's not well, and Rowan and I have no idea what to do. Aunty Cate has been snippy lately, they'll end up having a fight and not talking for another billion years. Apparently that happens every decade or so.

But if that does happen and she leaves (likes she's been eluding to doing) then when I leave for the city next year Granddad will be alone - Rowan's said that he's not letting me go on my own and while I love that I'll get to keep my brother for a bit longer, I'm just scared for Granddad. He talks about how when he dies we won't even know - he'll go "outback" and that'll be the end of it. Old man bullshit, but concerning none the less.

Rowan didn't go to work today - he hasn't been well, and we spent most of it curled up on his bed either sleeping (him), reading (me) or watching movies (us and Kyle).

I am... concerned, but it's not something that I expect anyone to have an answer for.

I went to the next town over today, with a furiously muttering Grandfather to pick up a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 for Rowan and Kyle.

It's been hilarious, seeing those two nerd talk about this thing. I couldn't even join in if I wanted - the only thing I took away from the other game of this line that they have, was that I could fly around on a jet pack and shoot people from the sky. Anyways, my brother didn't trust the game store here in town so he somehow worked the persuasive magic that skipped me and conned Granddad into driving the half-hour to bigger shopping centre "down the road". Knowing what they wanted without having to give the sales clerk a piece of paper with it scribbled on, I went for the ride.

I got the game fairly easy - that should've been my first warning signal. Granddad dropped me off home and I tossed the game onto Rowan's bed and just milled about the house until Kyle came home from school at about 3:30. I wanted to see the game in action, and Rowan wasn't due home until a quarter to four, if not four itself, so I sat down on my darling brother's bed and watched our younger cousin slip the game into the 360.

That's when we found out the console is broken. I don't know exactly what it is, only that's something's snapped or missing (this after we'd just gotten it fixed too). It was so heartwretching to see Rowan's face when he came home - that is, until he started stomping around the house swearing, promising to buy a PS3, cursing Bill Gates and his offspring. Then it was just funny.

Ah, I shouldn't laugh. I've been playing around with a tryout version of Photoshop 6, and I know, just know, that when it runs out I will cry. Honest to the Lord, I will break down and sob my eyes out. Coming from someone who's been playing around with MSPaint, it's been amazing. I want it. I've made a hundred and one icons, just playing around with the default picture here on my LJ. I don't know what looks best-I want something simple, but then I discovered the magic of textures... @_@

I hate Bill Gates. Why couldn't we not have known about computers? Why?

The slip I bought; soft and silky and perfect for pampering.





 

I've found my song. The title even has my name.

It's a strange kind of feeling hearing a basic summery of yourself in someone else's work. Everything has already been done, but still... a lyric twin, so now I have two kinds.

I'm strangely down at the moment. All this emotion is unhealthy, I need to stop taking myself seriously but what can I say? I'm a serious person, I take nothing lightly, though I like to think I have a sense of humor. Actually, it's kind of been required living with the people I do. My Grandfather has no shred of moral decency and Kyle's a sixteen year old boy. Rowan's just Rowan. Nothing is safe. I'll admit this now: I have laughed at some of the most appalling things you'll ever hear. That little British girl, Madeline? Mmm. I won't say anymore.

Aunty Cate was telling Kyle and Rowan about how they need girlfriends. Kyle just rolled his eyes and Rowan brushed the entire thing off. He hasn't been going out as much as he used to; I think something happened or happening with Zach getting into a different crowd. It's so strange; they've been friends for years. Rowan doesn't seem to bothered by it, which makes it even more surreal. He's been outgrowing Zach for a while now. There's a new mate, someone from work. They get along like a house on fire, so I guess things balance out. My own friends and I are something different. It's Amy's birthday this Friday but I won't be able to make it. I'll have to make it up to her. She was the best out of my highschool friends, level-headed and fun. I'd like to have her in my life for as long as possible. 

It's funny how no one tells me I need a boyfriend. Granddad refuses to acknowledge it, I think. Aunty Cate suggests the sons of friends sometimes but Granddad gives her a filthy look and then says how I don't need to think about that until after university. Ah, but I'm so overprotected. 

I came across a interesting question on the forum I've been haunting. Since it's mainly mothers and their babies I tend to just read than reply. Sometimes I'll throw in my two-cents but the exchange rate rips me off and everyone talks around the silly nineteen-year-old. There was one topic that came up though that I couldn't resist... Alot of the women on this site have "Family Blogs" were they write about how they're precious babies threw up all over the carpet or fell over in kindy. I've gathered that it's for relatives that live far away; it's a pretty neat trick, actually. A clever use of something that I thought was only ever for angsty teenagers. But anyway, the point:

So this topic is asking if anyone keeps a blog and doesn't tell their DH about it (Dear Husband? I don't know the terms, but they're talking about their spouse when DH is said). Nearly everyone said that they either keep a family blog, or have one but tell their menfolk. One lady came on and said how keeping a secret journal was hurtful; she cited some example in the form of her friends and said how she didn't understand why people would spill all their secrets out to the world and not just keep it in a locked diary. I couldn't resist, I had to step in. 

I ended up saying that for me, at any rate, it was the POV of others. Of being able to let out to a stranger. I don't have a husband but I do know, sort of, the "Other Half" argument in Rowan. I've written alot of things, on here and other places, that I'd never say to him. The lady just thanked me politely but then said it wasn't the same. Maybe it isn't, but it feels the same. I don't bitch about how he snores or doesn't mow the lawn; it goes a lot deeper than that but I didn't bother to say anything. Maybe I'll learn? 

Inspired by my brother I feel like splurging - like going out and wasting an unholy amount on something that I'll ever never have occasion to wear, or that I could've done just as well with in buying a cheaper version. Maybe going to the hairdressers, or something. Just anything to burn money on... if I had it.

I'm a disappointment to myself and my family. Two years out of highschool, no job, no further education, just a doting family that I shouldn't be so dependent on and hairdressing course that I never completed. It's ugly and non-romantic, everything that I hate. It's made me realize things about myself that I don't like admitting let alone thinking about. I could go on&on&on with a list a LJ page long, but I won't because what would be the point? It'd only serve to make me feel bad when I see it; my greatest fault, I think. I'll happily wallow away in misery yet I'm too lazy to do anything about it.

Rowan suggested that I do as my art teacher tried to bully me to do and send away my scribbles to little publishers, just to do something. All false modesty aside, I don't feel ready for that. I like drawing, I love it in fact. I love art. My wardrobe is a cave of canvas paintings that I've done, some not even finished. I swear, there is not a piece of paper in this house that is safe from me. I'll scribble on the envelope of the telephone bill as I'm waiting for lunch; write notes to myself on the kitchen whiteboard, words or little phrases that can make my mundane day seem worth writing about later on. Sketch a brief, messy idea of a layout I'd like to do in my cashier. Everything I see or feel, everything that anyone around me could possibly do... it's all fair game. It'll be written about, drawn, anything that let's me articulate my life. I love art, both pictures and words and if I did become an illustrator or a writer I would die with happiness, even before I actually get the job done. But I don't see how me&my scribbles are fit for the rest of world just yet. I'd like to get a better grasp on the human anatomy, to draw animals. I'd like to learn how to not be so controlling and I'd love to learn how to maximize my use of colour. 

I wonder if it's just another form of procrastination by saying that I want to wait until I've bettered myself? I would though. I'd like to learn self-portrait. I can never draw myself. The girls that end up on paper are either idealized to something beyond me or unrecognizable. Maybe that's selfish, but I've always been able to see other people in my drawings, and I'd like the same for me. 

If I could waste the money, right now, I would go to the tiny art boutique in town and buy a crazily expensive set of paints. Or pastels. Or watercolour pencils. Pretty brushes, something to replace the old, cheap things I've been using ever since Amy and I used to steal art supplies from the school storeroom. Or maybe I'd buy myself Photoshop - I'm learning to love beautiful graphics and I'd love to have a go at it. 

OoOOoOoOOooooh... I wish I could stop breathing, sometimes. It just seems like I'm so full of conflicting thoughts that they all pull my emotions different ways, and I'm left not knowing how to feel.

If I could draw what I'm feeling, it'd be a tiny speck of white on a stormy grey canvas. Or a big, snowy white bed. I'm so tired I'm surprised that I'm actually still awake, though by now it's an old habit, staying up the night. It's become a new routine where I'll just be sinking into my pillows as the house comes alive with the sounds of Granddad and Rowan getting up for work, making breakfast, turning on the radio to that big mouthed wanker on the local station. 

Today I kept myself awake for breakfast, something that happens every now and again, with no set pattern to it. I was the only one though, apart from Granddad. It was too early for Kyle to be up for school, and Rowan had come down with some crazy midnight flu and shuffled out of his room just long enough to call his boss before going straight back to bed. Aunty Cate was out like a light, like she normally is, so that just left me and the old man. He's a funny old thing, my Grandfather. Ever since Nanna died he's had this huge blackhole of a weakness for cancer and  leukemia charities, and will happily dole out any spare change he has for car raffle tickets, or submit a thirty dollar order for a two-pack of pens that die within the week. He says that's just what we do; we've been through it, people helped and now so should we. It's apart of that rare side of Granddad, the one that he hardly ever shows, the one that I'm not sure I want to know too much about, really. I think I stumbled across a piece of it when I was vacuuming the house a while ago - I found a poem written in his hand. At least, I think it was a poem. I didn't look at it long after I realized it wasn't a to-do list. I know I'd never want the family to read my journals, my writing, so I just put it back and didn't say anything about it, even to Rowan.

It's so weird to think that there might actually be more to his Miserable Old Bastard front. Weird because I know that there's more to me than what I show them, weird because it never occurred to me that it might be the same for them. Like with Rowan, too. I honestly had no idea he was feeling that way until he told me, casually, just before he bought the bike. He's always been the charmed one out of us; calm, happy-go-lucky and then occasionally completely and utterly furious, terrifying. I didn't realize there could be anything else and that makes me feel bad, like I'm failing at understanding. Too caught up in myself and my homemade misery to realize that others could have their own.

He seemed better today though, like he'd completely dropped everything. He insisted on dragging me outside to the backyard where he demonstrated to our unimpressed neighbours how loud his bike could really be. I'm sure that had he been not so fluey, he would've gone straight to Zach's. Boys and their toys, right? I still worry, but then I worry more over worrying too much so I try to stop.

Today was completely quiet, even with Rowan's fasincation with the noise of his thing's motor. Mainly we just sat around in his room, watching funny little cartoons, just hanging out. The type of day with no expectations that turns out pretty well.

I need to sleep. ;_;


 

I can't even say how I'm feeling any more. Weird, or maybe like I've broken the translate button in my head. Rowan spent the day out with his friend on that bike - he came in while I was sleeping and asked if I wanted to go and I think I said no, I must have, because when I woke up he'd been gone for an hour or so. There's a feeling I can't shake: something that's screaming the world is ending, but I've never been precognitive, god no, so maybe I'm just being a worry wart?

I think Rowan's fallen in love with his bike-thing. It was all he could talk about, how he ripped around the field and god knows what. He's trying to bully me into going with him tomorrow, after he's finished work but I don't want to. I don't even want to watch. Odd, isn't it? He's been so tired lately, so unhappy. This is making him happy, cheering him up. I want that for him, I do. I just worry. Worryworryworry. I wonder if they'll ever be a time when we finally grow apart, and I wonder if this bike is the start of it? I'm in such a mood about twins, just reading about them, wanting to find something that could explain what I'm feeling, put it into words for me, reassure me that I'm not a freak of nature.

I joined a forum a little while ago, but I think to really fit in you have to be a parent. They all talk about what's the best kind of waterslide to invest in, which stroller has longer lasting power, blahblahblah. There was one topic where the lady was asking what b/g twins are like in their teens, if they get along. It hadn't been updated for ages, and I dearly wanted to post and just talktalktalk about Rowan and I, but how selfish is that? That's why I have this journal, other journals, paper ones. Besides, it's such a generalized question... it depends so much on who they are as people. I wonder if I'd be so close with my brother if I'd gotten some of our mother's backbone, or even just the nerve that the family in general carries.

What would it be like if I'd just been born one, just me? That's such a weird, ugly thought. I can't even imagine it, so maybe I'm never 'supposed to.

Life has been pretty quiet; I've failed miserably at promising to make this journal My Life's Work, but one moment I'm caught up in my art journalling, and another I'm daydreaming away in little odds and ends of stories.

It's been so oddly comfortable, here, staying in the one spot and then in other ways it's been horrible. All Rowan and I ever seem to do anymore is scream scream scream at each other. We've never fought like this before, though it's my fault. There's so many things that I just want to come out and say but I don't, because what would be the point? They'd do nothing but hurt in the end. We're better, though, for now.

My days consist of nothing but sleeping sleeping sleeping. All my anecdotes come from my brother, or Kyle, or Granddad. I think I may need my own life fairly soon, but then again I do ever want to leave here. I am a wuss. 

Zach has been weird around me since Rowan's accident. I know that Rowan would rather die than have me date one of his friends, though I don't think I could see Zach like that. Highschool wasn't that long ago, and I known him long enough to know that we'd never work. It'd be a change though, and the evil side of me is wondering whether or not I should take it.

I am sleepy. I shouldn't update when I'm so dangerously low.

Wrote awesome entry about night out then it got ate.

Too tired.

Will come back later and then proceed to gossip and bitch.

I can't even begin to pick what to write about.

The internet died just before NYE, and I've only just been able to log on. It's been driving me crazy, having to rely on the slow and clumsy method of my handwriting to write everything down, but I suppose if anything, I got to kick-start my vow of recording each and every day, no matter how boring.

First news: I was accepted into university! I'm so happy. I got my letter on Monday and everyone was at work, or out, so I had to wait until the afternoon to tell the family. It was one of those great times that just happen. Everyone was so proud, Rowan and Granddad the most. Rowan drove back into town to get cupcakes and little candles while Granddad made all my favourite dishes and even flan, which is his way of saying, "congratulations!". It felt like my birthday, my own birthday. After having worried about not making it I can say that I'm completely floored. Especially with all the fussing and the "I'm so proud of you!" that everyone did. I think that I'm the first to do higher education since this family is all about getting out there and working hard, either on farms or with metal or just trying out different jobs and other avenues for life experince. I'm somewhat of a black sheep; I've only ever felt comfortable with books, and now, after a year of feeling like I was rotting away, I've got them!

I thought that perhaps I'd have to worry about finding somewhere to stay and that since I was too late with the campus housing, yet Rowan kept good on his word: he's saved up and has even been offered a job by a sister company. I can't believe it, it's like packing a walking, talking and loud security blanket. I wonder how it'll go, just the two of us without our Granddad to baby us? I feel guilty leaving him behind - he's been sadder since Grandma died, but I suppose Aunty Cate will keep him from trouble. Mostly I'm just exicted about my life taking off. 

I met up with two of my closest friends today, Amy and Sarra; it was so nice to have girl chatter. I can't wait for tomorrow night; they want to go out. The only thing that dampened it was Sarra - I never knew it, but apparently she's had a long standing crush on Rowan. Fair enough I suppose, but the way she kept bullying me to ask him to come out with us, all the questions about him overriding the conversation I was trying to have with Amy... I hope she's not using me just to get to my brother. It's happened before, and I hate it because I begin to wonder where (and if) I'll ever fit in.

Bah... the fact that uni starts next month is all I can really think about. I'm so excited... and scared. But mostly excited. XD


 

I don't know what's compelled me to start sharing my thoughts with what could turn out to be the entire world, but I guess I find safety in talking to strangers.

No one I know will find this, I know that like I know my own name.

Perhaps I shouldn't even be writing the things I want to here, but... I have to. I hate keeping my feelings bottled up inside like some moody CD store asshole.

My name is Catherine May. And I'm very confused.

Supposing that this was a story, a completely fictional lie then I guess I would begin by telling you about myself.

I'm 19 years old. I was born on Halloween. I have a twin brother who I love like the world's ending. We live in a small country town, surrounded by people who have known us most of our lives. I hate this town, but I love it too.

I don't have a boyfriend. I can't, really. It'd be lying to myself. Not because I'm gay, no. But because of someone else. Someone who I might as well not exist to.

My brother, Rowan, is my complete opposite. He's loud and obxious and rude and very popular with his friends. Our house is always full of the noisy bastards, coming over and demanding Rowan's attention. I don't know if they can tell I don't like them much, but I know that the feeling's mutual. Rowan's best friend thinks I'm clingy. Yeah, well at least I'm not a drugged up whore like the skanks he dates (Rowan's Bestie, not my Rowan). 

Rowan has a girlfriend, an old classmate. I don't really know her well despite her relationship with my brother, but she's... okay. It might just be my self-esteem talking but I can't say it feels like she appriciates my being alive.

I love the colour pink, and sunsets. I'd love to learn how to use photoshop and create beautiful pictures like on deviantart but my computer would explode if I tried to install something like that. That and I don't have the money for it. 

I'm searching for something I don't believe truly exists...

-CM