It's 3.38am and once again I'm sat up by myself as the other half sleeps soundly in our bedroom next door. I fell asleep today, somewhere around lunchtime, after my awesome boyfriend came back from town, having fetched up all the bits 'n bobs I'd requested. I know it might not sound like the most exciting shopping list ever, but he got everything I asked for and I immediately became much more relaxed, knowing I didn't have to worry about food for the next couple of days. I now have another little swag-bag of munch next to my side of the sofa, full of various types of chocolate bars, Dark Rye Ryvitas and Cheese Flavoured Snack-A-Jacks. He also got me tins of Tesco Finest Beech Smoked Mackerel Fillets, Princes Peppered Mackerel Fillets, John West Tuna in Spring Water, Spinach Ristorante Pizzas, Diet Coke and Tropicana Pure Orange Juice With Extra Bits. All good in the hood!
I know that there are going to be people reading that, who will probably be rolling their eyes or gagging at what I consider to be a balanced diet, but these are the foods that get me through the day without freaking out or having to purge. I might need to get some more yoghurts and grapefruit too, because I forgot to put them on my list, but I have enough to keep me happy for now. Himself also remembered to get me some cigarettes, painkillers and credit for my phone too, so maximum brownie points to him for being a good and dutiful boyfriend!
I have actually purged today, but it was a planned purge. I really wanted to have a Tuna Cheese Melt, because they're one of my favourite binge foods and something I crave if I haven't had fish for a while. I worked out the calorie count for it and the tuna, three slices of toasted white bread, 300g of mature cheddar cheese, mayonnaise and tomato ketchup, washed down with Tropicana Orange Juice, came in at somewhere around or over 1300 calories! Now that ain't any amount of lard I'm about to let loose on this arse anytime soon, so I know that whenever I eat this particular gluttonous binge, it is a guaranteed purge straight after. I'm okay with that as it's a small price to pay for a craving to be eradicated, dealt with and forgotten all about.... Until next time of course!
So yeah, I had my Tuna Cheese Melt and Orange Juice binge, threw it all back up, quickly and quietly, then returned to the sofa to sip water and smoke some cancer sticks, whilst watching the X-Factor. Nothing really blew me away on there tonight. Sam Bailey was beautifully pitch perfect as usual and ickle Nicholas was his adorable little self, but Rough Copy weren't quite on par this week. I didn't think Kingsland Road deserved to be in the bottom sing off after the Flash Vote, as they were pretty together and on-point. They're not my cup of tea and they do look like they're just waiting for the moment when Harry Styles dissolves One Direction to pursue a solo career in 'real music', but they're good at what they do and you can see how much work they put into their performances. I just wish that we had more of a stand-out act like we had in James Arthur last year. Hopefully someone will emerge as a credible artist soon and give us someone to get behind, before everyone blends into an amorphous collective blob of antipathy and vagueness.
I guess I really should get around to explaining the title of this post though, shouldn't I? Well y'all can thank Ms Ruby-Tuesday for my nighttime shenanigans this time round! Y'see I mentioned a few days ago that I had been watching 'Most Haunted' in an attempt to get myself a little bit more in the Halloween spirit and she suggested that I check out a show called 'Living With The Dead', which is a similar kind of show. So here I am, snuggled beneath a duvet in the dark, watching back to back episodes of this gloriously guilty pleasure, reveling in the whole spooky atmosphere as torrential rain thunders outside my living room window, creating rivers of water in the street below. It all just feels so totally appropriate for this time of year; so deliciously dark and almost ominous in a childishly exciting kind of way.
I know I've said this before, but I'm a total skeptic when it comes to anything not scientifically and empirically proven in peer reviewed - preferably double blind - studies. I've been an atheist for as long as I can remember and have always thought that anything claimed to be 'paranormal' is just a load of delusional hokum. Whenever I'd hear someone tell me about some 'unexplained phenomenon' they'd allegedly experienced, I'd just chalk it up to them having an overactive imagination; that they were somewhat more inclined to want to believe in ghosts/spirits and therefore allowed themselves to believe they really were experiencing something. Especially when a group of people all tune into one another's subconscious perceptions and experience a kind of 'group hallucination'. I just never bought any of it. Even when people close to me - otherwise sane, rational, intelligent people whose opinions and beliefs I respected - claimed to have had a paranormal encounter.
My mother - who is probably once of the most down to earth, rational, intelligent and pragmatic people I've ever known - told me of an experience she once had with a ghost who appeared at the foot of her bed. She swears blind that it really happened, but when she recounted the experience to me I just laughed at her, told her to get a grip and rolled my eyes. What was this intelligent, respectable woman doing telling me such a load of old bollocks? I think she probably regretted telling me about it, because she swiftly changed the subject and never brought it up again. I just remember feeling a mixture of disappointment and disgust at her for having let herself believe such a load of old shite.
Then there's my fiance. Again, another incredibly intelligent, logical, rational, skeptical, pragmatic, atheist person - he is the last person I would ever expect to claim to have had experienced 'unexplained' or 'paranormal' phenomena. This guy calls a spade a spade and has no time for so-called psychics, religious clap-trap or any kind of new-age, tree-hugging, hippy crap. So when he told me about an occasion in his old home with his ex girlfriend, when an object flew off of the television and across the room for no reason, I wasn't exactly over the moon. Great; he's supposed to be as level-headed as me. More so In fact. And In absolutely every other way, he truly is. He just has this 'one thing that he cannot explain'. I've taken the piss out of him so many times about it, I just find it funny that a man like him would believe in paranormal activity of any kind.
My ex boyfriend (who wound up being a nasty piece of work who really did a number on my self esteem) was raised as an Irish Catholic, so when he told me that he'd had a few experiences with ghosts, I wasn't that surprised. His mother and her sister's were all devout Catholics who also visited psychics and mediums, so he grew up in an environment that was much more open and receptive to the idea of a spiritual world and/or afterlife. Whilst I was just as skeptical of his experiences, I just chalked them up to a difference in cultural ideologies. He also wasn't the sharpest knife in the block either, so it seemed less of an anathema for him to believe in 'things that go bump in the night'! (Quite how I ended up being attracted to someone so intrinsically apposite to me and my own core values is beyond me. He was really only average looking, not that bright, drank too much, gambled excessively, treated me like shit, believed in ghosts and had a very average cock! I guess a sense of humour and a nice accent really is all you need to charm a woman into bed! But I digress...)
Despite having held fast to extremely skeptical beliefs - or lack thereof - since I was very young, in a weirdly contrasting conflict of opinions (for as far back as I can remember) I have always been oddly curious, fascinated even, by anything of a supernatural nature. Growing up I would read ghost and horror stories in abundance along with copies of publications like the Fortean Times, which focused on 'unexplained phenomena' and aspects of the paranormal. It was as if the two opposing sides of my brain were juxtaposed in their thirst for knowledge. The logical left hemisphere was all about science, facts, reality and rationale; yet the other emotional right hemisphere was excited, tantalised even, by the concept of 'supernatural phenomena'. I was fascinated by witches and witchcraft - something that resonates a little among the culture and community where I live. There is a strong link to our Celtic and Pagan or Druid ancestors where I come from, with many people still observing a lot of the old Pagan calendar, traditions and superstitions, that preceded all the Christian bullshit which tried to take over and eclipse it, a couple of thousand years ago. Right now we are in the Samhain part of the calendar, which is my favourite time of year. It always has been.
I can remember as far back as infant school, getting excited as soon as the new school year began, because not only were we saying goodbye to the uncomfortable sweltering temperatures of summer, but Halloween was on the horizon. I would spend weeks, planning my costume. I'd write ghost stories of my own, make little Halloween decorations and play games with my friends where we would pretend we were in a coven and try to put a hex or spells on people we didn't like.
It's weird that I would continue to have this fascination for all things 'spooky' throughout into my adult life, despite all the while maintaining complete skepticism that anything supernatural, paranormal or other-worldly exists. I'm a walking contradiction in terms. I think it's because that part of me who enjoyed the idea of there being a spooky side of life as a child, still secretly wishes that there were such things as ghosts; of a dark side to life which compliments my own personal darker side. Not because I have any great desire for there to be an afterlife, or for any religious bullshit to be true, but because the idea of a whole other dimension of existence is exciting. It would be interesting; a fascinating whole other facet of life to investigate, experience and learn about. It's not that I'm some empty headed person searching for some kind of reason or meaning to life, to make me feel complete. Far from it. I'm just the kind of person who loves to learn about stuff I don't already know. I'm excited by knowledge and another potential realm of existence, would just be awesome. I want it to be true - I just don't believe, deep down that it is. In the words of Fox Mulder's poster: I Want To Believe.
So...um...yeah, I've been watching back to back episodes of this 'Living With The Dead' show at Ruby's recommendation and I must confess, I'm happily hooked! And not just because the Bad-Boy Psychic Medium, Ian Lawman is rather easy on the eye, with his tattoos and New Rocks and fingernails painted black!
(Well, he did used to be a model in his younger days!) Is it real, or is it bullshit? Who knows. The logical part of my brain says it's all just a carnival show, laid on thick for maximum tv effect. But the other part of my brain that has been fascinated with the idea of anything supernatural since I was very small, really does hope that it's rooted in reality.
Well, I do believe I've bored you all to tears with my nonsense for too long again now, so I'm going to call it quits for now and get back to perving on the lovely leather-clad Mr Lawman for a bit.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks
X
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