Bored of the same routine....

I'm so bored of the same routine this time every year. Every year, we celebrate New Year's Eve at friends of my Aunt's somewhere in Germany, and every year I read my friend's Facebook statuses and decide that next year, I'm going to be at someone's New Year party too. Not on my own, the only person between the age of 4 and 38... I can tell you exactly what will happen tomorrow evening... I'll be sat around a table that's too small for the amount of people there will be there, between my Aunt's friend 4-year-old daughter and her 18-month-old daughter and playing the Clown for the two of them. Also present, will be Mum (of course), my Aunt and Uncle (I don't talk to my Uncle unless it's something like "can you pass me the salt, please"...), my Aunt's friend (obviously, since her kids are there) and her husband, who is actually very nice and I would talk to much more, if only I could understand his dialect and accent. No doubt my Aunt's friend's mother will be there (I swear to god, Global Warming wouldn't be half as bad if she stopped talking for minute...) as well as maybe three or four people who I've never met before/met when I was less than a year old and will be expected to make small talk with them.

I HATE MAKING SMALL TALK.

I feel less awkward making small talk with people than I do going up to the till in Smiths with the latest copy of the Gay Times and asking for a pack of cigarettes to go with them... not that they ever sell them to me, and if they did, they'd lie around hiding in my room until I get stressed out or I'm with the only friend who knows that I sort-of-smoke... and he lives in Germany.

Small talk for me is the absolute torture... and I can't even explain why. It's like Brussels Sprouts, or Broccoli. I hate them with a passion.

But then, I'm left wondering if I'd feel as left out at my friend's New Year's Party as I would at this "celebration" we're having at my Aunt's friend's tomorrow (and probably next year as well, cos I know what I'm like... I'll tag along anyway). I definitely wouldn't if it were just me, my brother, Jack, Ed and maybe some of my friends who went to Frankfurt with me... Inga, Lauren, Gemma. I know I can have fun with them, and enjoy myself. Don't have to make small talk (OK, I NEVER make small talk with my brother... we just talk and talk and talk. If I'm sleeping round his or if he's at mine, we tend to talk well into the night until one of us just falls asleep ). And they're exactly the sort of people I'd want to start the New Year with... not friends of my family (half of whom I don't know)...

Maybe I'm just over reacting a bit... But I genuinely am sick of the same routine every sodding year.

Hallelujah

Sums up basically how I feel right now.

I need to learn a second instrument

I want to study Music at University, likely abroad, since the tuition fees have gone up to such an extent that I've been put off of studying in the UK. I already play the piano, and sort of sing. I don't like my voice, and I'm nowhere near confident enough to sing in front of people. I'm a shower singer. I pretty sure that I'm more likely to get a place in a Music course if I can play more than just the piano.... so which instrument should I learn?

I'm pretty certain Jack could teach me to play the guitar. I quite like the sound of guitars... classical guitars, that is. Acoustic ones. Electric guitars remind me too much of 'it'. Thing is, they're portable, and particularly acoustic/classical guitars, don't weigh a lot, so that's a big selling point for me, who spends most of my school life on a train. Not quite sure what Mum would say to me learning the guitar, since 'it' also played the guitar, but Jack's a classical guitarist, not a rock guitarist, and that's what I'd be too. They're completely different.

I've considered the Oboe as well, as an alternative. They're interesting, not a lot of people play them (in comparison to say, the Flute or the Guitar or the Piano...) and it sounds nice. When you can play it properly. I'm sure that when you learn to play, the Oboe can sound pretty horrendous...

Hmm.... how about the Flute? Or... the Cello?

Hmm... maybe the Cello's a bit unlikely, as it's so HUGE and impossible to carry around. Forget the Cello.

Oh, I don't know!!! It needs to be something easy enough for me to be able to get to a good enough standard by the time I start University in 2012. A guitar looks really complicated, cos you need to remember where each note is on the fretboard and which string to play and so on... whereas with the Oboe or the Flute (I think) there is only one key combination for any particular note, so at the moment they're looking like more plausible options to learn to a decent enough standard by whenever...

But I might take a gap year and start in 2013..... I don't know..... SOMEONE HELP ME!!!!!!!

Scrooge-ness... and a Rant about family thrown in for good measure ☺

Yeah, I'm a bit of a Scrooge. But what d'you expect, when you start learning Christmas songs in September for a December performance? Of course you're gonna be sick of Christmas by the time it actually arrives...

OK, maybe I'm taking it too far. I do like Christmas... for me it's a time when you should be with the people you love, and enjoy yourself, and be happy... and I'm really happy for my cousin and his girlfriend, who have been together for well over a year now, and good for them. I really hope they stay together for a very long time. And you can see that they're enjoying themselves... but at times I just get sick of their constant snogging in the middle of the hallway, or on the other side of the dinner table or whatever. I think there's a time and a place, and at the dinner table isn't one of them.

I say I get sick of it... maybe it's just my jealousy of my cousin. I wish I could be like he is with his girlfriend, with a boyfriend of my own. I want to spend Christmas with a guy I love. Don't get me wrong, I still love my family and all that. It's just, occasionally they can get a bit boring when you're stuck in the same house as them 24/7. So yeah, you do start to get a bit sick of the family, but in a nice way.

Or occasionally, in a not-so-nice way. Like my Aunt. She's a laugh, and she's good fun to be around for, say an evening. And then you go away, speak on the phone to her every once in a while, and show up again two months down the line. But then the novelty starts to wear off, and you begin to see just how annoying people like her can get. Everything has to fit into her routine. It's an obsession of hers. She even dictates when the dogs need to go in the garden and do a shit, and if they can't, then she demands they go round the block for a walk. OK, admittedly she's not quite that extreme usually, but we're more or less snow-bound at the moment, so the only opportunity these dogs have to go to the toilet is in the garden, and if they don't then she orders the dogs to go round the block in minus.

That might seem petty.... but it just annoys me.

Merry Christmas!

Even though I'm a bit of a Scrooge, and probably have no readers, Merry Christmas anyway!

Welcome to my life

For a long time now, I've felt like I've been bottling things up... I've felt like there hasn't been anybody I can talk to. Obviously, that isn't true. Mum's always there for me, and I can always talk to her, and so is my best friend, whose name I won't publish. He's amazing, in every possible way, and he's like a brother to me. I'll refer to him as my brother. Sounds sentimental, but it's true. And I can pour my heart out to both of them, but I never really feel any different. Things I tell them are still secret, between me and them. But most of the things I tell them are things I want people to know about. Like me being gay. Only a handful of people know I'm gay, but I want everyone to know that. Does that sound weird? Probably. It's been a secret for so long now that I need it off my chest in order to be happy...

Anyway... in a spur-of-the-moment decision, I decided to head over to blogger, and share my life with total strangers I don't know, so that I get the feeling I'm sharing my secrets, even though I still know that I won't feel better until I share these secrets with those I consider to be my friend.