Talk about self-centred! Me! Me! Me! Me! ME! That’s all anybody in this house cares about. I was trying to have a normal conversation over supper (the way people do in films etc.), not some Great Intellectual Discussion (I know my family’s limits, believe me), when I realized that no one was listening to me. I stopped dead right in the middle of explaining about what happened at lunch (which was v dramatic and emotionally stressful), and no one so much as glanced my way. Sigmund (my male parent) was messing around with his electronic organizer as per usual, and the Mad Cow (my female parent) was staring at him with her eyes squashed up like she was trying to work out whether or not he was going to blow us all up. Also as per usual, my parents’ other child – the one they should’ve aborted in the first four weeks – was reading some book like the rude, antisocial boil that he is. (Tomato sauce was dripping down his chin in a particularly revolting way. You’d think at his age he’d at least be house-trained.) Anyway, I just sat there watching them for a few seconds. They were chomping away like lions round a dead zebra, oblivious to anyone but themselves (for a change, right?!!). And it suddenly hit me not just how Spiritually Alone I am, but how easy it would be for me just to GIVE UP and become like them: shallow … superficial … more boring than asphalt. I recovered from this DEVASTATING realization and asked them very sweetly if they were aware of the fact that I was trying to have a conversation. I’d’ve got more of a personal response if I’d farted. Still staring at Sigmund, the Mad Cow asked him did this mean he was going out again tonight and, still staring at his organizer, Sigmund said he was just checking his schedule, and was that a crime now or something? I could tell that they were about to start another fight, which is pretty much the only thing they do together lately. If you ask me, it’s just as well Sigmund’s hardly ever home, or the flat would be like war-torn Beirut or one of those places. So, for the sake of Peace, I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hello? Hello?” I shouted. “Is anybody there?” Which was when Justin suddenly looked up and made his one joke about Planet Janet trying to communicate with Earth. That, of course, caught the parents’ attention. The three of them laughed like a pack of demented hyenas. It’s TOO MUCH, if you ask me. I’m at a v crucial time in my life when I should be encouraged to express myself and explore my feelings and experiences, and what do I get instead? I get, ooh, Planet Janet’s trying to contact Earth, that’s what I get. So I said that I didn’t see what was so bloody funny and the Mad Cow told me to watch my language, as per usual. Sigmund’s contribution, also as per usual, was to quote the only poem he knows – the one about seeing yourself as others see you. Too right, I said, and I removed myself from the kitchen in a meaningful way. I was REALLY irked. I mean, I listen to them all the time, not that any of them ever has much to say. (Blah blah blah the government … blah blah blah guess what happened in the supermarket … blah blah blah … blah blah blah… I mean, BORING or what?) So that’s why I decided it’s definitely time to start the Dark Phase. Disha (My v Best Friend in the Universe and For Ever) and I have been talking about it since September. I REALLY don’t want to end up having a trivial life like everyone else, especially everyone I’m related to. I want to LIVE, not just exist. I mean, life isn’t about what’s on telly or who left the toilet seat up, is it? It’s full of ANGST (meaning suffering and deep emotions) and PASSION. I want to be in touch with the REAL stuff. The DEEP pain and joy. The TRUE Essence and Substance. I have a Questing, Artistic Soul, and if I don’t get away from all this mundane crap it will wither and die like a flower in a desert. Anyway, I was lying on my bed thinking about all of this when I remembered this diary. Sappho (aka my Aunt Hannah) gave it to me as a winter solstice present. (Sappho doesn’t give presents for Christmas because it’s a Male, Capitalist, Consumer Bloodbath; she gives winter solstice presents instead.) It’s called The Lives of the Great Feminists Diary, and it’s packed with facts you never wanted to know about women you’ve never heard of. For instance, Fusaye Ichikawa founded the Women’s Suffrage League in 1924! I was REALLY glad to learn that! At last my life has meaning! Anyway, I was going to wait a couple of months and then throw it out without the Mad Cow noticing, which is what I usually do with presents from Sappho, but now I’ve changed my mind. Instead of trying to converse with people who don’t want to listen, I’m going to seek solace and self-expression in the written word. I reckon that way I can get in touch with my DEEPER SELF. And also it should help my chances of finally getting a story published in the school magazine.
Rang Disha after the kitchen was finally evacuated by the peasants. She was suitably shocked by their behaviour, though not, of course, surprised (she’s known me a long time and knows what my family’s like almost as well as I do). D says she reckons the Mad Cow squashes her eyes up like that when she’s really trying to focus on something, though I can’t imagine why she’d want to focus on Sigmund. I asked D where she gets this stuff from and she said from books. D’s ready for the Dark Phase too.
I was going to tell you what happened at lunch, but I’m so emotionally depleted now that I can’t exactly remember what it was.