1998 december 01

who are you?

i've been trying to sort through all my old correspondence.

i am a packrat of the nth degree; i save everything, letters, birthday cards, notes passed in class, you name it, i've got it squirrelled away somewhere. i used to rationalize that it was a subconscious psychological device to keep me in one place; now i freely admit i just like being surrounded by things that have meaning for me.

so, i have been rummaging through old letters and old emails and i have been amusing myself by reading the things i have written about myself in the past. if you think you already know me well enough, please feel free to skip the rest of this. otherwise, here, for your edification, claire on claire...

september 1994
[a period in which i had a rather serious infatuation with the !]

okay, you are very lucky because i am in an incredible mood - we are having a wonderful, beautiful, fantastic, glorious windstorm (i love wind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) - and not even coming home to two telephone messages from creditors looking for my exhusband has lessened my ecstasy and therefore i am prepared to do something that i would not do otherwise, at least not yet, and that is tell you about me!!! i am 178 cm tall. very tall, yes? i used to hate it but now i rather like it. sometimes just to be obnoxious i will wear very high heels just to be even taller!!! i am not thin but i am not as big as a house either! a friend has described me as *an over-inflated barbie doll* and *reubenesque* (after the painter) and *pneumatic* (after a description in aldous huxley�s a brave new world), but even after all his compliments (?) i would not sleep with him! my parents think i am beautiful, but that is what they get paid for, i think i am fairly plain. i have brown eyes and at the moment my hair is dark red/brown. usually it is brown and red and grey (from my father who was half grey by the time he was 30) but i recently has a mood and coloured it. my hair also used to be very long and very wild, naturally curly, like a medusa but i had another mood a month ago and cut most of it off. it is now chin length and somewhat more in control. my kissable earlobe on the left has two gold and diamond studs and on the right one very small silver hoop and one empty hole for whatever else i may want to hang. i always wear a gold chain around my neck from thailand that was my 18th birthday present from my parents. i also always wear two rings on my right pointer finger and one on my left pinky. and a gold bracelet on my left wrist. i do not wear a watch!! i have tattoos and i may get more. my only male employee, rob, thinks i�m sexy but he�s gay so i don�t know how much weight to give his opinion. also he is new and still must try to impress me!! i don�t like to wear shoes but if i have to, they must be big black clunky things or birkenstocks. i hate to wear nylons but love tights, thicker and more colourful and harder to destroy. i prefer dresses to pants. i used to wear only black but now wear black with other colours and sometimes green. i have an onagain/offagain love affair with hats. the power just flickered on and off and i almost typed all this self description in vain!!!!!!!!!!! onward and upward, i am very intelligent - my iq has been tested at 164 but i am wasting my brain according to several people. i am artistic. i love music, especially at the moment the new rem cd which i am now listening to. i do not eat meat either (sorry to keep being so agreeable) except once every four months or so i simply must have a cheeseburger; i�ve tried taking iron tablets in case it is a sign of a deficiency but it just won�t do. i must just eat the bloody thing. i too look younger than my years, sometimes when i go to a bar or restaurant i am still asked for identification to show that i am indeed 21 years old. i need to tell you some ideas i have about religion after reading your "going to hell" signature but that will wait for sunday. i bought my computer so i wouldn�t have so much paper lying about but i still have a compulsion to print out almost everything i write. i am not very tidy but i live alone so who cares? i own my flat also and sometimes it feels like a ball and chain around my ankle but mostly it is okay. i have lived here almost four years and i still do not think of it as home. i don�t think of anywhere as home so i guess i am still looking for a good one. i read. a lot. i like stephen king and peter straub also. and clive barker and yukio mishima and thomas hardy and ayn rand and charles bukowski and ray bradbury and many others. i like the movies of david lynch and martin scorcese and francis ford coppola and also french movies especially "camille claudel". and for an unknown reason along with millions of other women the world over, i think gerard depardieu is just wonderful. i know there are more questions you asked, about where i have been in europe and what else i read on netnews and but i will talk about them later because now i am talking about me but i think that i have run out of things to say and the bloody electricity is flickering again so i am sending this now..............

november 1996
[a period in which i vacillated between sentence fragments and runon sentences; godforbid i should have found the happy medium]

i have had plenty of fun with drugs in the past and may well do so in the future. have you ever heard daisychains for satan by mlwttkk? i live for drugs. i freaked out once, i freaked out on acid. i love that song. anywhohow.... what do i do................ lots of hanging out. lots of pouting and staring at the ceiling with a meaningful yet tortured look on my face. sometimes i paint. i always have the tv on but rarely watch it; if i want to see something i tape it so i can fast forward through the boring parts; the xfiles i tape. i rarely go to the movies as it�s a bloody pain in the ass on the bus and i usually can�t be bothered walking to the multiplex in town but when hbo and showtime have free previews i tape everything, including the dreck, and then watch it throughout the year. i spend copious amounts of time avoiding people; i think i may be heading toward an agoraphobic moment. i never answer my telephone unless the caller talks to the machine first. i used to be consumed by work but that was when i was paid for overtime; now they get 40, no more and sometimes less. as far as running away, it is always a possibility. however i carry around a guilt that can only be matched by a joint effort between your local cathedral and synagogue so that holds me back pretty well. it would upset my mother. and my fish. and my mortgage company.

still herself, claire