(Scroll me!) Hi! This is my first entry here, so I am going to introduce myself and why I am making this website. My name is Frances (not my real name lol). Frances is my confirmation name and I like having that kind of privacy on the Interweb. The url of this blog is steppenwolf, which is my one of my fav books ever. I read it at secondary school when I was about 14ish, and I fell head over heels in love with it as I always felt very isolated and alien to the human species, like the protagonist of the book. It also got me really really into Jung so I am very grateful for that. The name? of the blog is tigermilking though because a. its my username on like everything b. its derived from Tigermilk by Belle and Sebastian which is one of my fav albums ever. In fact I am seeing it live tomorrow so expect a post about that haha. Anyway back to my introduction.

Since primary school, I have struggled with selective mutism, and I completely freeze up every time I have to speak. I have always been very isolated and unable to connect with other people because of this, and it never got addressed until a couple of months ago, shortly before my 18th birthday, so it never went away. When I was in secondary school, I was badly bullied because not talking in a working class comprehensive is very odd, so it got a hell of a lot worse and it completely messed with my head. I became agoraphobic, and I only leave the house for sixth form and to go to the cinema. I am going to university in a couple of months, so am working to recover and finally got a diagnosis a couple months back. I am working with a counsellor and doing exposure therapy, but I have to learn to be more vulnerable and open with people, and not just be able to bob to the shops lol. That is why I am making this blog, to be open about my thoughts and document my recovery process.

This website will not all be doom and gloom though, I'll probably talk a lot about my general interests and myself as a person beyond that. As a general overview of myself, I'm from Oldham (its basically Manchester), I'm also autistic and I'm hoping to study philosophy at uni. I'm a huge huge fan of David Lynch, especially Twin Peaks which is my biggest special interest. I'm big on the Beats and that period of mid 60s to mid 80s counterculture. My favourite book of all time is probably the Catcher in the Rye (sorry). The book I say to everybody though is Berlin Alexanderplatz because it is my favourite from a literature perspective rather than emotional. My favourite album of all time is Horses by Patti Smith. My favourite film is either Dog Day Afternoon or Wild at Heart. I am also really interested in spirituality both in a Catholic way w/ Teresa d'Avila and that stuff and also in a Jung way. I think that does me quite well.

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Last night I went to see Belle and Sebastian perform Tigermilk (omg like the name of the blog) at the Albert Hall. It was probably one of the best shows I have ever been to see solely because Belle and Sebastian mean an awful lot to me and it was so nice. I first listened to Tigermilk when I was like 14 because my mum had the CD and I thought the cover looked cool. I fell in love with it immediately and it was one of those albums that really saved my life in secondary school. Belle and Sebastian to the core is a band for uncool working class kids who sat alone at lunch reading James Joyce novels and listening to The Smiths. And that really was me as a kid.

The song 'Expectations', although not being my favourite music-wise appealed to me so much with the lyrics. Its about an outcasted and isolated weird girl at secondary school who loves The Velvet Underground and dreams of being an artist instead of working in a shop, and that described me to a T in secondary school. The song is telling this girl to keep being unabashedly weird and that everything will get better and that meant the absolute world to me when I was that age. It still does, I cry every time I listen to it ha. But seeing that live yesterday was one of the best moments of life because I am still that weird girl in everything I do and God it heals that part of me that hurt so much in school.

A big theme in their early albums is these narratives of working class life. Rather than the angst of their influences like The Smiths, they saw the joy in the monotony of it, and took joy in their uncoolness and rejection of these standards rather than lamenting about it. There is no word big enough to describe what that did for me as a teenager and how much it meant to me. Seeing it live just reignited this joy in me, and I'm just ecstatic. Seeing live music for me generally being autistic is like a religious experience (remind me to do another post on this), to see an album live which I have such an emotional connection to is so incredible. GOD BLESS LOSERS EVERYWHERE!

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Since the Belle and Sebastian gig last week I've gotten really into twee again like I'm 13 years old. I was walking around my town listening to Felt the other day which is quite big for me actually because I never really leave the house. And I was walking around listening to them and it was so sunny and its like damn God is actually real and life is so good. Having spent the majority of my teenage years in pure misery its so good learning to live again. Anyway I wanted to talk about twee and my love for it.

You see a lot of Americans on the Internet talk about twee as if it started in the 2000s. It did not and it whips me into a blind rage when I see them say this because it is my specific niche of autism. I remember a couple years back people were talking about a 'twee revival' but the pictures they were showing were just tumblr. I really hate this modern association of twee with tumblr because the thing that really defines the genre is its just punks making pop music. The start of twee as a defined genre is accredited to C86, an NME casette tape of jangle pop. The thing that united a lot of these bands were the fact that they were mostly working class kids who were outcasted in some way and found a home in 70s punk records. And it does hurt me a lot when people erase this history because this is what made it appeal to me when I was a working class teen in love with Patti Smith.

After Belle and Sebastian formed in the late 90s, twee was pushed to the mainstream-alternative and found its way across the pond in the early 2000s, which is probably where this misassociation lies because America thinks its the centre of the world. I don't know why I'm writing all this I just hope that one person will read this and go and listen to Felt. They're like if Television caught onto The Smiths its great. The guitarist, Maurice Deebank, once said he was autistic in an interview and how his aims for self-actualisation and all that jazz affected his music and sometimes I wonder if this might be why I love the genre so much.

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I went back to college after Easter this week. I forgot how much I love the bus. It brings me too much delight to sit on the bus and stare out the window at 6:30am in the morning when the roads are quiet and everythings nice and calm. It always spooks me going back to college though because I've spent the past 2 weeks practically in bed so it freaks me out when I'm walking about in town or in college and theres people everywhere. I start my art exam this afternoon so wish me luck!

School talk over I rewatched High Fidelity (2000) yesterday. Or the day before can't remember. Its one of my fav movies ever and I hate that because its so stupid. The thing that makes me love it so much is all the little band poster and stickers and records in the background. Now that I'm rewatching it I noticed a lot more of those little details. Personal favs that I never noticed before were Dick's Love and Rockets shirt and the massive KMFDM sticker on the fridge. Another reason I like it is that I can see into my future and it doesn't look bright. I can see myself aged 30 alone and miserable in a run-down flat but I have all my CDs and my records. That reminds me I got the Virgin Suicides soundtrack on CD from Oxfam the other day even though I've never watched it I just love the soundtrack lmk if its an actually good film. Anyway I don't have any groundbreaking comments because its a stupid film I just wanted to say I'm a pretentious loser so I appreciate it.

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Haven't been on here for like a week, I've been sooooo busy. I had my art exam at the end, and then I visited the uni of York on Saturday. And then I just couldn't be bothered on Sunday. I think this will be a quick update today and then tomorrow I'll ramble about something. But I wanted to get my thoughts down about uni today.

I was torn between York and Belfast. York seems better with education and one of the professors there is a philosophy of religion guy and thats my jam. Belfast is a much better city and is less studenty. I have a very hopeful view of uni, that I'll go there and everything will be fine and amazing and I will not be me. But I'm accepting the fact that I'll still feel awful wherever I go and I'll still struggle socially. So it doesn't matter lol. I'm glad I got rejected from Oxford though because even if I would've coped academically, there would be no way I would survive the social situation. Too small. I'm hoping that because I'll be away from home, it'll be easier for me to cope socially knowing nobody knows me at all. But I think that only works for the first day ha.

Anyway I think I've settled on York. I think the airports and the ferries and all with Belfast would've been too much for me. I like the brutalist architecture at York as well. And its closer to home. Weighing it up in my head right now the scale is decisively York. Let me know if I am making a huge mistake.

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