hahahahaaaaaa

Was crying. No idea why. Haven't really stopped. Haven't really slept.

OK, so here's what I need to get sorted:

1. Finish my exams.

Tomorrow's exam is destined to be a failure because I haven't been able to revise because I haven't been able to concentrate. It sucks. I've got no hope of doing well in this exam, as it would take a miracle of memory for me to be able to recall anything other than roughly what happens in two out of the eight books I have studied. I'm not looking forward to it, I just want it to go away so I can be in peace. That's all I want, seriously. I just want them to fuck off. This semester has been so awful in every single way. Nothing has gone the way I wanted it to, and everything has gone against that which I wanted. I've had some good marks so far - but I've just stopped caring. People put all this great emphasis on fucking university, but then forget that you're meant to have fun as well. I haven't had fun in what feels like weeks. I've had some good nights, but that's mainly down to the fact I've gotten so plastered on those nights that I've forgotten everything else which is annoying me. So I need to get this cunt of an exam out of the way so I can go home and see my friends (hopefully) and just see something normal again. Just 6 days not having to worry about doing an essay, or prepping for an exam, or staying up half the night revising, or sitting in my room not having anything to do because I can't focus but all my friends can. That's what is making this even worse. With the exception of one of my housemates, everyone has their noses to the grindstone and are working their little socks off. This is making me feel quite guilty. Not guilty enough to do anything about it, evidently, as I am about to go back to bed and watch a film. Not sure whether or not I want to burn my bed or attack it with an axe. It's comfortable, but reminds me of the fact I never sleep anymore. Once I get my exam out of the way and go home then I can go back to my bed. Then again, what with some things I'm not sure I'm going to want to sleep in that one either. But at least I'll be able to have a bath, that'll be great. I might go back to work as well for a few days. I miss the shop. How sad is that? Quite sad. Yeah. There's all these things that I want to do, but they all hinge on tomorrow afternoon arriving quicker than it is already. Oh. Look at the time. It's officially 24-hours until I will be free. That should give me a feeling of goodness, but it... doesn't. Also... goodness? Yeah I'm gonna fail.

2. Go home.

I'm not sure what it is about university, but there's so little to do during the days when you don't have lectures that time crawls by agonisingly slowly. As I mentioned above everyone is busy cramming, or has already finished and gone home. The only people I want to talk to are so "blah blah" that I feel bad for intruding, especially given that I should be too busy revising. Here's hoping that when I go home I can just forget all this shit; spend the days reading and the nights with my friends. Might even see my mum. Who is ill, and has developed further arthritis. I'm not sure that she's going to be OK this time... I mean, she should be, but that's a bad sign. She's had it almost her whole life, but it's getting much worse at the moment. Her blood pressure was 176/96 the other day - which is criminally frightening. That's above heart-attack level. The problem is that if I go home, when I see her, I'm going to feel obliged to look after her - and I know that I don't have the mental stability to care for her and myself. Obviously she comes first, but that's going to put me in a worse mental-frame when I come back to start semester two. Also, there's not really a lot that my home has to offer in terms of cheerfulness. I don't have any hugely good memories of that house, in fact I hate that house. I wish we could have moved. I wish my mum had sold it and moved to London. Then I'd live in London. Which I hate. But I'd prefer the house. Maybe I should just move into my dad's empty house. Then again, I'd probably end up killing myself because I'd be alone all the time, not just most of it. So we've a double-edged sword here: home offers some kind of cut-off from the hatred I have towards university at the moment, but it also reminds me of a bunch of things I don't want to remember. Stuff I don't think I'll go into because I don't want to remember them particularly. Then again, I already can because that's where this took me.

3. Sleep.

This is the most important one of the three. I have to sleep. It's getting to a dangerous point. I've only gone this long without proper sleep once before, and that was last year. I don't remember a lot about the last time, but I do recall collapsing at one point, and shaking quite a lot. That was just before they proscribed me the first round of sleep-meds, which worked. Now they won't give me anymore because of the fear of addiction. Unfortunately, I'd take addiction to heroin if it would mean I could pass out and just... sleep. For hours. Not minutes. I've been averaging one to three hours a night for the past... 8 or so days or something. I just lie there for hours on end until all I can think about is how tired I am. If you've been following my recent updates you will see that it has lead me to be an incredibly awful person. That's what I hate most about this: it makes me into someone I don't like. I'm clingy, dependant, lonely, and snappish. Loads of 'qualities' which I'd rather not be associated with. I'm never usually clingy, but I just want someone to hug me and tell me everything's going to be ok. Haha. That's so fucking lame. I'm becoming dependant because when I'm around people I forget all of these fucking stupid bits of shit that are fucking pissing me off. I'm lonely because I feel cunting lonely. I'm snappish because I have no patience whatsoever. This isn't meant to be how I feel or how I act. I'm meant to be liberal, and dependable, and gregarious, and patient. Those are the things I like to be, and they make me happy - and I've been trying to force myself into those roles, but I'm really struggling. Especially with the 'rest your head on my shoulder' ones. All I see when I do that is people whining about their boyfriends, or their girlfriends, and it just makes me want to punch people in the head. Repeatedly. I like to be supportive of people, but because of the whole sleep-addled brain I can't think anything other than "at least you've fucking got someone you selfish prick." It's only writing it down now that I can see the hilarious irony of criticising other people for being selfish. That's exactly what I'm doing. My failings mean that I can't do anything for other people, which makes me selfish, and a shit friend to boot. Nothing anyone can say can fix my ruined brain, but things I can say or do could help these people. But no. Too fucking tired. Too blah blah blah. God. This lack of sleep is completely ruining my giving up smoking, too - along with everything else that's going wrong at the moment. I am meant to be down to 7 a day this week (6 from tomorrow), and I'm still hovering around the 10-12 mark. Yeah, that's much better than 20 a day, everyday; but it also means that the preceding 4 weeks have been completely pointless. I tried really hard when I felt good to just... cut out as many as possible. Since then... yeah, not so much. The main bulk of my smoking, however, seems to be once I've gone to bed. I know that nicotine stimulates the brain, but I also know that not smoking will stimulate my brain with rage. It's a lose-lose coin-toss, unfortunately: I either lie there raging, or I lie there stimulated. Neither of those is conducive to sleep - so I choose the one that makes me feel better for five-minutes.

4. Give up smoking.

It's feeble. My attempts have been absolutely woeful. It's embarrassing. There's so many things that are harder than this that I can do, but this just seems like an impassable mountain - and I'm equipped only with one snow-shoe. I've got nothing. I need to go to that smoke-cessation clinic and talk to some professionals. If my mental-state was slightly less fragile then perhaps I wouldn't be doing such a laughable job, but because I'm being such a self-pitying fucktard I feel ok with blaming the smoking on the problems. The fact of the matter is that there's no one to blame other than myself, and that slays me. That reality that I can palm this off on loads of other things, but that when I actually think about it I realise it's my fault entirely - that reality is horrid. I hate failing. I hate failing myself almost as much as I hate failing other people. Unfortunately, even with the foresight to acknowledge that I'm a fucking idiot, it is still proving to be incredibly difficult. Here, at least, it seems that knowledge is not the solution. For me that thus proves irritating and futile. Because I know what the problem is - me - but have a scapegoat - everything else - I'm going to wait until the scapegoat is no longer around (he'll probably have escaped) and then I shall be able to go forward with the 'quit or die' programme. I definitely think I need some better incentives, however, because the two that I was banking on have kind of been proved too fallible. One was a possibility, and that seems farther away every day, and the other was health concerns: alas, I realised that I genuinely couldn't give a crap what happens to the inside of my lungs. I've never cared about the money side, because I've always had more money that I deserve, and I've never cared about the effects on other people - because I think people are too selfish to realise that they're as damaging to themselves as I am to them. Obviously, if my housemates literally couldn't live with me because of the smell I would give up, but I'm not going to stop smoking just because the ban is in place. I need something tangible and incentivizing. That's not a word but I don't care. I do want to give up, but only in the sense that when I have stopped smoking I'll be happy with my efforts, and a tiny bit proud of myself. The giving up, however, needs something behind it with a whip. I need like a fucking horse-team behind me lashing up a storm before I'm going to really get down to a level I should be at. I'm meant to be clear by March 22. I decided that date, however, a few weeks ago - before all of these things came crashing around. I think June is a more reasonable estimate. Either way: giving up makes me angry because... well, it's inherently irritating; and my failure to give up angers me further because it's so damn pathetic. We shall see how that goes.

5. Attack Valentine's Day with a gun.

There was a mild possibility that this year I wasn't going to have to spend this day alone. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances - including multiple and repeated failures on my part - this date is a tad optimistic. To just give a vague update on my love life, and to perhaps explain some of the more laconic and cryptic posts you've been reading recently: guy I like, reciprocated, some stuff has happened in his life, I handled it atrociously, hiatus. Basically. I've managed the situation like a small boy just given his first bike. I can't wait to rip those fucking stabilisers off and zoom off up the road without a care for what my actions are doing to my parents. They're probably watching and waiting for me to fall underneath a car as I slip on a patch of mud that I'm unable to deal with. I should have left the cunting stabilisers on; taken things gently, and let the wise old man place his hand gently on the base of my spine, to push me along up the gentle incline. Alas, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and to get lost in my awful metaphor would be a great piece of escapism - it does not achieve anything, though, so I am going to leave my conceit behind. The reason I'm speaking in riddles, incidentally, is because if I spell out how I fucked up then I'll realise how shit I am at this whole courting thing. I mean, I've never been good: tact was never my forte, nor was patience - however, in a normal situation I think people take these qualities to be kind of endearing in a childish way. Bugger for me if I didn't realise that life calls for adapting. I made it about me, which was the dumbest thing anyone could ever do. Had I a time-machine I would go back and do pretty much everything differently. There is no point in resting on the past, however, so I guess I should just work on being less moronic in future. Should have been a darn chameleon. That's a hard word to spell. There is still some hope, but I'm not to rest too long on that because this is in its infancy. I will keep you mysteriously updated with non-committal rhetoric. As Eliot says, "signs are small, measurable things but interpretations are illimitable". She may not write the most interesting of novels, but you cannot deny that she's a smart one. So yeah, in the meantime, I shall be shooting Cupid in the throat. Might make me smile. Holiday of red etc..

5. Write more on here.

Not sure what it is, but I find writing here incredibly therapeutic. I'm aware that the reality is much less pleasant than the ideal I have in my mind: all this is is a post-adolescent bucket of weeping performed to an audience of leering 65-year-old men who fuck themselves on the angst of others. Keeping a public diary is a terrible idea. That's why when I've sorted my face out (sorry, head) I'm going to go back and purge those melancholic ramblings, and transfer them to a personal diary. Had I the wherewithal I would go out and buy one, but I don't want to, so that will have to wait. Now, at least, I have kept some anonymity and the fact that I'm a feeble 20-something-year-old shouldn't actually matter. I like writing on here. I was reading my first lot of updates, however, and they were much more interesting. These have become like... life-updates. Before they were just grumbles about how much I hate everything. That's a shame, because I do hate everything, and I think it's an injustice to leave so many things free of my vitriol. I will have to get back into that frame of mind where I can rant and rave for hours on end. That's also another reason I enjoy writing this. Even though some of my vents aren't particularly long, they still kill a good portion of the day. This, for instance, has taken about 45-minutes. Which seems like a long time given that I've only said a heap of nothing. I'm going to take a smoke-break. I finally remembered to put my glasses on. I knew there was a reason I was getting a headache. Stupid hangover, sleep-deprived brain. Yes, so I want to get back to writing more on here, and updates with actual substance, not just mindless drivel spouted for catharsis. Catharsis is great, don't get me wrong, it's my favourite sis, but it's also about as useful as punching myself over and over again in the temple. Brilliant whilst it lasts, but ultimately pointless.

6. Get some perspective.

I definitely need to get some perspective. Nothing that I have to deal with at the moment is as bad as things I have dealt with previously. Not sure why they're affecting me quite so much, to be honest, I guess it must just be because I'm so tired all the time. I've dealt with much larger self-failings before: when I cheated, when people I know died, when I failed exams, blah blah blah. Loads of things have happened which are a bajillion times worse than this, but I guess you never really get that sense when you're in the middle of the worst days ever. Lawl. I'm going to be incredibly tired by tomorrow, but that's just something I can get over. This is what I'm struggling to understand. Even though my sleep is appalling, it's not as bad as it was last year: then I was going days at a time without ever falling asleep. I was nodding off in lectures, and falling asleep on buses. Pretty sure those like... micro-sleeps (even though they weren't technically) were the only things keeping me going. Until I found caffeine, that is. I know that my doctor's viewpoint makes significantly more sense: "it's the caffeine that's keeping you awake", but that fails to explain why I was awake in the first place. I challenged her to go two days without sleeping and then function normally within society, without help. I think she thought I was being facetious. I wasn't. I know that coffee hinders my going to sleep, but it's also the only thing that keeps me running during the days that I have to be awake. I can't just take weeks off until I'm sleeping properly. That would ruin any hope of well... most things. I also can't just keep taking one more sleeping pill than the previous night - in the hope that the more I take, the more chance there is of them working. I can't keep doing that, because I'm already well above the proscribed dosage, and I really don't want to fall into a coma that I don't wake up from. I'm not suicidal, honestly. Suicide is kind of pointless because I'm well aware that things will get better in the future; but due to my human-programming I need to stay like this for as long as I can, so I can gain as much ego-stroking as is possible. That's all it is. We are fundamentally flawed: craving attention even when we see the issue for what it really is. I'm undermined by my own incompetence. Sigh. *Self-sympathy*. That just sounds like a really childish - and thus disturbing - metaphor for masturbation. Perhaps masturbation is the key. Maybe I can wank myself into an orgasm-induced coma. That'd be an alright cure for insomnia. I could live with that. In a weird sort of way. In a painful sort of way. So yeah. I need to get perspective. That starts as of Monday afternoon when I get my train home. I like trains. In a sadomasochistic way: I fucking hate them, but I also enjoy hating them because it fuels my angst. Which is great. Also, one thing about Brandon Sanderson's writing of the antepenultimate Wheel of Time book: he varies between capitalising after a colon, and then not capitalising. I find this incredibly infuriating. I'm not sure if it's an American thing to capitalise, like this: You see? or whether it's just an individual style thing. I used to do it myself. I do know, however, that whichever you choose you should stick to it. Like the whole 'comma before and' thing. I know Americans love the whole third-comma, because so do I. I understand that. I don't apply it consistently, but then I don't ask people to pay for my work.

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There's my list, then, and it's going to be easy I am sure. I quite missing living in halls of residence. There was that whole collegial atmosphere which living in private accommodation just can't replicate. It was a complete illusion of camaraderie, but it was soothing even if its manifest qualities were noise and irritation. Living with 700 fewer people means 700 fewer opportunities for interaction. My housemates, especially, have their own lives: two have long-term boyfriends that take up most of their time; one isn't from our friendship group and is a bit of an outsider and thus has his own friends; and the other is incredibly introverted and closed-off. We've yet to have a meaningful conversation - in 15 months. That doesn't bother me, because I like her a lot. I like them all. It just... yeah, I mean, that's fairly superficial however you look at it. That's why I miss halls, I guess. Incidentally, if you don't know what they are, they're just where most of the first-year university students live. Huge blocks of flats (apartments) divided up into smaller bits where you live. Communal living, basically. I miss it because even though it was superficial and shallow, there was always an opportunity for interacting with someone you'd never met before. Yeah I hated most of the people and never wanted to see them again in my life, but at least the chance to realise this was there. Now it's like you have to throw your lot in with what you have from the previous year. That's fine: I've got some great friends, but it also makes it much harder to branch out and speak with people you don't normally associate with. I know I have this whole "haha I hate people" thing, and that's not a lie, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to meet new people. I don't dislike everyone - otherwise I wouldn't like any of my friends, etc.. So yeah, I miss the whole socialising thing where you could always find someone new to force into a conversation. God I hated it, though. It was truly one of the worst years of my life. I loathed almost every minute of it. It gave me insomnia, for God's sake. But it was... easy. It meant that I didn't have to focus on maintaining relationships, because the close proximity of said relationships negated the need for effort. Not that I'm saying I begrudge having to keep up with friendships, but everything is much easier when geography prevents necessity: the fact you were all there just meant you know you were all friends. It was either that or kill everyone, and that's not really a choice for most people. They were shallow days, but they were nice days too. I have perhaps the most manic-depressive viewpoint of halls. Ever. In the whole world. WHOLE WORLD.

I also miss the sun. It feels like it has been a long time since we've seen him. He's not come out of hiding in a long, long while. This winter is becoming increasingly depressing. I know it's winter - and thus I appreciate that I shouldn't be expecting unseasonable tropical heat-waves; but I also don't remember a winter that was this stolid. Every single day is overcast and cloudy. It never breaks for rain, and since it snowed a few weeks ago, it has just been a blanket of grey. The only change is in the shade of grey - and to be honest, charting chrome-shift isn't exactly what you want to do when deciding what you need to wear out for the day. Monochrome is a fun setting on a digital camera, or GIMP, but it's not a fun setting on 'the weather'. Which is definitely a concept which you can speak of like that. Yeah, I miss the sun a lot. I don't even like the warmth, really, it messes with my sleep even more, and it also makes me sweat constantly - but at least when you look out the window and see that opalescent glow surrounding your garden, casting a shadowed halo on the bench; at least when you see that your spirits are uplifted. Admittedly, it's not that comfortable to be sitting at your window completely naked praying for a breeze; but it's better than sitting at your window shaking uncontrollably from the cold and wishing, just wishing, that the sky would stop looking so vastly depressing. Even nature is more enjoyable in the summer months. I have hayfever, and I can say that. Across the garden, and over the decaying fence, winding around the child's ephemera, and between the spoils of the adults - in my neighbour's garden, you can see that they've hung some washing up. I have absolutely no idea why, because it's about 3'C outside, and cold wind is unlikely to dry something. At least there's no chance of rain. There's never going to be a chance of precipitation again, I swear. We were predicted a wet and mild winter: so far we have had weeks of snow, and then weeks of bone-dry depression. According to the forecast for this week, it is sunny at the moment, but soon it will rain. I can promise you that it is not sunny at the moment.

Here is the sky.

See. It's really not sunny at the moment. That picture doesn't even begin to do it justice. That looks significantly more blue than the world does. Maybe I should start looking through my camera everywhere I go: it seems as though it casts an optimist's view across the planet. That'd be awesome if inanimate objects suddenly imbibed human characteristics. Not like robots. But like... depressed toasters and stuff. Ha. I should totally write a screenplay on that. Not sure where I'd go with the story, but it would be hilarious for me to watch an espresso machine weep openly, or a car suddenly break into song, or a chair start tap-dancing, or a window that won't open because it's angry. Wow. That's the greatest idea anyone has ever had - and it's copyright of me! No stealies. Honest I will chase you down. In hindsight, I think that's actually the worst idea anyone has ever had, and you're welcome to it. If it does well at the box office, however, I will come back and edit this and then sue you for copyright infringement. I am learned at defamation law, so bring it on: I will be all over the legal-slandering of your company until you go bankrupt because everyone will refuse to see a film made by a philandering, whore-mongering, child-raping wife-beater. Admittedly I couldn't say any of those things unless I had incredible substantiating evidence, or if everyone already hated you, but it's fun to imagine a time when I would need to call someone that. I might just call someone that in my exam tomorrow, just to see the reaction. Even better, I could call Will Ladislaw something like that: "the licentious, philandering, marriage-ruining..." - granted that's basically just a sentence demonstrating how to fall into a tautological trap (there's a mouthful), but it would be fun regardless. Or irregardless as one of my friends said. I refused to believe it was a word, so I googled it - hilariously it came up with "Adj. irregular". I thought that was hilarious. I told him that it was "iriregular". He didn't seem to find that funny, but I did, so that's all that matters.

OK, I've been rambling for way too long now. No one is going to be paying attention anymore. Hell, I'm not even paying attention anymore. I'm just riffing with the air, which is nice, and because I'm just that obstreperous, I'm tempted to keep writing and pretend there's something interesting at the end. There's not.