This week...

... I am starting a course of anti-depressants, which also second as a sedative; I am visiting an acupuncturist for stress relief; and I am attending counselling for some of my more 'deep-rooted' problems (as the lovely woman told me at like 11am this morning). I had what can only be described as the worst night of my entire life, last night - and I wish to never repeat it. It was frightening, and horrible, and pathetic. I am too ashamed to discuss it further. Wish me luck on the quest for self-improvement!

This is...

... literally impossible. How are you supposed to do this!?!?!??!?WF?d/FG?/"4?2?$TR435?$?^43?g?DFg?wRqa?vw?Tg A?ET?£W44? t?£5? 235 2?5 ?£4T 35/T ?%$ Sans support from basically everyone apart from Agnes, I have managed to go the longest I have ever gone without a cigarette aside from when ill/incapacitated.

I'm doing it. I'm hating it. The inhalator is making me feel ill when combined with the fucking disgusting dry-mouth raping butywhateverthefuckinghelltheyrecalled. I'll take the illness over the smoking, however, because it's about fucking time I took some initiative. Outside factors are attempting to piss me off, but they can suck my balls as far as I am concerned. If I can do this, I can do just about anything else that requires willpower.

GO JACK!

SUPPORT ME IN THE QUIT SMOKING WOOOO ETC..

P.S. Alcohol kinda helps funnily.

Dry mouth.

I've got a constant dry-mouth. It's fucking annoying. It's these fucking drugs the doctor has proscribed. They stop a bunch of glands from doing anything, and evidently that includes producing saliva. I'm getting through around a litre of water an hour -- which means I'm going to the toilet about twice an hour as well. I'm like a shitty fountain in a pleb's garden or something. I hate that something which is meant to help you is actually the worst kind of hindrance. Apparently they're not even going to take effect for about a week: so in the meantime I have to put up with horrendous dry-mouth, and purely criminal nightmares almost every night. It's really horrible to go to bed as an insomniac knowing that the rare few hours of sleep you can snatch are going to be full of lurid visions of things you really don't want to think about. I'm really not a fan of these physical side-effects. So just because physically I'm already falling apart I have decided to quit nicotine as of 2.30pm tomorrow afternoon. I am going to get me some patches, and an inhalator, and whatever else they'll give me and then I'm going to do my best to just... not smoke. Sick and tired of it, and clearly that's not going to be helping a fucking sand-mouth. That's a good metaphor right there: I'm simply chewing through a bucket of sand every hour, which is then re-worn into glass whilst inside me, before it attempts to squeeze itself out of my urethra or ringpiece. Seriously, I'm gonna look like a fucking flamed tapestry by the end of this week. A ravaged patchwork of decimation; a dead man strolling gently through my gums. MASTICATE. I wish.

Fucking medicine.

Fucking fuck fest.

Enough said. Sometimes I feel so emotionally immature. It's weird. I'm like woooo. Etc..

AWefdsf

WHAT IN THE FUCK IS GOING ON!? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS SHIT!? SERIOUSLY. WHAT THE FUCK!??!

Dear Network Rail.

The following is a draft of a complaint letter which will soon be wending its way towards Network Shysters. You may have heard of me speaking about them before (allegedly they're the company which privately owns our rail system 'Network Rail' - my name is much more fitting and logical). Sit back, this may go on for a while (assuming I don't get too distracted by Vancouver on mah TV).

'To whomever wishes to abnegate responsibility,

I am writing to you with a swelling heart, and a flowing sense of pride: pride in our great nation, in our one modern dream of a system of transport which links our developed nation together. That is, of course, how I would start this letter if I had fallen through a space-rip and had landed in 'opposite world'. Instead, please see if you can answer the following question: why do you constantly expect myself, among thousands of other people, to continually pay out of the ear for 'service' which is so below par if it were an animal it'd be nothing but an amoeba? I will regale you, if you please, with my tales of woe; and then I will follow it up with a few choice questions which could perhaps aid you in answering my initial query.

In the past 6 days I have caught around ten-or-so trains. I have travelled up to Birmingham, from my other house, and then around Birmingham. I have travelled to and from my house, from my other house. I would like to extend my gratitude to the providers of Cross Country trains for their timely journeys, comfortable - and accessible - carriages, and affable staff. Consider that the only nice adjunct you will enjoy. Whilst in Birmingham I met with no problems: no delays, no queues, no exorbitant rogering of my fiscal virginity. The only problems I met were when I was homeward bound: I was delayed for around an hour, before being shunted onto a train which seems to have somehow survived the mass-scrappage of the Auschwitz rail-system. It was quite frankly the most rancid thing I have ever set foot in, and the miasma was made only worse by the fact it was my only option. If this were an isolated incident I would be ready to forgive and forget, and move on - even if you had charged me out of the ear for the 'privilege' of using this 'service' - alas, this is only isolated in that I eventually caught a train that was useful for me.

Take today, for instance: I aimed to catch a train from my house to my house; a journey of roughly fifty-miles, and of just over an hour. Well, again, that's what you'd think -- but you'd be wrong. I instead caught a train to somewhere. And then to somewhere else. And then to my house. And it took just over 2 hours. And you expected me to, as usual, pay the full fare for this abomination. Please, suggest to me that this - again - doesn't happen often, and that no service is infallible. If you do I would be more than happy to engage with you over a hot-chocolate where I can recite the eight-thousand other times your trains have let me down. Please, let me continue for the sake of verisimilitude.

I'm not sure if you - whoever you are - have ever been on the 'the shit one where I live' line (though it's a stretch to call it a 'line'. It's about as much of a 'line' as your 'service' is a service). If you haven't, I'll just fill you in on a few choice facts:

i) The average speed of your train must be about 3mph, because it takes over an hour and a half sometimes to travel 50 miles.

ii) This service - in the 15 months that I have lived here - has never been on time, nor has a fast train ever been an option.

iii) This service - same time-frame - has been delayed, cancelled, or re-routed countless time.

iv) For the past one and a half years you have insisted that I catch a bus if I wish to travel this route on a Sunday. Not only that, but for the one weekend where all university students would be travelling back after their break you replaced the trains, again, with buses. Not only buses, but buses which would be more suited to a Ghanaian sojourn over a mountain or something awful like that.

v) Not once have I been offered any form of fare-reduction, compensation, or replacement train.

I'm again unsure if you've ever been to station near my house, or station near my uni house for that matter, and to be quite blunt I'm not even sure if this is your responsibility. I am not fussed to research whether or not it is, however, because you never seem to extend me the courtesy of performing, so why on earth should I? In case you're wondering why I brought this up, there are a couple of reasons really: there is no facility for buying tickets at station near my house- I have never been able to purchase something there. Ever. Station near my uni house, for the past 5 months, has had no provision for purchasing tickets from a human being, and your automated machines are so convoluted that even your own staff advise purchasing a ticket on-board, rather than have it out with the machine. Let's refresh: is this service?

I could go on and on and on, but I really cannot be bothered with this anymore. Your system is laughable, lamentable, terrible. And not laughable in a giggling-schoolgirl sense, but more the kind of angry grimacing laughter you might reserve for a friend's unexpectedly timed funeral. If you care for specifics I will happily provide them, though of course because you provide such a thorough 'service' I am assuming my words will be taken as truth.

So back to my original query: is this service? Would you pay for a product which you took home and it only worked half the time? Would you use a cleaner who only cleaned on top of your tables? Would you buy a car with three wheels? Let us quickly just define service as I see it in this situation: a transaction of money from one party, for the provision of something in return. Your 'something' is getting me from A to B in a timely, comfortable, and enjoyable fashion. My 'something' is giving you a patently ludicrous amount of money. I have done this, time and time again - and yet you insist on raping me over and over again. This isn't 'service' in any sense of the word, this is nothing other than naked-profiteering by a company hell-bent on masturbating over their piles of money. Consumer advice is nil, friendly staff are nil, timely trains are nil, decent concessions are nigh-on-nil.

Yours (begrudgingly because I have no other option),

Jack 'end of the world' My surname.

P.S. To the person initially reading this, I apologise: please forward it on to someone who deserves this tirade. I am sure you know who he/she/they are. And never fear 'he/she/they': I have never received anything of quality from you people before, so I don't expect a timely, full, or useful reply -- just spit on a piece of paper and post it to me or something.'

Something like that anyway.

Pancakes.

EAT THEM. I COMMAND YOU. Also, everyone read this review and join me in laughing at it. And guess which comment is mine *WINK*.

♥♥♥

Sometimes...

... life is so wonderful for me. I had such a good visit up into the heartlands, and I just got news that I've basically aced semester one of year two. Things are looking so majestically up that I felt mandated to share it all with you. It looks as though the prophet was right: things do get better, and quickly sometimes. Jesus, I must look like a manic-depressive sometimes -- but things were all in the gutter, and then a bunch of things happened which improved them substantially. I don't want to go into them, again, but suffice it to say they were all great in every way. Like, in the face with a blessed touch. It was great as.

So yeah. Woo. Let's party. Drinks are on me, people.

On journeying up North.

It's 11.43 am and I'm walking quite slowly, absorbing my surroundings. I'm feeling nervous, and slightly cautious about what I'm to do. It could so easily go horribly wrong, and my normal confidence is shot. I'm never like this, but I've been turned into a jelly-wreck. Stupid metaphors. I'm not rushing because I'm almost certain that I have nailed the schedule, and everything should fall into place as I arrive at the station. Unfortunately, it would seem as though the fates have a different plan in store for me. The automatic ticket delivery system is basically fucked, and the manual 'buy-me-please' stand is closed because the station has been undergoing renovations for months - there is no end in sight as far as I can see. I speak to a lone man standing pensively by the platform; his neon-jacket seems to indicate that perhaps he'll know what I should do. He recommends that I run over to the train which is at the station already and get the ticket on-board. If I miss that train then my entire journey will fall apart. I have around 25 seconds to run up the stairs, across the line, and down the other side. With my heavy carry-all. I make it because the conductor is at the door abeam to the exit of the bridge -- luck favours the running, evidently. She is kind enough to hold the door for me in response to my girlish screams of "No, me too, pleaseeeee". She then spends the next 20 minutes helping me plan my journey more thoroughly, and giving me my ticket (which was a very reasonable price I thought). She was kind, and helpful. Good woman. There has been some service disruption because of someone trespassing on the line. I was lucky to catch this train; all I need to do is add an extra change at a station nearby to catch my connection. I achieve this and am on-board my expected train by the expected time. This is a nice train: it is replete with entertainment, buffet-service, comfortable seats, and wildly panoramic windows. In short it is infinitely more pleasing than any train I would ever catch to go home. As I sit down I start to read, and I read my entire book in around an hour and a half. This means that I have around 2 hours to kill before my train pulls in at its final destination. I need the toilet.

Then I stare out of the window, and my mood dips horrendously. I've got a nervous-tension in my shoulder-blades, and my stomach is doing backflips. I'm gazing longingly out onto the bleak, wild expanse of rural England; I can see sheep standing close together trying to suck the warmth from each other. Over the undulating green of the countryside there is a dipping field, covered in small mounds; on the shaded side there is a smattering of snow, and on the side facing the sun there is none. It creates a spellbinding sight; hypnotic in its irregularity and lack of uniformity paints a stark contrast to the uniform modernity within the carriage. I stare bleakly at an ever-changing landscape, scattered with formidable houses - there seems to be a monolith in the background - and past trees towering above the sky; in the foreground I see a river running stoically alongside the train-cart, and it seems to burble incoherently at me the nothings I dread to hear. Inside my standard bubble I feel utterly alone and terrified, yet I am confident and there is people everywhere. "Please do not sit on the stop blocks". It is laughable.

I arrive. Safe. I'll let you know what I got up to when I'm less ill-feeling.

'Cause I'm leavin', on a jet plane...

... which is disguised as a train. Yeah, I'm away until Sunday.

Have fun without me.

Money makes the world go round...

... unfortunately it also makes my bank account go down. I swear to something that this week I've already spent so much money; but it's like Tuesday or something. I'm not even vaguely sure how I've managed to accrue this much expenditure in like five minutes. Frankly it's disgusting. I should be ashamed of myself. I'm not, but I should be. I'd love to pretend that I care about how much I've spent, but, like, I'm not going to, because it's been hedonistic fabulousness. Loads of like things and... very little to show for it and it's grand. Etc..

Hippothermia...

... because I'm not entirely sure how to spell hypothermia and there is no spell-check in the 'title box' for some strange reason. Also any word which makes you think of hippos has to be funny. Anything to do with hippos is by its very being hilarious. Sorry, I've just been reading a modernisation of ... Dorian Gray... and it's gotten me all'a'flutter. The language is simply spellbinding; the kind of lyricism you find so rarely in modern-novels. It has the sort of archaic lilt to the prolix which gives it a hauntingly delightful pseudo-antediluvian quality. In short it is written beautifully, but it is plotted woefully. The disparities aside, for they cannot but add, it sticks rigorously to the original; and I am loathe to enjoy the original as it's decadent to the point of profligacy. Which is great if you're fornicating heedlessly underneath in the bushes, or pouncing roughly onto your next door neighbour before roughly sodomising him; or cultivating cocktails of intoxicants to inject directly into your eyelid; or simply sitting in a padded armchair high on the scent of the opiates crumbling in your outstretched, waxen palms. For the average reader, however, that kind of hedonism is reserved solely for the embrace of hand and penis - whereas that kind of abandon is limited and finite; this seems to stretch immeasurably forward, questing with philosophical platitudes designed solely to entice the beguiled into suckling harder at the bone-dry teat of a manifest faggot. It's a thrillingly engaging story, irrespective, but one which I genuinely couldn't connect with on any level; and I have lived a fairly egocentric life. Pirouetting through drug-fuelled hazes is something I have done, but not something which with I can relate happily nor fondly. That is why the superficial reading leaves me so hollow and cold. Evidently this would mean you could rather easily level criticism after criticism at me - and it would be deserved in most senses of the word.

Excuse me. I had more to say, but I have been rudely interrupted by one of my friends who seems hell-bent on pushing home some incredibly unwelcome home-truths about a fledgling relationship I may find myself in. I might return after belittling his pessimism, but I have rather lost my train of thought. Sorry.

Sundays make me vomit.

Yes, that's right. They make me vomit. I hate Sundays because they are the end of the week, and that's never a good thing as far as Jack is concerned. Especially when you go the whole day without eating - for no reason - and then over-compensate by gorging yourself silly on eight-people's worth of food. Which I did. And now I feel quite ill. I also sat on my headphones last night, and broke them apparently. I mean, come on. I weigh like 9 1/2 stone. What the hell are they made of to break? On a bed. With me sitting on them. Gently. I have a nice bottom, too. That was bad times all round. So here is my day:

I went out to buy new headphones, got a bit over-excited and ended up buying the Bourne trilogy 'cause it was only £10. ♥♥♥ Man that is so hot right there. I love whoever it was that gave me that below. So this afternoon I watched the first one. Had forgotten just quite how good they were. Also had some kind of takeaway coffee and sat down at the quay and looked out across the docks. That was quite nice. In fact, the whole day was quite nice - and now I've got my new timetable I can extend the weekend far beyond the conventional reach of itself. I have Mondays off; that's so awesome right there that I can barely contain myself. I do, however, have to go out and spend a load of money tomorrow. Unfortunately, with a new semester comes new purchases: books, folders, paper, pens, the staples basically. And I mean the staples of academia; not like... staples for a stapler. Who staples? No offence, Staples. Man I feel quite sick right now. Way too much food. What else did I do? Oh yes, I gave some homeless man some moneys which made me feel good about myself. That was good. I just can't stop giving, me. I'm like... dunno. King of niceness or something. Someone said I was "intimidatingly nice" which I thought was a bit of an oxymoron, to be honest - but I guess I see where he's coming from, even if he's completely wrong. I'm not that nice, I just like to do nice things. As I maintain: good acts don't make you a good person necessarily. Ah yes, I remember what I wanted to talk about sort of. Not sure how it's going to go, because my mind isn't focussed - but I shall persevere through this onerous task.

Man 1: "It is better to aim low, because then you will never be disappointed."

Man 2: "It is better to aim high, because then you can always be proud - even if you fail."

Man 3: "It is better to not aim at all, as expectations will never be met."

Man 4: "How do you aim?"

Well - where do you sit? I guess I'm probably #4. I've never understood this whole kind of demarcation: I'm always disappointed with myself because I don't think I've ever achieved what I should have done. I don't intend to be disheartened with my performance, it just happens. I don't think there is any conscious decision-making process which goes into this; I think that disappointment is part of attempting something. Obviously, I'm not trying to suggest that one should never try because one is destined to fail, but I am suggesting that realism might help us temper the disappointment.

You there! I'm home.

Yes, unfortunately, I have returned to the town of my education. I have to say, it was incredibly depressing to roll into the station this afternoon. More depressing given that in just over 2 hours I had managed to go 49 miles - and I had felt every single one of those miles. Yes, heaven praises Network Shysters: I genuinely don't know how they sleep at night. Bus replacement for half the journey: tolerable; bus from the 1940's: manageable; same price as getting the train the whole way: you're pushing it; doubled journey time: seriously, guys; dirty, mouldy seats: getting slightly irritated now. It went on like that for some time. Excuse me if I sound a little incredulous at the lamentable treatment we all had to go through - but quite frankly I couldn't care less whether I sound like a wounded schoolgirl or not. This 'service' is an absolute joke. I cannot even begin to describe how many things are wrong with the rail network in this country, or at least in the South. Fuck them. You're not having any more of my money - I'm getting coaches from now on; even if they're slower and less frequent, at least you know what you're getting, and the managing director of some little independent firm isn't going to do his utmost to skin you out of every penny you have. 100 miles cost me over £20. Laughable. Absolutely laughable. Not only that, but I had to sit in front of one of those chubby, grandstanding, 'full of the sense of their own importance' cunts. She was obnoxious to the point where the combination of rocking shanty bus and her words made me gag a little in my mouth. Every story seemed to end with her getting the upper-hand on some poor undeserving soul whom she had perceived had committed some atrocity. They were in a club, and some guy got in two of their photos; so she knocked his hat off and had him thrown out. Oh, well aren't you a lovely pile of shit. Not only was her conversation hilariously misguided and full of her own self-importance, but it was held at that level where the person clearly wants everyone else to hear what they're saying. I've never understood this, because surely having to bleat your words so loudly detracts from any meaning they may have had. It's patently obvious that nothing you are saying has any bearing on anyone, and you realise that - so you choose to inflict it upon us all anyway. She did make me laugh though: one of her stories centred around getting annoyed at some guy fawning all over her in a club. She apparently took affront with the way he was "tellin' me 'was gawjus [sic]". Yes, I'm afraid he had crossed that invisible boundary of indiscretion and had managed to offend her mortally. Had you seen her, my friends, you would have had quite the same reaction as me: turning round, making it plain that you've been listening, and laughing uproariously in her face. I'm sorry, I just couldn't tolerate this bare-faced lie. That some thing would want to spend even a millisecond of their life complimenting this guffawing-whale was so utterly untrue that I couldn't let it lie. I very nearly stood up and said: "You know what, 'love', you're the kind of person that makes gay people glad". Alas, as she weighed at least 4x what I did I thought it perhaps better to reserve my scorn for the slightly more subtle weeing-myself in front of her at how stupid she was. The arrogance was just... incredible. I had my headphones in, and my music blaring - after seeing that there was no one else around me - in order to attempt to drown her out. But no! I struck that horrible non-balance where you cannot bear to make it any louder because the tinny, shitty bit-raping headphones will make your ears bleed; but if you turn it down you can still hear the buzzing of a self-satisfied cow-woman. I settled on ears bleeding, but I could still hear her congratulating herself on her brilliance: "Well, it's easy innit? Jus' don't mess wimme". Oh god. Literally. The person who would want to 'mess' with that is quite clearly a saint, and thus would never be allowed to touch her. If indeed it was a her. I'm not sure if they were boobs or just pockets of smugness that the thing kept near them in order to paint their every word with conceit. I don't mean to keep banging on about it, but I felt so nauseated by its very existence that I feel the need to vent on you all. I feel slightly better for having done so.

As for anything else in my life: I've given up on hope and cannot be bothered anymore. I've put too much into several things, and I'm too tired. Oh, yes, that's something - I am keeping a 'sleep journal' (which can be found here if you are at all interested). It seemed pertinent to take a step forward, rather than just blearily stagnating in a pool of my own lethargic self-pity; and I was being pushed - rather easily - in this direction anyway. The idea is that I can figure out what works, and what doesn't. Well, we can safely establish that whatever I did last night didn't work at all, as I didn't fall asleep until the sun was coming up and had to be up like two hours later. I'm so unbelievably tired right now that I'm only still writing because if I don't then I'll fall asleep and my evening will be ruined because I won't want to get up and do anything. Not that I particularly want to do anything, mind, because having recently rediscovered the joy of walking I find myself in a position where this pleasure is prohibited. Not by any tangible restriction, but by the fact that if I chose to walk around where I am now in the middle of the night I would soon find myself on the receiving end of an unwanted knife, or dick, or else I'd just be mugged. Yes, whereas at my home I am quite (read: quite) safe in walking around alone at 2 or 3 in the morning - here that would be suicidal. This displeases me greatly, as walking really does help clear my head when I've got too much going on. Much as Dumbledore's pensieve helps him amalgamate his thoughts in a more streamlined way; so does walking to me. It helps me realise where I should be focusing my energies, and also helps unfog my mind from any perceived issues which I have invented under my own steam. I am not entirely sure what I am to do about this problem, to be honest, and I think it's going to impact negatively on both my mental state and my ability to sleep. I guess those two are somewhat linked, what with one being a product of the other, which in turn is exacerbated by its creation. Wow that's way too confusing for me to process at the moment.

So yes, it's Saturday afternoon and my house is completely deserted: not a soul dost reside here at this moment in time, and I have to say that it's rather lonely. There's something about being in an empty, but shared house, which seems much lonelier than when you're alone in your own home. I like alone-time, love it to be fair, but sometimes it gets a tad boring. I'm waiting on the return of one of my friends, in the hope that she will be able to alleviate this tedium. If I have to grin through an evening of molly-coddling (her sister is here), and vile displays of public affection (her boyfriend is always here) then so be it: I have no other friends at university at the moment (they are all at their homes around the country) and anything is preferable than sitting alone with my thoughts. Hopefully we shall be able to procure a bottle of wine (or six) and then we can get nice and squiffy. She alluded to this being a good idea last night when I spoke to her, and if she attempts to back out then I will plead that she should would do well to not fail on her commitment (even if it was never actually said, I can just pretend it was). I can also use this possibility as an opportunity to use the word 'renege', which always gives me pleasure. One of my friends, two nights ago, said that she "loved listening to me speak" - which I have to say is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. In terms of things which have made me smile this year, I think I can now compile a list of the top three memorable ones:

1. When someone said they were smitten with me.

2. When someone I know fell over on the ice, and I found this unbelievably funny for no reason whatsoever. It was one of those brilliant situations where you laugh more than is necessary, and then end up crying with laughter at the fact you're still laughing. One of those where the joy only stops when you can no longer breathe and your ribs hurt.

3. When someone said they "loved listening to me speak". I have absolutely no idea why anyone would ever say that to me; especially because at the time I was so unbelievably smashed off my nut. I had been blithely attempting to guide a friend into confessing her unrequited love to her best friend - with a mixture of logical application of argument, and pathetic emotional prodding - and was ranting nonsensically about something, when they said it. It was particularly sweet given that I had been rambling for such a long time that I had forgotten what my analogy was meant to lead into. You know when you start telling an analogous tale in order to bolster your argument, and because your argument is so frail you forget how the tale is meant to add as a supporting adjunct? Yeah. One of those. It was great. There's also the added bonus that my vocabulary goes from 'quite good' to 'abysmal' when I've imbibed to much of the filthy intoxicant. I always, always, always end up stumbling blindly over words which should fall out of my mouth. I'll be talking and then I'll forget the word for 'walking' or something. So yeah. No idea why they thought it, but appreciated for its sincerity nonetheless.

Incidentally, because I'm not walking at this moment, those three are not in order of their gravity. Lolity. Lolita. Why is the spelling suggestion for that 'polity'? What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I can't be bothered to write anymore. Go away.

----------

Oh god that's so good. Life is so good sometimes. I haven't eaten... since like 7pm yesterday (that's 24 hours) and I'm really rather peckish now. I also have a horrendous headache. But my housemate came into my room earlier and offered me Chinese food for dinner GOD I WISH I COULD DO THE FUCKING HEART.

Or not.

Ignore everything I said below. Whole evening has been a complete failure. Fuck's sake. Twice in thirty minutes I managed to say completely the wrong thing. I honestly don't know why I bother sometimes.

Halp...

... me come to some kind of conclusion. Or... like, develop a plan or something. I'm floundering about with things of no bearing, and attempting to figure out what I should do next - and whether or not I should do anything. I'm not exactly practised at this whole thing, and so, like, it's... asking me to do something sensible. I'm more of an 'extravagant gesture' kind of person. Which reminds me: I recently came into a fairly... insane amount of money, and I've not got any idea what to do with it. I'm going to treat myself, but I want someone to treat too ;(. Less cryptic, I suppose that way. Anyway. Yes. I'm not sure whether I should take the lead and dominate, or just... sit back and relax. I'm kind of rubbish at relaxing, I like to control. Bah. Why must there be so much going on at one time!? ALEX YOU'RE NO USE. I am NOT sickening. I'm positively... dunno. Adorable or something. I swear I'm turning into an ugly Hugh Grant or something like that - stuttering and doddering with that kind of upper-middle-class eccentricity normally associated with fox hunting and baby-drowning. Except the problem is I don't have anywhere near as much charm; I'm not debonair - hahaha, I don't think there's a word in the world that came closer to being so utterly opposed to anything I could describe myself as. That's a confusing sentence. This is a confusing spew. I like to spew.

Eurgh. I have to go out to dinner in an hour, and I don't want to. It's weeeeeeeird. Ya know when you cannot be assed to sit in company, but don't want to be alone either? Don't fear, I'm not doing the whole depression thing again - I'm just being all changeable and not knowing what I want. No. Scrap that. There are two things that I really want to do, but I'm not going to do either of them because I would be cutting my nose off to spite my face. And I may not be the most delightful to look at already, but I can't help but feel that losing my nose isn't going to do me any favours. I suppose I could start dating tramps or people made of poo or something. Then again I'd still have my eyes. Maybe I'll be involved in some kind of surrealist's carhorse accident where I lose almost all of my sensory faculties and end up spending the rest of my life courting emaciated, excrement-coated transients down at the local crack-den. You see I say 'local' but I've no idea where it is, or even if there is one. I'm assuming there is. My whole city looks like it's taking regular hits from the bong of crack. Can you tell I don't really do drug terminology? In fact, I don't really do drugs at all anymore. People kept making me feel guilty - although some of that incentive is crapping up the croupier - and so I just stopped. Shame. I miss them. Well. Not really. But. Yeah. They were a pleasant distraction. Like smoking. Which I am determined to give up - but I need to order everything else first because otherwise I'm never going to get below 10 a day. I was doing so well, and then a few things went wrong (which I'm not going to speak about until they are resolved) and then I just kind of fell apart and had a few days of old-habit-quantity-consumption. Which was awful. And made me feel rubbish physically because I was unused to consuming that much nicotine, and made me feel really guilty for doing such a lamentable job of cutting down. I got all the way down to 50% and then stumbled. Speaking of which: earlier I went to walk into the kitchen, and for some reason I seemed to forget how to function normally and I walked straight into the door-frame and bit my lip. It was awful. I don't have Cormac McLaggen's excuse either: he had been confunded! Harry Potter, anyone? Anyone? No. Fair enough. Haha. One of my friend's nickname is Voldemort. Well. It's not, but it is from now because I've just decided that it is. Yes. That's what I've spent most of my week doing: reading Harry Potter. Again. For like the hundredth time this year. Exciting news at work though! I get an Oxfam brand t-shirt - so then I can be totally sanctimonious. Plus it'll feel nice getting some kind of pseudo-recognition. The job is losing its appeal at the moment, I want to get more hands-on, and one of my favourite colleagues seems to have gone AWOL. I need to track her down for easter/summer, otherwise I'm not sure if I'm going to want to go back or not. I guess it depends on what's going on in my life in summer: I cannot see that far ahead, unfortunately - as I am not Sybil Trelawney. I wish I was. Wow there are a load of red-lines on my screen now.

Sorry for the boring rambling but I'm just trying to kill some time before I have to get ready for this dinner. It's with my dad. Which is nice. Don't see a lot of him. Damn you, divorce. But yeah. I just can't be bothered. Especially given the fact that my brother has been invited as well. Not that this is going to make any difference to my dad and I: if my brother turns up you will never see me again as I will have been forced to eat my own head in surprise. Selfish and unreliable are two words which leap to mind quite readily whenever he is mentioned. It's quite amusing really because most people don't know that I have a brother. It's not that I'm ashamed, or that I hate him or anything. No, I'm just... hugely indifferent to the way he behaves. I am a firm believer that it is our choices which make us who we are, not necessarily how we act or were born - if that is the case for him, alas it would appear that he's a selfish bugger. Speaking of things which are going to surprise people, this year I'm planning on keeping my birthday a total surprise. Not in the sense that I'm going to throw myself a surprise party and then jump out at myself and then have to leap across to myself to show myself that I'm shocked at my own ingenuity and brilliance. That'd ruin my self-esteem and street-cred (which I can assure you is large). No, I just mean that I'm not going to tell any new people when it is; and not remind anyone when it is, either. It falls at a rather unfortunate time, anyway, as it coincides with most people's returns to home - but not all. Hence I never get to see my university friends, or my friends from home. This year I am just embracing that; irrespective of the fact that I'm turning 21. Which is a depressing thought in and of itself. God. That's so old. I'm so old. Oh my god. Someone's going to have to book me into a care-home or something soon. That'll be so awful. CRUSHING SENSE OF MALAISE, PEOPLE. I think it'll be interesting, also there's that whole cycle of guilt when people give me stuff. Because I've never really had to worry about money, I sometimes forget that other people only have like £4 a week to spend and stuff - and then when I am reminded of this I can't help feeling that their money would have been better spent somewhere else, rather than on a gift for me. I appreciate the sentiment, but I'd much rather they just came down and bought me a drink or made me a card or something. The gesture is great, but they shouldn't have to temporarily bankrupt themselves just to get me something. Maybe this year that won't be a problem; though, of course, my mother is bound, by her maternal instincts, to spoil me rotten. Unfortunately, so is my father. This year is going to be horrible, I expect. I've got a few plans though, regardless or these trepidations. I'm going to go to work in the morning - assuming I'm not too hungover - and then there'll be some abortion-y joint-thing with Katie in the evening, no doubt. I offered to host simply so I wouldn't have to drive and then stay/not drink, or get two taxis/a train and a taxi. Yes, that is the effort I would have to go to. Admittedly I limited her to 'one friend only', but I feel that this is a reasonable restriction. I mean, I'm not hosting a brothel here people. So I can go to work, and then that's about it. My mum is bound to be in London for those few days, so I won't see her until two days after at the very earliest. My dad travels so he'll probably be away - so it's down to just... getting on with it I guess! I shall have to see where my social standing is at when the interminable date roles round. There's slim possibilities that my life might be slightly less crushingly mundane by then - so that's something to maybe look forward to possibly. So. Yeah. Go figure out when my not-so-eponymous-birthday is. And then if you figure it out don't tell anyone. I'll give you a clue: the day the sun stretches its arms the widest, and bells are heard a'ringing; look for me, silently singing underneath the shadow of our biggest druid's remains. That's brilliant, that. I am well proud of how little time it took me to come up with that slice of inspiration. Ignoring how useless it is, good luck!

Have totally spent the week digging up some 'old' music - and when I say 'old music' what I really mean is stuff I haven't listened to in over 6 months because I've found a whole heap of other stuff instead. I was so happy to hear Asking Alexandria, Broadway, Panda *insert the thing here that the HTML coding disallows from this site* Penguin, &c. that I got rather over-excited and started dancing around - and then, just to crown off my show, Visual System Turismo, by The Glamour Manifesto, came on and I literally started weeping at how awesome it is. I was all about that. Seriously. If you don't know what that last song is, then you should probably be rounded up, shoved into a cannon, and fired into the sun; but because I'm so forgiving, I will grant you this opportunity to redeem yourself by googling it, listening to it, and then basking in its unrivalled fabulousness. Everything they make is so good. I wish I could own a fucking real copy of that album. I looked everywhere I could, and the only version I could find was download. Which sucks. I always try to own my music legally, because I really enjoy having a load of CDs. It's so therapeutic to just be able to look through them all and dig up your old memories. That kind of tangibility adds a whole new level to the listening, as well, as opposed to the immateriality of the download. I don't like the download. Shame so much of my stuff is American-only, and I can't find anywhere to get a decent import. At least, not for under £40 - and for 20+ CDs that's rather a lot.

Speaking of things that bear no relevance to what I've just been talking about: I'm going to go and see a hypnotist. Yes, that's right. I've seemingly exhausted more respected medicines, and my insomnia persists despite loads of visits to the doctors and pharmacists. My tether has run out completely: I simply can't go any more weeks with only sleeping 10 or so hours for the whole fucking 7 day period. It's too much. Or not enough, depending on your viewpoint. So I'm going to go and get hypnotised. Holistic medicines have been utterly useless, and I don't know if any of you have ever eaten any herbal sleep-aids but they taste absolutely fucking disgusting, smell worse, and make you feel like shit. I tried some Nytol bollocks, simply because I've gone through everything else readily available, and it did sweet fuck all for my sleep and instead gave me stomach cramps which kept me up even longer than is usual. What the hell. A natural sleeping remedy which lists one of its possible side-effects as 'gastro-enteritis'. What the jesus!?

OK, I think that's all I have to say. I need to go and put on a shirt for my meal out or something. I left my gorgeous shirt at university, which is kind of annoying, but I'm going back there tomorrow even though for some reason I have to catch a bus-replacement for half of my journey, which exponentially and fantastically fittingly doubles the length of the journey. Who'd've thought that, eh? So yeah. One day I'll fall asleep holding your hand :).

Oh my something or other...

... how cool is this shit!?

Fuck me in the head repeatedly. I'm going there. Then I will commence weeping. I'm gonna go and watch the aurora borealis and eat and go on those things that go over the snow and oh my god bits of me are so excited they're falling off and oh my god and ahhhhhhhh. Woo. Gotta be good to turn 21 for something, eh? Not that I'm going to be going for fucking ages, because I'm not 21 for a while yet - and I don't want to go in summer (even if I could, I don't think it's open) and yeah. But woo. And stuff. Good week. So glad I came back. Things have just. Yeah. Much better.

Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove. Stupid fucking html bollocks won't let me do a heart so consider that a worthy substitute.

Weak.

I'm taking a week off to get some things sorted at home. See you etc.. :).

Almost time...

... to fail.