Argh!

What am I doing on this! I have a bastard exam tomorrow and my head is no more filled with psychorelevant babble than it was when I started the damn course in September. BOLLOCKS.

On the upside, I think I've committed two cool words to my internal dictionary, which I've known for a while but have, until now, had a mental block on: "proverbial" and "sanctimonious". Win.

I have a friend who nabbed herself a boyfriend sometime in November, and she's so damn happy. I feel like such a bitch for being jealous, but it's so frustrating, this little, life-dominating problem I have with finding someone not miles out of my league to fall for, and for being so mean to people crazy enough to fall for me, who, if I was any sort of sane, would leap at the opportunity to be with. It's like my head wants me to be miserable.

Gnuh indeed.

Quote of the Day: Here's my advice on women: don't give them nicknames like "jumbo". [Homer Simpson]

40th post!

I feel this calls for a celebration!

Wow. Funny to think that I've reached a four and an oh. Well, not that funny. I reached a three and a nine easily enough, it was only a matter or time until the big guy came along.

Why am I so abnormal...

Anyway, I don't really have anything to talk about. Nothing deep and philosophical, or humorous and lighthearted, or furious and rant-worthy. I'm just not feeling any of those adjectives at the moment. So maybe just a normal catchup is in order?

Actually, nah. I'm too lazy. This really has been a waste of everyone's time, hasn't it? Sorry about that. I do sometimes wish I was less of a shit and just got on with stuff, actually did my work on time and contained my blog posts to meaningful fables/inspirational musings and all, but it's just not going to happen anytime soon. Until then, it looks like I'm just going to carry on doing stuff I shouldn't when I should be doing stuff to get me where I ultimately wish to go. It's pretty good, having no ambition or work ethic, actually.

Oh - I've decided on my New Year's Resolutions:

1. Tick ten things off on my bucket list.
2. Learn to cook more basic meals.
3. Go an entire year without eating meat.

Reasonably doable, right?

Quote of the Day: Smile as if we actually like her. [Jack, inspiring himself and the person on my other side to look happy for a photo]

Birds, the bastards

I hate birds.

Well, that's not entirely true. I hate pigeons and seagulls and vultures and other flappy birds that congregate for no reason other than to inhibit their already limited food supplies and make us irritable humans even more pissed off than is our default. You think, by now, they'd have figured out that, if they travel alone, they're going to survive better, but apparently not. 

I hate the way there'll be hundreds of them, pigeons, mostly, covering an entire pavement, pecking away at nothing and generally just being in the way. And then, to your dismay, you find you need to traverse the pigeons to get to a location on the other side of them - but they've formed a birdy carpet on the ground, damnit! Yes, there's another way to get there, but it's a twenty-five-minute walk down every single dark, lawless alleyway the city you've found yourself in has to offer, all of which you know from previous experience are completely void of reception, and you're in a bit of a rush and you have no desire to be murdered and raped [though preferably in that order, if it has to happen] - and so you clutch your bag a wee bit tighter to your chest, take a deep breath, and plough with all the bravery and intention of Braveheart into the sea of winged opposition, well knowing it could be your last battle.

And - instead of obeying the simple size-equals-power laws of nature engrained into most organisms' innate beings along with the natural fear of anything hairy, spiky, tentacled or feral - the little shits come flying at you! All of them! Bravado lost, you scream in horror and are, within seconds, reduced to curling into a ball on the floor, sobbing your eyes out and banging your head against the asphalt for being so stupid as to ever think you could defeat a colony of malicious, diabolical, heinous, villainous, bloody birds. Original goal forgotten, you climb onto the first bus headed for home, crying softly to yourself and wondering what your purpose in life is now your trauma and, now, lifelong phobia has been established for the world to chortle at.

Damn pigeons.

All that said, I do like flamingoes. And ostriches. And puffins.

Maybe it's just birds of flight I'm not so keen on, then. Smug wankers. "Look at me, with my functional wings! I'll have none of your flightless crap, chicken." My cat could take you bastards on any day, bastards.

Quote of the Day: Labour, ready! Tories, ready! BRING ON THE WALL! [Russell Howard, Mock the Week; unlikely things to hear on a TV election debate]

The Christmas-New Year State of Utter Limbo

You know what I mean. There's six days between Christmas day and New Year's Eve, and they're the most disconcerting six days in the calendar. You spend your time alternating between weeping over the newly-developed love handles and drinking too much eggnog, "because it won't keep". That's what Granny was saying after her third, anyway. 

So my second Christmas with extended family was great. I ate my body weight in roasties. Sweet, sweet roasties. They bought me Will Young's new album, Echoes! No one makes me happy in quite the way that Will Young does. Yeah, similar to Hatter actually, we played a game with scissors while my nephew [I'm never going to get used to saying that] slept and, a bit later when he'd woken up again, we had a pass-the-parcel. Bloody hilarious, watching two eighty-something women trying to play Mistletoe and Wine on kazoos as a forfeit fiendishly invented by myself. 

The next two days passed in a largely guitar-oriented blur. Attempting to learn Personal Jesus by Johnny Cash - it's on my bucket list now, to perform that song in public on the guitar, so I have to learn it now. Beginning to wish I'd picked an easier song.

Went back home to Northants on the 29th, inflicted my presence on the Pygmy and her family. Honestly, I wonder why they haven't banned me from staying with them yet, I must be such an inconvenience. The day after, some of the guys came over and we all hung out in her wee bedroom for a few hours, just a-chattin' and truth-or-dare-in' and stuff. It was so, so lovely to see them again - I wish I'd been able to see more people, but in actuality it was probably perfect with just five of us. We all know the bedroom got hot enough. In retrospect I see that some of the stuff I said about people who weren't there weren't pleasant but the person in question is everything I despise in this world. Going off topic in euphemistic efforts to justify myself, she let me down after a decade of being closer to me than a sister. I'm more upset about the wasted years than the fact she's nothing to me anymore. It's her own stupid fault I can't stand her anyway.

Not that I'm bitter or anything, eh!

Bringing this back to a somewhat lighthearted tone, New Year was... Ugh, screw lighthearted. I'll be able to laugh about it next year, put it that way.

Lost my Sherlock Holmes virginity on the 1st, curled up on another friend's sofa with a Baileys. How can I have lived almost 17 years and not have completely fallen in love yet! I missed the entire first series of the Steven Moffat interpretation! Oh, Benedict Cumberpatch! Get in my bed! Ahh, happy times. 

Got back earlier today, did some pretty damn intensive revision and then, after mum and dad had gone to sleep, went and dyed my hair. It's not dry yet so I'm not sure how it'll turn out, but I'm willing to bet it'll be a darker shade of purple and it'll almost definitely be humiliatingly streaked with great patches of ginger because I'm rubbish at everything. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out, but my head reeks of ammonia. I don't even want to think about the noxious fumes now lingering around all my respiratory orifices. 

I asked my parents earlier today if, instead of being given driving lessons for my 17th in a few weeks, I could be given money to do a CBT course. Yeah, I'd love to be able to drive a car, but they're so damn expensive, the lessons are so damn expensive, fuel is expensive, maintenance is expensive, insurance is expensive - and I'd still fail my test. I want to learn to drive a motorbike; all I have to do is convince mum and dad of the logistical and fiscal benefits. On top of that, motorbikes are damn sexy. Mopeds, not so much, and seeing as that's what you have to drive for 2 years before progressing to anything with an engine more powerful than 125cc, I needn't get too excited about looking hot on a bike yet - but I can dream. Mopeds are better than nothing.

I have a friend I haven't seen for a couple of weeks and it's bothering me more than I thought it would. I'm surprised by how much I miss him. We don't even go to the same school anymore so I don't know when I'll see him next, but, yeah. I miss him.

Ohhhh shit. Exams in, what, 8 days? I'm freaking out. Damn biology. Damn psychology. Damn life!

Quote of the Day: Though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before, I know I'll often stop and think about them. [In My Life, The Beatles]

Happy birthday, Jesus!

It seems that my downbeat and generally mopey attitude yesterday helped get the bad feeling out of my system - aside from a minor hitch*, my sixteenth Christmas on this planet has been great. I actually woke up quite late, for me, for Christmas morning - about half 8? - and we've got more family coming over tomorrow so we're doing the "proper" dinner then, but the pheasant we had was really nice, actually. First time I'd had it and within five minutes I was rabidly gnawing any meat off the little bones because it tasted so damn good. My sister and her husband and baby Leo joined us in the afternoon, and I spent as much time as I could babynapping the wee one because I know that tomorrow, the competition will be much more fierce :P he's getting more gorgeous every time I see him. Liz gave me a framed picture she took of him wearing my massive nerd glasses a few weeks ago - he's so damn cute it should be illegal! The hair yanking is admittedly painful but all the same, the way he does all these adorable things is just brilliant. Multiple chinning it, that's my Leo. Did I write about him when he was born? Probably not, because I went through a stage of not writing anything, didn't I. My nephew was born in mid-September and... Let's just say, before he gummed his way into my life, I was a pathological child-hater. They're not that bad anymore. I'm going to stop talking about the baby now. 

Anyway - my entire family chipped in and bought me a guitar! I've called him Hermann and he's just... just beautiful. He came with a bright yellow strap and all. I've been so spoiled this year, and I'm really grateful for everything I've been given :) Bring on New Year!

Quote of the day: He's bending down now. Oh look, now he's getting up again. I knew he'd do that. [Bernard Black, Black Books]

* At about one minute past midnight really early Christmas morning, I walked into the living room to watch Borat and stubbed and broke my toe on the bastard sofa. Merry Christmas, Katherine!

Festive regrets.

Coming up to a year ago now, I went out with this guy without liking him at all and I can admit now that I was with him because I wanted to get back at someone else who'd hurt me not long before that, in a nicely fucked up look-at-me-I'm-doing-just-fine-without-you way. That's probably the worst thing I've ever done; using someone like that, playing with someone like that, is unforgivable. He despises me now, and has every reason to - no one deserves to be messed around like that, and even though I never did what I should have done and come clean to him, I think he knew, or at least knows now, that I was never terribly keen on him. I mean, when all is said and done, nothing about my personality is remotely compatible with his - in his company, I have never had to fight so hard to not instinctively roll my eyes at some of the things he said and did, and he disagrees with all of my beliefs and ethics [which is completely fair enough, I know that people have differing opinions - it's just rare that two people of opinions differing to the extent to which ours did should ever form any kind of successful relationship. Ours was, of course, very unsuccessful].

I broke up with him a couple of weeks after we got together because, naturally, I started to feel guilty, and I basically didn't want the knowledge that I was leading him on making me feel bad anymore. I got, and broke up, with him for purely selfish reasons and several months on, older and wiser and all that, I'm suffering for it a lot more than I was back then. I couldn't justify what I did even if I wanted to. Like I said, unforgivable. Haven't spoken to him for months - haven't thought about him for months either - but I bumped into his sister in town earlier today, and there was that awkward you-played-my-brother-like-an-instrument-you-absolute-whore moment and that put him back in my mind. Kind of inconveniently. I mean - it's Christmas Eve, I'm supposed to be happy! If I could take control of a time machine, the first thing I'd do would be to punch my younger self, if only to act as revenge for the fact that the guilt is gnawing away at me now. I'd go back exactly a year and give myself such a bollocking. That girl I was then - she disgusts me. I was reading my diary entrants from January this year, and it made me want to throw something, or at least call a friend and beg to know why they stayed friends with me after that. Seriously.

Still. Christmas tomorrow. Family. Presents. Goodwill. A fucking massive turkey. Wham.
New Year after that. Home. Friends. Jools Holland.

It's going to be good. At New Year I can make a list of resolutions to inevitably break by January 3rd. As always.

I hope I cheer up in time for tomorrow.

Quote of the day: Penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell them for a dollar. They're worth so much more after I'm a goner. [If I Die Young, The Band Perry]

The Most Beautiful Man in the World

Just... indescribable.

Wooooooaaaaaaaahhhhhh sweet child o' mine

How have I lived almost seventeen years and failed to hear that song until yesterday?! Madness!

On a bit of a high, not gonna lie - just got back from the first night of the pantomime I volunteered myself into a few months ago, and, as a performance, it was so damn good! Teeheeheee, I love life. Even if I am cross-dressing, again. Ahh, I'm going to miss the cast so much when it's over - I'm probably going to wake up the morning after the last performance and be like, "What do i do with my life now?"

Until then, I'm just going to bask in the awesomeness that is Cinderella. Biggest social climber in the history of fairy tales, when you think about it. I'm not her, I'm Dandini [or Prince Charming's submissive, obedient bitch on the side]. He's pretty cool, when Charming's freaking out about his future bride buggering off at the Ball, Dandini's all like "Hey, be cool, she's not that good anyway." :P