Post title. Do I have to? Jeez, fine

Ben deleted his blog almost a year ago in a fit of paranoia, and he said something at the time about keeping up with everyone else's despite not maintaining his own, but a lot has changed and I feel safe in admitting that I really freaking miss him. And it's in my own fit of paranoia I can admit that I'm scared he's forgotten me.

Now that I'm already here, y'know what? I miss all you crazy mofos.

Sam? I miss you. I've been a right Oedipus this last year, and I feel like an even bigger one every time I see something - anything, like a crunchy leaf or a really good sandwich - that reminds me of you, and your bad double entendres, and then I get really sad and pathetic because you're a jillion miles away which sucks hairy ass

Jen-Vdude? I miss you as well. You've become associated with a really, really good period of my life, and I'm sad as hell that you didn't come to Norwich but you seem to be having a wonderful time where you are, and that's as much as I could hope for.

Rory? I dunno if you're still bothering to trawl through these self-centred oh-so-dramatic blatherings of mine, but incredibly, I kind of miss you too. And Charlotte. Tell her to answer her damn phone, will you.

And yeah, I miss Sophie. And Miriam. I feel like Miriam, especially, has found her place at uni - much more comfortably than she ever would've done had she stayed here. So, great, really. People move away and grow up, and she's done just that. Cool. Good. 

Shut up and take my money (£209.45 for ten hours! save £50!)

I'm learning to drive. Don't really want to, but I'm sick of people getting at me for being eighteen and not driving yet. Eighteen, jeez, what a twat I am. How dare I be ambivalent to the idea of owning a vehicle. How dare I make use of public transport. How dare I ask for lifts. What. A. Shit.

I asked my instructor if it's ever occurred to him that humans are just not meant to drive. If evolution wanted us to travel any considerable distance then we'd have wings. He told me to shut up and go up into third gear, remember the clutch.

Fucking hell.

Sam Winchester is my animagus

Guess who's finally jumped on the Supernatural bandwagon? Only, like, eight seasons too late, but better late than never.

My provisional license arrived this morning. That means I've not got to learn how to fucking drive, damnit. 

My boss keeps nagging me about driving, despite it being none of her business and, actually, quite rude. It's not that I don't want that freedom, but allow me to entrust unto you a short list of reasons why "Katherine" and "driving" just don't seem to click:

1. It's expensive. Katherine is a) perpetually broke and b) completely unwilling to spend the little she has.
2. Katherine is not a clever person. The idea of her in control of a massive, metal, moving vehicle with the potential to be a killing machine - just, no. I see bad things arising.
3. It's expensive.
4. I mean, really expensive.
1. The license.
2. The lessons.
3. The motherfucking vehicle.
4. The insurance.
5. The tax.
6. The fuel.
7. The maintenance.
8. IT'S JUST EXPENSIVE OKAY.
5. Katherine has intense anxiety (I mean, considering she's never driven a car once, it seems an excessive level of anxiety) about being responsible for passengers, and that one-in-a-trillion scenario of "just driving around with some friends la la la oops crash everyone dead but me" plagues her like some kind of plague.
6. Did I mention that it's expensive?
7. Going back to the anxiety thing - seriously. It's the biggest damn "if" ever, but what if? I don't want that guilt on my shoulders for the rest of my life. Therefore, my ideal car would be a one-seater. What's that? Did you say motorbike? If you can convince my mother, please do.
8. Two-seaters are even more expensive than five-seaters.
9. It's all so very expensive.

There you have it.
I genuinely resent the amount of money I'm losing because people keep telling me that I have to fucking drive.

Fucking Michael

In a nutshell, that's my dominant thought these days. Know why? Because fuck you.

How are you? Now it's been, what, four months? How's that career coming along? I'd have asked sooner, but you're kind of hard to get hold of.

I get the impression you tried to remove yourself from my life completely, and even though I'm no closer to knowing why, it's becoming clear that you didn't do a great job. Tear neatly along the dotted line between "you" and "me" and, guess what, I'm not over you, I'm not fine, I'm just hurting. I'm hurting still. Know why? You didn't even have it in you to make me hate you.

Come on. If I'm that insufferable, then cheat on me. Let me find you holding hands with someone else. Let me see dumb stupid compromising texts on your phone, whatever - if I hated you, you'd be nothing by now.

Or, y'know, if you want to practice basic decency, then tell me what I want to know. Tell me what I did wrong, tell me why you're sick of me - but can you? No! Cut me loose and leave me hanging! Why not!
It's been four months, Michael, and I'm not okay. I'm not okay, and I'm not okay because of you, and if you don't feel even just a little bit guilty then you're even less of the person I thought you were.

Why, though? Is it that hard, speaking to me? Drop me a line, drop me a fucking text, I don't care - I hate how much of a coward you are. If we were to bump into one another tomorrow in the street, you wouldn't even cross the street to avoid me. You'd do your infuriating "Helloo" with that dumb wave you do and, I don't know, maybe even ask me how I am, what do I know - but it wouldn't mean anything, and it wouldn't lead to any kind of conversation - especially not the conversation I want - and within seconds you'd be walking away again, and you'd leave me even more sad than I am now. I don't understand why you're so unwilling to clean up after yourself.

Just, fuck you. Fuck you.

It's funny -

I'm sure no one envies me, and yet I consider myself unbelievably fortunate. University? - pff, maybe later - and yet my own skepticism doesn't compromise the excitement and fear and whatever else is being felt at this moment by everyone waiting for the first day of uni. And so it shouldn't, of course - but I think the reason I'm in such distraction by the impending Year of Complete Isolation, is that I just don't understand why everyone's going. I mean - I've had to explain my reasons for not wanting to go. I suppose you could say that I'm worried that my friends - the overwhelming majority of my friends - are going off to university with no clearer idea of why they're going than I did six months ago when, amid revision and UCAS and all that bollocks, it kind of just occurred to me one day that I didn't want to walk this path being laid for me.

When I'm feeling particularly fluffy, I like to compare it to a pasta machine, with "it" being this big, ugly, proverbial SYSTEM that everyone likes to throw around and exploit and criticise - present company included, naturally.

Try and take me seriously for a minute. I know it's hard.

As I said - this SYSTEM is like a pasta machine. A pasta machine that primarily makes tagliatelle. The windy thing on the side of the pasta machine turns; this, within the context of the SYSTEM, is the passage of time. It turns, and churns out string after string of tagliatelle - and the tagliatelle is delicious, and edible, and everything that it should be, "and the Lord said that it was good" blah blah - but then, from nowhere, a lump of pasta-dough doesn't want to be tagliatelle. It wants to be a bow-tie, or a curly ribbon, or a shell, or a loopy-loop, or a windy tunnel. The pasta machine, unable/unwilling to accommodate the wishes of this nonconformist, rejects it; it gets caught in the workings, slows everything down, gets put on the receiving end of a thousand disapproving looks and exasperated lectures, all of which the pasta has heard before, until the words "You'll like it when you're tagliatelle" become the bane of its existence and it is left with two choices: to force itself to mould into tagliatelle, or to leap headfirst out of the pasta machine and pray to God that they'll land safely. 

That is what it's like, admitting to everyone who ever said, "You'll do well at university" that, eheheh, I don't want to go. First, the silence, then the questioning, then the unhelpful advice, then the "Oh, well, you can always change your mind". Thanks, lady. Further invalidate my autonomy, why don't you.

Without turning into some neo-hippy/hipster in vintage clogs and a fifties housewife petticoat, fuck the PASTA MACHINE.

So, uh,

now I have to admit that I didn't do as well as I'd have liked - but FUCK IT I'M NOT GOING HAHAHAHA oh dear lord I'm so grateful that I didn't have to go through clearing. I hate pitying people, because I know that no one likes to be pitied, but fuck me - I imagine clearing to be a massive pit of disappointed teenagers fighting to the death for a place on the Communication Studies course at the university of Bedfordshire and it's just depressing to think about.

*Where Katherine is once again a massive snob and fails to care*

Impending Results

In terms of immediacy, my A levels are basically irrelevant. I think that's why I'm not scared to find out how I did on results day, Thursday.

It feels a bit like someone said to me, a few months ago, that I'm going to receive a present on Thursday 15th August - and they're honest with me, they've said that it could be a nice present, or it could be a massive disappointment - so I know next-to-nothing about this present I'm getting, so I don't really think about it, but then when I do think about it I get kind of excited, because a present is still a present, and that's quite exciting.

ONE DAY MORE

Okay I've got work in 10 minutes and UGH I'M SO TIRED DON'T MAKE ME DO IT GOD