I was watching Manic's excellent Labour Are Shit animation and I was reminded again why I try not to pay attention to what's happening in the world and this country. The sheer amount of things which are Wrong, and the scale of them, sickens me. It's bad enough that people exist who don't believe in equality on whatever level, people who put money and profits first, people who not only lie for their own means, but who lie on grand scales and who aren't ashamed or sorry about it. I just want everyone to be equal and happy. For everyone to have the same opportunities and for the world to run at a reasonably successful level. I honestly don't understand how people can not believe in that. Racists, homophobes, egotistical twats, and all their ilk genuinely bewilder me. And what's worse is that I feel unable to change anything. I feel sterile and useless. I know that people can make a difference, but I have no idea how to go about instigating change. This depresses me, and so to avoid depression, I avoid reading about things I know will upset me. Thus I know very little of politics, current affairs and so on. It's not ideal, but my health has to come first. Hopefully at some point in the future, things will have changed and I will be able to cope with that. Until then, I just have to bide my time I guess, and try to keep the passion alive, so that I can use it when it's called for. 10:17  

The warm weather we'd been experiencing died off today and the April showers returned. It hasn't been hailing or anything, so it hasn't been too bad. It's been quite windy though, and as I was walking home through Leeds uni campus, I spotted a blossom tree whose petals had blown away, leaving the surrounding area looking as if it was covered in pink snow. It was very peculiar but most beautiful.

Yesterday at Swarthmore we learnt about tie-dying. It was great fun, and messy. Today at college I planned out what I'm doing next week, for my exam. I was despairing and ready to throw the whole lot away, but the tutor looked at my contact sheets and talked to me and all was well again. He said I had 16 images or so which were worthwhile printing, unlike the 3 I'd identified. I'm going to print all 16 at 7cm by 5cm each, and mount them on one board. The digital images I've already printed and mounted are staying as such, however I mounted one with a space above it for a new image, so either I have to find another photograph I want to display, or cut down the mountboard. Talking to the tutor gave me an egoboost, he said I was doing well and the images were good, I was just unskilled in spotting the best ones.

After college I went to see my psychologist. All went well, except he told me he's retiring at the end of November and moving to Switzerland. Hmm. 19:34  

Yesterday was a lovely day - warm, sunny, a cool breeze. Today was the same so Simon and I went for a walk in Hyde Park. We weren't the only ones with this idea - there were plenty of other people around, walking their dogs, playing frisbee, sunbathing, juggling, playing football and so on. We sat down and watched all the pretty people pass us by, wearing limited amounts of clothes. I took some pictures of the park, and of the flowers which are growing, The lavender is in bloom now, so no doubt the bluebells will follow soon, if they're not already out elsewhere. There's still plenty of daffodils to be seen, I thought they would have all died off by now. The tulips are also out, and the willow trees are displaying their leaves, though very few other trees have leaves yet. I must make an effort to spend lots of time in the park this summer, it's a great place, and there's plenty of eye candy!

We walked down through the Leeds uni campus. Simon showed me around a bit, as he knows the campus quite well due to having fit blinds in most of the buildings. We were sitting by a waterfall with a traffic cone in it when my mum rang. She was at my house and wanted to know why I wasn't there. She'd decided to pay me a surprise visit on her way into Leeds. I arranged to meet her in town, as time was getting on and Simon would be wanting to go home soon. He did leave fairly soon after that and I eventually met up with her in Alders. We shopped around for a while, she bought a skirt and silk scarf in Jigsaw, and I got told off for photographing in there. I couldn't help it, their building is just so gorgeous. As we were walking around she was telling me about how she's getting more and more frustrated with her marriage, how my dad always seems to check up on her and demand to know where she always is, and how she's determined to not put up with it for much longer. She said she's going to go see her solicitor tomorrow, to discuss what she would have financially if she was to leave my dad. It came as a bit of a shock. I know things aren't all wonderful between them, and that my mum has left and come back a few times. But for it to be a reality, to be tangible, it's not something I've experienced before. I can understand her reasons for wanting to leave, and I thoroughly back her in it. I have previously suggested to her trying to slowly change my dad's habits, but she says he's too old and stuck in his ways for that to work. I believe she's planning on moving into her mother's house. She said she was going to give the tenants a month's notice tomorrow. I can't see my dad taking this very well. He says he feels lonely as it is, but my mum says he's brought it on himself. I expect him to try and buy my favour somehow, and demand affection, and then to get annoyed when I refuse to play along. That's how things have always gone. Somewhat selfishly, I know, I asked my mum how this would all affect her promise to help me financially through university and she says she'll still help me. She's not planning on giving up work, apparently, and also, between her and my dad, they own three houses and a business, so money shouldn't be an issue. I just don't know how to take all this. I suspect things are going to be rather strange for a while. 17:17  

The Guardian have published a very, very, very scary article about how "in the US, women are regularly prosecuted for endangering their unborn children - some have even been convicted of murder." It genuinely frightens and sickens me that things like this go on at all, let alone in the name of protection for a being which isn't even alive. It makes me increasingly grateful for being born and resident in a country which, at the side of the States at least, is sane, liberal and free. 17:19  

More B3ta things. This time, someone asked who our role models were. I had a bit of a think and came up with:
Conor Oberst - for being gorgeous
Jeanette Winterson - for her passion, talent and knowledge
Julie Burchill - for doing what she wants and ignoring everyone else
Everett True - for his passion and devotion
Wendy Cope and Carol Ann Duffy - for their talent and being able to tell it as it is
Madame de Stael - for being all-round fantastic 22:11  

Random B3tan quotes, part 10 billion:
"I work for Sainsbury's - and apparently somebody was on Sainsbury's To You and ordered some Rowntree's Jelly for home delivery - this wasn't in stock, so of course some bright spark picked an alternative... the poor bastard ended up with a jar of K.Y. delivered to his house." 20:32  

Soooooooooooo illlllllllllllllllllllllllllll... Plus now my lip is sore due to so much nose blowing, snot is encrusted in my nostril, hanging on to the native hairs for all its worth, and there's spider on my door. A small one, but it's still there. And to top it all off, I bought a weekly bus ticket this morning, costing £6.50, which went missing by the time I was waiting to get the bus home. I don't think it was stolen as my camera and wallet were still in my bag, so it must have fallen out at some point. Great. Simon's promised to come see me tomorrow though, armed with plenty of hugs and strokes, and he says if he doesn't come round for some unforeseen reason, he'll replace the bus ticket for me. Which was nice of him. He didn't make it out last night, you see, he was forced to do overtime. I didn't feel well enough to go to the gig on my own, so I missed the gig too. I sent David a text message to say we wouldn't be going and he said it would be their last gig for a while, as they want to focus on recording their new material. He also said he wasn't really offended by what I wrote about him, he said he was more amused, which was somewhat of a relief.

Today was the first day back at college after the holidays. I produced some 16"x12" prints, and then window mounted them. This was difficult as I haven't window mounted before, but after 3 practice runs I did fine. All this really sapped my energy, so I didn't develop the film I shot before Easter. I'm hoping to go in on Thursday and do it then, when I should, with luck, be feeling a bit better, and more up to meeting its requirements.

I also went up to Student Services to discuss entry requirements for the VisCom BA course I'd like to do. The conclusion was that in September I could start the college diploma, which would qualify me for immediate degree entry. However it's an internal certificate, so if I decided I'd rather do a course at a different institution, they may not necessarily accept it. If the course requires me to have 2 A-levels, I could finish the photography A-level starting in September, and also take up A-Level Media Studies, studying both years simulanteously. I would only do this however if I was guaranteed a degree place at the end of the course, otherwise it would just be a waste of a year. The final option is to do the Access to HE course, but that's aimed at people who haven't been in formal education for a while, whereas I have. I'm writing the foundation course off completely as I know it would be far more intensive and demanding than I could cope with. I talked to my tutor about all this, he said I should apply for both the college diploma and media A-level now, and I have no obligation to take up any offers of a place. I also need to write off to universities who offer courses I'm interested in, explaining my situation and that I'm looking into doing the college diploma, and asking them if this would be a suitable qualification for entry onto their course. Which means I need to do more thorough and serious searching for possible courses. I also need to formulate a personal statement for the college entry form, finish off my portfolio which has to be handed in next week, and finish my preparations for the exam, which will take place two weeks today. It seems a lot, but I know it isn't really, it's just that it's all been brought to my attention on the same day.

Tomorrow I'll be back at SHIP for the first time in a fortnight. I trust not much will have changed, but you can never be sure. I need to arrange to talk to the woman who started the eating disorders group, which was scheduled to meet for the first time last Friday. Once I'm over my cold, I also need to look further into exercise classes. So I have quite a bit to be getting on with, really. Especially when you include the usual fishing for hugs and strokes, and reading the books I borrowed from Rory. 20:20  

I'm illlllllllllllllllll! I demand sympathy! And I'm at college, battling with an A3 printer which only wants to print on A4. Get me away from here, I'm dying... 11:27  

Another B3tan blog... This time it's a link blog by Dutchbird. She's found some very fantastic things, including unusual coffins. Elsewhere, there's The Pea Tree, a Hello Kitty corset I must own despite having never liked Hello Kitty before, and some wonderful photographs courtesy of lithiumpicnic. 20:12  

I'm currently sat in Rory's office, using the computer of one of his colleagues who's currently absent. It seems that this computer has never been used before, it asked me for internet connection settings when I loaded up the browser. Very strange.

I'm going home today. The flight is scheduled to leave at 1pm, we're setting off for the airport in half an hour or so. I don't want to leave, I've had fun since we stopped arguing, and I get hugs on demand. Plus I woke up feeling I like I was getting a cold this morning, so the sympathy and Lemsips would be appreciated. My dad's collecting me from the airport at 2pm, we're probably going to the supermarket afterwards. Food has been very bad whilst I've been here, hopefully getting back onto familiar ground will help me regain some control. Tonight Simon's coming to see Four Planes In Four Days with me, at the Packhorse. I'm nervous about going as last week David sent me a message saying he was "only slightly offended" by my description of him in the cast list. I don't know if this was some kind of joke, or if I truly upset him. I find it very hard to gauge people's true emotions unless I'm sitting next to them, and even then I still have difficulties. I only wrote the truth about him. A little bluntly maybe, I'll concede that, but I would never publish anything which I thought would upset someone else. Tonight will be a chance to get that cleared up at least.

Yesterday, Rory and I went for another walk. This time we went up to the university and through the Botanic Gardens. It was lovely, very picturesque and green. I took some photographs, I'll get to see how they turned out when I get home. We went through the Palm House and Tropical Ravine, there were many varied species of plants, though it wasn't as good as the trip to Tropical World.

Sitting next to the Botanical Gardens is Ulster Museum. I demanded we go in and see what they were offering. Inside was a display of dinosaurs, featuring the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Inexplicably, they had a small pond with some turtles swimming in it. I loved them, I could have sat and watched them for hours. Other features at the museum included machines for making linen, and items which had been made in Belfast throughout the ages, including bricks, medals, sweets, ships, aeroplanes and so on. There was an Innuit display too, featuring some cayaks and clothing, amongst other items, and an Egyptian room, with pottery, jewellry, papyrus and a mummy. She was exceedingly well preserved, her skin was black, and her hair still attached to her head. It was most strange.

The main exhibition there was on Conflict in Ireland. It ran through from the earliest times to modern day. There was weaponry items from all periods on display, and clothing from the 1600's onwards. From the turn of last century, they also showed other items such as ration books, gas masks, letters, medals, photographs and the like. And, inevitably, children's drawings of how awful it all was and how we should all be friends. It was very well done, and afterwards there was a space where you could sit to gather your thoughts or learn more about a certain area.

We have to leave for the airport soon. I can feel my nerves building, the tension rising. I don't want to go home, to have to go back to my parents and my eating and my depression and my loneliness. But I have to. 11:24  

Rory and I attempted to go for a walk today. We agreed it would be a short walk, no more than an hour, as when I've been walking previously this week, my thigh, hips and back have caused me great pain, I need to go see a doctor about it. Whether it's a leftover from the back pain I had a couple of weeks ago, or whether my mum's prophesy of living a life of agony due to having never learnt to walk "properly" as a child has come true, I can't yet tell. Rory favours the first option, and so do I, but I can't forget how I was told for the past two decades that I would end up crippled as I had refused to do the exercises recommended to me by the pediatrician when I was still a toddler, due to the pain they caused me, and thus I still harbour suspicions that my mother may be correct after all. I bloody hope not, the joy and "told you so" attitude she would exude would be unbearable. Anyway, the walk. We walked down along the river, heading towards the university, I am informed. The wind was being immensely strong and so my eyes were watering with its force. Soon it started to rain, gently at first, then steadily heavier until the torrent of rain matched that of the wind. Rory conceded and allowed me to cut our trip short, plus my legs were starting to ache and I just wanted to go home and lay down somewhere warm and dry. We came back via an off licence, where, to my great delight, we purchased a bottle of raspberry flavoured Smirnoff, for consumption later, and something resembling a health food store, where I got some fake yoghurt and sweets.

We've been spending most of our time together getting drunk and talking. His television is broken so watching some DVDs is out of the question, and he only has one computer chair which is comfortable enough to be sat on for a long period of time, so we can't watch anything he's downloaded either. Last night we listened to music from when we were teenagers (Honeycrack, Scheer, China Drum, Symposium, The Wildhearts and others), discussed politics and economics and indie music and radio and bands we had loved and how strange it was that we both managed to adore tiny bands who no one else had ever heard of. It was a good evening.

I've been reading too. The Stories of Eva Luna has finally been finished and I've started reading Rory's copy of Exhibitionism which is ... strange. I can't properly comment yet. I'm also taking home The Crying of Lot 49 and The Book of Nothing, along with many post-rock CDs I don't have time to listen to here, or the inclination to download. I just hope my bag won't be as heavy going home as what it was when I came here. 16:09  

Rory and I were talking about sex again last night, and my reluctance to fully explore it, and how I see it as a inessential part of life, something that's quite nice once in a while but nothing to get too obsessed over. He says I need to change this, to become "normal". But two phrases just keep getting stuck in my head, "Some people say they want to be your lover, yes they want to turn you into someone else, not you" and "I want to be who I am, but be it with you." 15:05  

For breakfast today I have eaten 5 cinnamon and raisin bagels and half a litre of grape and raspberry juice. Last night I ate a whole 145g bag of pistachio nuts as a snack. Something needs to be done about my eating, and it needs to be done quickly. I can't carry on like this.

Being in Belfast has been a mixed bag. Rory and I have argued lots, but then we usually do when we're together for the first time in a while. We forget how to deal with living in such close proximity to another person, I think, and all subtly and consideration goes out the window, especially as these are underused talents when a person lives alone. Right now though, he's at work and I'm sat at his computer listening to the White Stripes and wishing he had some games installed for me to play on. Being without any card games at all to play to fill in a few minutes here and there is a very strange notion for me.

We went round the shops yesterday but I didn't buy anything, except a pair of shoelaces. How exciting! I did find a bag I liked, it may even have enough pockets for me to be happy with, but I didn't want to go ahead and get it when it was £20 and wasn't guaranteed to be what I've been looking for. We haven't got anything planned to do, except watch DVDs and try not to argue. But I guess those are as good plans as any. We went for a walk on Monday, went through Ormeau (?) Park and down by the river, then through town, which was mostly closed, and home again. The park was very lovely, there was many different kinds of trees and plants, the forget-me-nots are out now, and the wild garlic is beginning to sprout. We passed many people walking their dogs though the park was mostly quiet. It was very peaceful.

I'm informed that the sofa delivery went well and to plan, despite one of its feet being lost somewhere along the line. Dad messaged me to say it looks huge in the living room, but that was expected, by me at least. And now I can get rid of those god-awful sofa beds! Yey! All I need now is a suitable computer desk and then I can actually finish unpacking all the living room items.

I don't quite know how to fit this bit in with the rest of the post, but it needs saying, so I guess I'm just gonna have to do the onlineequivalentt of taking a deep breath and going for it. Getting to Belfast wasn't the easiest of things. We had spent most of Sunday sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, waiting until it was time for us all to go to the airport. The flight was at 9pm, we got up at 1pm. The flight was from Liverpool. I'm not good around many things, mostly due to having had bad experiences with them, such as spiders, crowds, Leeds train station, the bus stop at the bottom of the road, and so on. One of these things is Liverpool. The whole of Liverpool. Not that I've ever been there, but someone I was close to once, and who hurt me, lived there. So we were on the plane, getting ready for take off. Flying stresses me as it is, it's a situation I'm not used to, and even worse, I was flying from an airport I'd never been to before with people I didn't know very well. From the aeroplane I could see the surrounding area, I could see the streetlights and the river, and though I was trying to block out the thoughts, I was thinking about how he knew those streets, had probably walked down them, how he'd lived there, in a city he'd chosen to live in, it was a city which was important to him. And he used to be so important to me too, but he didn't want me, I wasn't good enough, and I pictured him doing the things I knew he did, and doing them in those streets which I was currently so close to, and how it had all ended so horribly, and I was crying and I couldn't stop and I wanted things to be different, I wanted him to want me, wanted these past 3 years to have turned out differently, ended amicably, or for there to have never been anything between us. It took a long time to calm down and stop crying. Looking out of the aeroplane window helped, the sun had just set and the sky was a rainbow of colours. There was heavy cloud cover and from above it looked like a sea of candy floss. I wanted to reach out and touch it, hold it. What do clouds feel like? I imagine them to be like candy floss, but less sticky. Or like bubble bath, where you swipe at a pile of it and take some away in your hand. For it to be soft and gentle and float on your palm. 14:11  

The party was reasonable. I ended up mostly enjoying it, despite the noise and drunken people. I spent most of the evening in the kitchen, doing the washing up. It was much quieter in the kitchen, and I ended up have conversations with a variety of people on topics such as tattoos, veganism and the meat industry. Janie's sister made chocolate space cake, which was extremely popular, and Janie's mum brought round enough sweets to fill a corner shop. There was 4 bean chili, cashew nut curry, chicken drumsticks. boiled eggs, potato salad, dips and dipping things, nuts, crisps, bolognaise, and probably many other things I'm forgetting. The people who were staying over went to bed sometime after 1am, and left it again somewhere between 10am and 2pm. Since then we have mostly been trying to kill time til we drive to Liverpool and fly to Belfast. I'm really rather bored and trying to resist eating a fifth bowl of chocolate cereal. 17:31  

Off to Chorley today. My anxiety and nerves are sky high. Also, the sofa dad bought for me yesterday is being delivered today, but after I've left, so Simon's agreed to come down to let the delivery man in. Argh! Must calm down! 11:14  

I've been very lazy with my blogging of late. I really must rectify this. Though I'm not sure how many updates will be forthcoming in the next week as tomorrow I'm going to Gavin and Janie's housewarming party in Chorley then flying to Belfast for a week. Rory's actually taking some time off work this visit, though apparently there isn't much happening for us to go see. Typically, it's all on this weekend or after I leave. Today I'm meant to be going sofa shopping with my dad. I'm not sure the shops will all be open though, as it's Good Friday. We'll just have to wait and see.

I had a great time whilst Ed was here. As expected, much hugging was indulged in, along with other delights, such as cake making, window shopping and drink, um, drinking. The Four Planes gig was wonderful, as usual, and Ed was a converted fan by the end. Their numbers have swelled to include their friend Ben, who plays double bass and xylophone. It works very well, even if it doesn't sound like it should. Deerpark were also playing, and I've seen them in gig listings before but have never been inclined to go see them, how they've been described just didn't appeal to me. I'm glad I've finally seen them though, they were ace. They had about seven band members, including a violinist, a flute player and a double bass player. It made me very jealous that I can't play an instrument, and made me wish I'd put more effort into learning to play something when I was younger. I've love to be able to play piano, flute, violin, cello, harp or other such instruments. I could always try to start now, but I've gained other interests such as photography, so I guess that can fill the hole in my life left by a lack of musical training. Plus I know that not much has changed since I was younger, and I'd still be unlikely to practice enough, no matter how much I loved the instrument.

On Tuesday, Ed and I had been considering going to the Royal Armouries as they usually have special events on during school holidays. Their website didn't provide much information about what would be going on though, so we decided to look elsewhere. I narrowed it down to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park or Tropical World. We decided that the Sculpture Park probably wasn't that good an idea, as half of it is outside and the weather has been very typical for April - temperamental, changeable and unpredictable. Plus it was an excuse for him to visit again some other time when the weather was warmer and drier. So we went to Tropical World. It's in a part of Leeds I'd never been to before, and it required catching buses who's routes I didn't know and getting off when we felt the time was right. This is something I couldn't have managed two years ago, so I'm quite proud of myself for coping well with it. The centre was swarming with children and pushchairs, we did our best to ignore them though. There was many wonderful things to see, including snakes, meercats, stick insects, terrapins, butterflies, fruit bats, bush babies, parrots, many varieties of ugly fish, lizards, degus (who we decided were the cutest creatures on Earth), nasty crawly things like spiders and scorpions, and there was also many varieties of plants and cacti. We had a fantastic time, and would definitely recommend it.

Ed went home on Wednesday morning, understandably a little depressed. But I promised to make him come back in the summer, so all should be well I think. 11:27  

Typical. First time I have some time alone in the best part of a week and I'm too tired to do anything constructive with it. Maybe tomorrow. 21:49  

There's a few things I have to blog, but Ed's here and it's not really fair to abandon him for an hour or so, just to fulfill my online rambling needs / quota. We've been getting lots of hugs in, have made a great cake, saw some ace bands, ate delicious pizza and onion bhajis, played scrabble, and hugged more. Shopping and cinema tomorrow, with cold pizza for breakfast.

The reason I am blogging though, is, well, it's ten years since Kurt died. At the time it meant nothing to me, I was still a Take That fan, but with the buds of an interest in guitar music. But if you were going to point to a time in my life when everything turned around, it would be approximately April 1994. I was 13, discovering indie music, eyeliner and Doc Martens. I started to become depressed, which started my self harm and suicide attempts, which started my road through various forms of therapy, and also which led me to finding the wonderful people I call or have called friends. It's been ten years of learning about myself, and it's been a rocky road, but I'm still on the path, and I intend to keep on journeying. 22:49  

Today's weather has been an odd mixture of overcast cloud and sunshine. People are predicting a warm summer. I hope not, I hate being hot. In preparation though, I bought a pair of orange linen and cotton embroidered wraparound trousers from O'Neills. They have some very nice clothes for sale right now, as do Roxy and, surprisingly, H&M. I'm tempted to buy lots of lovely new clothes, but I barely have room for the ones I already don't wear, I don't need any more. It's consumerism, isn't it? Encouraging us to spend by making us believe we'll be better, more attractive people once we own their product. Remembering this is difficult sometimes though.

For a change, I actually have some plans for the weekend. Ed from Cardiff is coming to stay, and we're going to go to David's gig tomorrow night. I suggested that we bake a cake for the occasion, so after much debate we settled on baking some blueberry muffins. I don't have a muffin baking tray though and was worried the supermarket won't sell one, so I've decided we'll make an applesauce spice cake instead, as the supermarket should at least sell cake tins. We've also planned on eating bagels, buying pizza, seeing Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself and doing plenty of hugging. He's due to arrive in Leeds in approximately two hours and I'm bored waiting for him to turn up. There's things I should be doing, like working on my photography project, or tidying, or doing some washing, or reading, but I'm feeling lazy. I can't even cook something to eat as I expect I'll buy lots of snacky food at the supermarket later and will want to eat that instead. Mmm, Frosties. 17:23  

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