To make a five-metre cake, take:
8,000 eggs
700 kg of cake mix
400 kg of butter
Mix for six days
Decorate with Christmas trees, snowmen and gift boxes
Went to the pub with my parents and brother last night. Usually the term applicable to such a collection of people would be "family" but I feel that's not quite appropriate, so I'll leave the phrase as it stands. I had three vodkas and Coke. I only drink Coke when I'm in a pub so I blame only having three hours sleep on the unusual amount of caffeine in my system. Robert and I played what must have surely been The Longest Game Of Snooker Ever. Plus what with me being so short and us playing on a full sized snooker table, I could only feasibly reach about a third of the table, so I found sitting on the edge of the table part of the time helped me reach the balls. It didn't help my terrible aim though.
The pub had a raffle on. You could buy 5 tickets for a pound. We managed to persuade dad to buy about £7 worth. Robert won a Chocolate Orange, I won a plain grey t-shirt. I wanted the cordless drill but you can't have everything.
Christmas Dinner was so ill-timed that we didn't eat til half past 4. Luckily we didn't have to watch the Queen's Speech this year though. Thank Gods. We had roasted vegetables (peppers, onion), roasted parsnips, roasted carrots (lovely!), sausages wrapped in bacon, roast potatoes, an 8lb ... thing ... of pork, and I had vegan turkey. It was all lovely. No one quite managed desert but I did succeed in getting down a bowl of summerfruit compote. Yes, without any solid cake in the middle. They'd also bought me a tub of vegan raspberry ice cream. Yey! It's in my freezer now ;-)
On the present front, mum loved her mug and dad and Robert liked their books. I received the things I'd ordered from Amazon:
The Glass Bead Game - Herman Hesse
The Blind Assassin - come on, surely I don't need to tell you who wrote that!
Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense - Justine Glass
The Wise Wound - Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrave (I believe, don't quote me on that)
Loss - Mull Historical Society
Unfortunately, The Winged Bull by Dion Fortune was on special order and hasn't yet arrived.
I also got from my parents some envelopes (for all those Nervousness exchanges); a League of Gentlemen book; a fluffy hodgeheg; two jigsaws; two bars of chocolate (one non-vegan) and a bar of chocolate soap (also non-vegan). I received some fake leather gloves from an aunt and the cutlery set that I wanted from my brother.
I got my present from Simon earlier in the week, as a Yule present. It's a pentacle ring, because I wanted an option of not wearing my necklace all the time. Rory hasn't bought me a present but I don't mind because he should be coming to see me on Friday. A well needed visit for both of us.
All in all, it wasn't a bad day. In fact it's the best in my memory. Not a single arguement. None. Best not test our luck with going to the pantomine.
23:04
Well it didn't start out great. Got a letter from the council saying they need more information to decide if I really need to stay on housing and council tax benefit. Gits. They could have put it on the form that they wanted that.
Went to Morrisons to get food for the SHIP part. Needless to say, it was packed. Took me half an hour at the checkouts. So I went into town which similarly was unbearably heaving. Luckily Top Shop had a knickers sale on and they were £1 each. I bought three.
Got to the SHIP building at practically bang on two. There weren't very many people there. However there were notices that a new Meditation Group is starting on Mondays so that's something else for me to do. The party picked up about 3pm. My bananas were popular and I loved the houmous someone else brought. It started to snow shortly after. It was so pretty to watch.
I came home about 4 because I didn't want to get stuck in all the traffic rushing to get out of the city centre when the shops shut. I got home to discover Morag had left a message on my answering service. Thank Gods I didn't have it deleted! She's coming to Leeds tonight for an impromtu party thrown by the person she's supposed to be never speaking to again. Hmm. And I was invited. After much arsing around trying to get in touch with people, I got in contact with her and the person, Mark, who's throwing the party. I persuaded Mark to pick me up, he should be here in half an hour, and then we're off to the train station to get Morag.
So I'm gonna spend the evening with a bunch of people I don't know, one who I've met once, one who I've met three times, and to make my nervousness worse, Rory's been sending me lovely porn pictures. *sigh*. I think I need to breathe deeply and calm down. Am all scared. But leaping into the unknown is good. You'll never go anywhere if you sit at home, moping about your crap social life and how everyone hates you.
But the scariest bit of all is that Mark lives in Burley. And so does Simon. And if you don't know the significance of that then really it would take far too long to explain.
19:06
Got post today! I haven't had any for a few days and I've missed it but today I got four pairs of knickers from an American Nervousness member. They're in very festive colours too - red and green.
It's the SHIP party tomorrow. Nervous about it. Oh well. It's also Yule tomorrow. Yey!
12:24
In other news, I'm exceedingly bored.
18:26
Oh, maybe it was that the camera's finally working! We skipped all the software crap and found that one of the art packages I have loaded up, Print Shop Photo Pro, I think it's called, can read from digital cameras and all is fine. Hurray. To celebrate, here is a picture of me taken by Simon this evening.
breathed.net
breathes.org
respirations.org
breathings.com
snivels.net
respiring.com
inhaling.org
puffing.net
respired.com
esnuffles.com
isnuffles.com
snufflesnet.com
respires.com
snorting.net
exhaling.net
4snuffles.com
e-snuffles.com
i-snuffles.com
mysnuffles.com
netsnuffles.com
Personally, I like the sound of mysnuffles.com or puffing.net best.
The search for "swirly" said swirly.org was available and other suggestions included:
convolutedy.com
round-shapey.com
bendsy.com
I may have to get one of those just on the principle of the matter.
My fall back is going to be sophophilia.* but I wanted something a little shorter, if I'm being honest.
Before I leave you to attempt sleep again, here is my list of the best things to do at three in the morning.
1. Go to the local park with friends and play on the swings.
2. Have a telephone conversation. Not a depressed one, but an indepth, intellectual one.
3. Have wild sex with the partner(s) of your choice.
4. Eat pizza or ice cream.
5. Write to your blog because you're a social outcast with nothing better to do with your life.
Night all.
03:38
"A day that passes without an entry is like a day that never was... and it's not just a breakdown of the day, it's an honest look into what life is like.
"We don't tell you that were bored all day. We describe to you how the pain of being bored affects us, how the water sounds when it drips out of the faucet, how we're so sick of our own voice that we called the pizza guy just to force a smile.
"We don't recount our days day by day. In fact, some days we might just tell you about the time mom had to cut the bubble gum out of our hair in the third grade and how utterly humiliating that was.
"But writing about it makes us feel more complete."
...
"Tell not a recount of your day, but tell us in a way that makes it seem that baking bread is the most exciting, boring, erotic, fantastic, or wild thing you've ever done."
And that's what I want to be like. To be able to write something so absorbing and innovative, so engrossing and perfect. If I could manage to do that, even if it's just once, I feel I could be happy with myself. But my mind is saying I could never manage that, never be good enough. And chances are, it's right.
19:08
To satisfy further curiosity, the pictures in the book suggest that a small band of animals, including a duck with an umbrella, led by a hodgeheg wearing dungarees, end up in China after their hot air balloon is struck by lightning. They're lost at sea, are captured by some sailors and taken to the mainland. They escape and see wonderful things, like a bloke spinning plates on a stick. They get into a Chinese family's house, cause chaos and tie the family up. Somewhere along the line, the hodgeheg aquires a set of bow and arrows. I think the duck gets injured because in the next picture, his feet are bandaged and he's being carried in a bed attached to some sticks carried by some topless Chinese men. A hamster is also wearing a scarf and a cat has a paw in a sling and a crutch. The hodgeheg is pointing to his friends and looks to be talking to someone who, judging by his fine clothes and large amount of servants, is quite poweful and wealthy. Then the animals have a feast with the rich man and his friends. After that I lose the plot a bit. It seems they leave the city by attaching balloons to themselves and flying into the dessert where they get shot down by another person with a bow and arrows. They land on a tent and seem to make friends with some camels. The next picture shows them riding on the camels through a large gate. The gate isnt attached to anything though. They're being watched by a band of Chinese with bad taste in boxer shorts. They meet someone with glasses who looks old and get their first introduction to the female Chinese popluation. The hodgeheg takes to playing what looks like a sitar with three strings. Then all of a sudden they're charging along on extra-furry horses holding overgrown butterfly nets chasing after a set of Chinese. If these are the people who watched them riding the camels then they've got dressed since that episode. It seems they catch their prey and put their heads in stocks, but not their limbs. Essentially they have large blocks of wood attached to their necks. Then the rich Chinese people take the animals to store room full of golden treasure and seem quite happy at them running loose in it. Again I lose the plot but it seems the rich Chinese take care of them for a while and let them live a life of luxury at no expense to the animals. Eventually, the animals decide to leave and lots of Chinese workers are employed trying to reinflate the animals' hot air balloon. Then the hodgeheg and gang fly away and the story ends. Heart warming, I'm sure you'll agree.
20:27
Or something.
13:17
I went to the post office to post some more Nervousness exchanges. They were queuing a long way out of the door. It took me half an hour to get to the counter. All reports said that it'd had been like that all day. After I finally got the things posted, I went to Morrisons to buy much needed supplies such as chocolate and Skittles. The woman in front of me in the queue was buying lard. "Finest Quality Lard" according to the label. Is that not a contradication in terms? When it was finally my turn, the scanner decided it didn't want to work. I thought maybe it was the Skittles. Three checkout operators tried to fix it. Nowt happening. The guy had to type the barcode numbers in by hand. I felt sorry for him but I just wanted to get home. As I left I had to pass the post office. They were still queuing out the door.
15:48
Also spotted: A Vagina For Christmas. Um, I don't think I can explain.
18:06
Robert's got an offer from Oxford for AAB, so the smug git has even more amo to prove how inferior I am now. Humph. Though he has quit his job after approximately two weeks citing the reason that his collegues were "retards". Arrogant imbecile.
Mum said she doesn't think any more that I'll turn out like her sister, it was a thought she had when I was going through my clubbing and drinking phase. That's not the impression I got but I don't care enough to make something big out of it.
*Sigh*
I can go home again in an hour or two. Something to look forward to, at least.
15:50
I've borrowed my dad's digital camera to take some photos for this site and for a party I'm going to on Saturday. First I had to plug a cable into the back of the computer. This ended up taking about half an hour and required a rearrange of my desk. For some strange reason. Then I had to try and install the software. The CD with it on crashed my computer twice. So I ran scan disk to see if I had a virus or if it was the CD. Scan disk kept restarting because apparantly something was writing to the drive. So I scrapped scan disk and decided to download the drivers. The drivers were 7.5 meg. They finally downloaded. I'm too scared to open the file and see if it works. If it doesn't I'll throw the computer out of the window and it's getting a bit late to be disturbing the rest of the street.
However whilst scan disk was running I got the opportunity to give this room a much needed tidy. It looks a lot better for it. I also brought some CDs down from upstairs as I haven't been listening to much music and I really should see to that.
I watched a programme on meer cats earlier. Meer cats are my second favouritest animal ever. They're so cute. Vicious buggers though. At one point in the programme, some young meer cats came across a hodgeheg! All snuffly! One of them jumped on the hodgeheg, and immediately lept off again! And they also found an esiotrot and one tried to sit on it, and fell off. 'Twas very funny. But one of them got beaten up by a rival set of meer cats and I got all upset. Don't like things getting hurt.
23:14
Also decided I need to find more fantastic websites to waste time on, but I can't find any of them either. Again, suggestions welcome.
Sorry, this is a bit of a pointless post. Oh well.
19:43
Actually, I have been abroad. Been to France quite a few times, and to Portugal once. So there. :-p
Can anyone tell me more about the Smart Tag debate? Is this a hoax, reality or what? Yeah, I know I'm out of touch with current affairs. Nothing I'm proud of. Come educate me.
Something I was forgetting to mention from Monday. I was the novelty freak. I don't think they'd ever seen a vegan before and everyone took great delight in watching me eat and asking what I normally eat. I was not enjoying this. My only comfort was that as least I'm a damn sight healthier than them, who live on fried meat and God knows what else. Urgh.
00:09
She was adopted from Ant's Gay Pet Adoption Service. In honour, I have a new Adoptions page.
22:50
Today I was in town searching for a Christmas present for mum. I have absolutely no idea what to get her. I don't want to have to fall back on toiletries or chocolate. She doesn't have much free time, and doesn't read books so there isn't a hobby I could buy something for. She has enough nail polish and make up. She doesn't want interesting knickers from Top Shop. She does enjoy cheap wine, but that's far too obvious a gift. She already has an ironing board. I almost bought her a mug that said "Caffine Queen" on it, but what stopped me was the mug was smaller than her normal mugs, she likes a big mug. The big ones were too expensive for poor, doleite me. She said she wanted some earrings but she's that fussy about what she wears, I don't want to buy some on the off-chance she'll like them. She's so hard to buy for. Does anyone have any ideas?
Anyway, I was in Just Books in a desperate attempt to find something. Unfortunately, I stopped by their large and cheap collection of Virago books and it was painful not buying them. I conceded to a £4 hardback copy of Glamorama, and a £3 copy of The Hiding Place, though.
I was also in Borders today. I think I've finally found the magazine I've been waiting years for. It's called Chica, but there's nothing at their site yet, as this is only their first issue. As the front cover says, it features "no diets, no models, no bullshit, no sales pitch, no neuroses, just 100% bad girl fun!" and, quoting from the editorial note, "...celebrates the rudest, crudest, silliest and glitteriest aspects of girlhood and doesn't stop until the booze runs out". The only fault I can find with it is that it's a little too hetrosexually focused and could possibly benefit from adopting a more bisexual viewpoint. They say they're looking for articles. I'm going to write and volunteer my services.
23:47
Robert and I went to see Ghost World. It was very dry humour, just up my street. There wasn't much of a plot to speak of, but that is often a bonus. The storyline though is two friends finish high school and are planning on finding an apartment together. One however doesn't feel this is the direction she wants to follow though and so the friendship starts to crumble. Other areas in her life are turning bad too and she doesn't know where to go for comfort as she doesn't have any one left she's close too. It was very much a "teen" movie in that respect: trying to deal with issues that its target audience would be trying to deal with. It doesn't offer any answers as such but the empathy value is significant enough to make it a cult hit, I suspect.
Well nothing else much to say yet. Shall I keep calm? Shall I (God/dess forbid) say something contraversial?! Tune in next time to find out.
13:06
You're the cutest kitten on the block! Every other kitty would love to be you. You're just as smart as you are cute and you will go very far in life!
What cat are you?
21:31
I discovered from my mum that Susan also has mental health problems, and this is the excuse she gives as to why she never "applied" herself at school, as it were, and why she's done nothing with her life but breed. At least, that's the conclusions I drew from what my mum said. Mum said this was why she thought I might end up down the same road as Susan. Which seems a bit out of order really. I am trying to get over my problems. Getting an education is one of the most important things to me. So either my mum doesn't know me very well at all, or has a screwed view of mental health.
The talk was inane. It revolved mostly around who was allergic to what, and who was paying the highest for their heating bills. I wanted to kill the lot of them. How can people talk about things like that? There's so much more important things to discuss and they're on about their bloody electric bills. I was glad I brought al-ki-hol.
The arguements with my dad were many. I may have a biased view admitedly, but I think he was mostly to blame, or was just making a mountain out of a molehill. I don't want to go into specifics, I would get too angry again, but this is something that's been going on for a while now. No doubt he feels as if people are just out to get at him, but he is at fault. He's very controlling and I refuse to allow him to control me in any way whatsoever. My mum always used to go along with what he said, and so did I because I was a child. But I'm not a child anymore, I'm my own person and no one is going to tell me what to say or think or do, least of all him. And if he can't accept that then tough. I'll break ties if I have to, move house and not see him, but I won't give in on this. It's too important to me.
21:52
Today I also discovered that half my cousins live on a council estate down the road from me. Urgh. This is one of the bad, bad estates, where you don't wanna be caught after dark without some weapon or another. And you wouldn't really want it during daylight either.
There was something else that I can't remember so for the moment I'll entertain you with another pointless survey.
A Webmistress Survey from Scented Angels.
1. Besides your computer and printer (and anything else that belongs there), what is on your desk right now?
What isn't on my desk?! OK, from left to right. Some leaflets from the self help project I attend; a calendar of Austrailian waterfalls; my mobile; two necklaces; a calendar displaying a snow scene; "Nothing But Tetris" and "Driving Test Success" cd-roms; a pile of music cd's (Suede, Ooberman, Airport Girl, Belle and Sebastian, The Make-Up, Add N To X, Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi, Field Mice, Pale Saints, Shinkansen compilation); an earring; a safety pin; a pair of scissors; a spoon; a roll of brown tape; a notepad; a camera; a toothbrush; a diary; Win2000 disks; lip balm; Vitamin C pills; 6 hodgeheg ornaments; two tickets for cinema / theatre; Vegan Shopper book; some postcards I picked up at the cinema; two pads of A4; some writing paper and envelopes and other assorted papers. Oh, and sleeping tablets. Forgot about those, they were hiding behind a speaker.
2. Do you sketch your layouts by hand? Like with paper and everything?
No. They go straight onto screen from my head and evolve from there.
3. What is the VERY last page you updated?
My blog. Beyond that, um, I think I added a webring to my main page.
4. What's the last activity you ditched so you could work on your site?
I don't need to ditch anything, there isn't much else I do!
5. Think back to the VERY first website you ever made.
- what was it about?
A small section on me, a large section on Manic Street Preachers, a large-ish links page, things I liked and disliked. That's it I think.
- where was it hosted?
On Globalnet. The remains are still there: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~gables
- how many animated GIFs were on it?
None! In fact, only the Manics section had any pictures at all. I wasn't very good at design back then. Some might say I'm still not. The animated GIFs though didn't appear until my second website.
- how many hits did you get before you realized to needed to learn HTML?
Actually it was all programmed with HTML. Just not very good design.
6. Do you talk to your computer?
Yes. I tell it it's an idiot and it needs to find me a new ISP.
7. Does your computer have a name?
Technically, no. I guess it's just called "Computer".
8. Name all the various food crumbs/alien objects that have found their way to the little spaces between your keys.
Urgh. This keyboard is second hand too. I shall just say it needs a good clean.
9. Where are you/what are you doing when you usually receive site/layout inspiration?
Can't say I've noticed actually. *thinks a while*. I'm probably in front of the computer actually, trying to find a layout that looks decent.
10. How many times a day do you check your counter?
I don't have a counter, I have logs. Which get run every so often. Usually when Rory remembers to run them. Not so frequently.
11. How many times a day do you check your guestbook?
When I first got my guestmap, quite a few. I've calmed down now though and check maybe every fortnight or so.
12. How many sisters/affiliates/whatevers do you have? Do you ever talk to them?
A what-what?
13. Do your friends at school know you have a website?
I don't go to school. But pretty much everyone I have some form of repeated contact with knows about it, if not where it is.
- How long after you've met someone for the first time before they find out about your site?
Depends on the environment in which I meet the person. And if the "what are your hobbies / interests?" question takes a while to get asked.
14. CDs or MP3s?
Both, darhling.
15. Dialup or cable?
Dial up and its bloody frustrating atm. I echo Rory's sentiments in wishing to stick a rusty knife up the bum of the nearest BT technician.
16. Mac or IBM?
It's a PC.
17. What do your parents think of all the time you spend at your computer?
Luckily they don't know just how much it is. My mum would go nuts if she knew.
- Do they know you have a website?
Yes.
- Have they seen it?
They might have seen the front page. But not beyond that. I think they're more familiar with Faery Porn, tbh.
18. What's the latest you've ever stayed up trying to get a layout to work?
I tend to get too frustrated about 3 or 4am and abandon it for the night.
23:18
"I woke up drunk and naked again this morning. When I rolled over and opened my eyes, I realized I wasn't alone. At some point during the night, the trashcan from the bathroom decided to join me under the covers. I closed my eyes and went back to sleep." From the Vagabond Princess blog.
If I were a work of art, I would be Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory.
I am a surreal landscape composed of several disjointed and bizarre components. I like to keep an eye on the time, although the very concept is fluid for me. People are never sure what they are seeing when they look at me.
Take The Art Test.
Which Online Personality Test Are You? said I was the James Bond Villain Personality Test:
You live in a fictional world of spies and blonde women with ridiculous names, and you like to give people plenty of options. Although whether they're villainous is not optional.
Your answers suggest a correspondence of 79% to The James Bond Villain Personality Test.
So I took The James Bond Villain Personality Test and came out as Pussy Galore, of all people. "You enjoy flying, a good roll in the hay, and nerve gassing army bases." Well, sounds more interesting than what I already do with my time.
23:19
Am currently reading Kundera's Identity. I'm not sure if it was due to me reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being first, and thus it seemed more intense and impenetrable, or whether it actually is more ... weighty, for want of a better word, than his other novels, but I've been able to read his other works much quicker than ...Being. Nonetheless, I am enjoying Identity immensely.
We've been having horrible weather recently. Cold, wet, windy and just plain grotty. It hasn't helped my state of mind any. Neither have my money worries. I got a phone bill today, and another Circle Journal that needs to be passed on, in addition to Journal 685 that I recieved earlier this week. The money in the bank is dwindling. This is not good. And I have spots on my chin.
15:05
I didn't go to my sign language class tonight. I felt desperately ugly and had a complete lack of self esteem. I really couldn't face it. There's only one class left before we break up for Christmas so maybe I could manage that one. We'll see.
23:40