I'd best quickly give a run down of the past week seeing as I haven't been blogging.

Christmas Eve provided me with three choices: go to the pub with my parents, go to the pub with Robert or stay in on my own. I ended up selecting Robert and went to get drunk with him and a few of his friends. We played darts and sometimes I even managed to hit the dart board. We had a long discussion about childhood memories and losing our virginities and there was a raffle in which I won a JD lighter. Some gay bloke spilt some wine on my cardigan and went to suck it out but he bit me quite hard so I stood on his foot. When we leaving our parents rang to say they were going to the casino and did we want to come along? So we finished the night in the casino eating free curry and bourbons which had to paid for whilst playing Rummy. It wasn't too terrible an evening, I've certainly had worse.

I got up at noon on Christmas Day. Presents included Century from Robert, Maya Gold chocolate, plenty of CDs, magnetic poetry and a set of large computer speakers. I got to open mum's presents for her as she was rather the worse for wear, she said it felt like she had flu, and she spent all day in bed. She got 13 boxes of chocolates from her customers though so at least the day wasn't all bad.

Boxing Day was dreary and crap, but then Boxing Day is always dreary and crap. Friday was somewhat more exciting luckily. I met Dave from B3ta (yes, another one) and we went for a drink in the pub. He told me about all the famous people he's met, including the time he spent working on the Mark and Lard Show. He says he reads at least three books a week - a boy after my own heart! After two drinks we came back home, had more vodka, played briefly with the magnetic poetry then took our clothes off and played with each other. Classy or what?

I awoke feeling terrible on Saturday. I had somehow caught a cold so I spent the day in bed, drinking orange juice and Lemsip and complaining loudly to all and sundry. Luckily Simon came round and comforted me which helped. Yesterday I stayed in bed again, complained some more and started a jigsaw. Waking up this morning I felt so different. I felt almost well again. I managed to have a shower and listen to music and read things, just as if I was normal, except with a much runnier nose. I think that tomorrow should see off the last of the illness. I'm also planning on going into SHIP, get some more sympathy!

I suppose I should really do a round-up of the year as this is likely to be my last blog in 2002. Health-wise I'm so much better than I could have ever hoped for twelve months ago. I've been to gigs and started wearing interesting clothes again and I've gone off to do interesting things with interesting people. I've stuck with the veganism, I've kept my pets alive, I've read some wonderful books. I've rediscovered new music, developed an interest in photography, made new friends, can see light at the end of the tunnel.

For next year I'm planning on continuing being vegan and spreading out to encompass ethical shopping much more (though I already do quite a bit) and trying to put more thought into the things I do and why I do them. I'm going to go to more gigs, read more books, listen to more music, make more friends, be healthier, cook more food, read the news, care less about other people's opinions, pass my Photography GCSE, and clean my house (especially throw out that soup which has been on my cooker for more than a week). I'll probably take the facilitator's training course at SHIP, I'll go to college though what courses I'll do I haven't decided yet, I'll move house, get some piercings, maybe get a tattoo, try and get a girlfriend but not get upset if I don't, start learning to play guitar again, start learning to drive again, spend less money (somehow), continue getting better and helping others to get better and just generally be wonderful.
20:03

It's half past four and I can't sleep. I think I drank too much Coke at the SHIP party. Nevermind, it gives me a chance to blog. The party itself was quite enjoyable. There wasn't much in the way of vegan food but I managed. About twenty or thirty people turned up, mostly people I don't know, and we played some party games - Pass The Parcel, in which I won a sparkly bauble; the Chocolate Game, you know the one, you have to put the hat, scarf and gloves on and then eat a bar of chocolate using a knife and fork, which I didn't take part in and was rather chaotic; and, well, Ok, there was two games, but they still count.

The sad news of Joe Strummer's death is luckily balanced out by the wonderful decision by Tim Rice to adopt two hundred hodgehegs who otherwise would be slaughtered in April. The organisation responsible for the hodgehegs' fate "ruled out the relocation of the creatures to the mainland on the grounds that almost half had died as a result of previous attempts." So, they could either rehome them with a survival rate of approximately 50%, or just kill the lot of them straight out. Excellent choice there. At least the 50% that died would be dying naturally and not due to a massacre.

Elsewhere I've been getting addicted to Nation States, a game where you control your own nation and decide on its policies. I'm not very far into it yet so I can't tell how my utopia will fare but you can keep checking up on it if you're interested. Perhaps somewhat predictably it's called the Free Land of Pixiedom. My other obsession is a simple game named Text Twist. The idea is to spot the words made by an anagram. I've been playing it solidly for a few days and as a result I have parts of words floating around my head that I can't seem to get rid of.

The best thing on B3ta for some time has been the Advent Calendar. Every last one is a classic. Away from the computer though, I've finally started reading a book again after a ridiculously long break. The novel in question is Death and the Penguin and it's wonderful. I suck at book reviews, so I'll just say it's highly recommended.

I'm off to my parents for Christmas and I'm sleeping over Christmas Eve. I plan on surviving with the aid of a large bottle of vodka. It might be grim and unbearable but with my trusty friend at my side I'm sure I'll manage to persevere. Well, I'm not quite sure, but we all need something to hope for.
04:45

The weather hasn't improved any, it's still bloody freezing. At least I can be bloody freezing at home with music and ice cream and not bloody freezing outside where it's also windy and rainy.

Dad took me to the supermarket on Friday which was extremely stressful. Forgetting to bring along my anxiety pills didn't help matters either. I managed to survive though and got lots of shopping that I can't really afford. My money situation is verging on critical but I've managed to persuade myself to stop buying every last little thing which I want. It does mean though that I can't decide whether or not I should buy the 2 CDs I really want from Ebay. I certainly don't need them but they're not easily available and I love the bands. Argh!

In the evening was the Four Planes in Four Days gig at the Packhorse. I went on my own, unable to find someone to coax into accompanying me. I hung round the bar nervously at first til Murray and Ben from David's work came. Murray recognised me from when we'd all been at Helene's but he couldn't remember my name so he greeted me with "You're David's ex-girlfriend aren't you?" Tactful. There seemed to be loads of people at the gig, there was certainly many more than there had been last time I was there. I sat with Murray, Ben, Donna and Gideon at first and we had a casual chat. It was nice as I was paranoid no one would talk to me. Once the band started though, Four Planes played first, I got up and moved around taking photographs. I didn't feel as self conscious as I expected to which was a relief. The band themselves were excellent. They sounded much heavier than on the recording and I wanted to get up and leap around, mosh a bit. The crowd were mostly seated though so I didn't get a chance to dance much. Three other bands played but I only stayed to see two of them as I had to leave so I could catch my bus home. Overall it was a very good evening. Nothing catastrophic happened though I did feel a bit upset about being around David but it's slowly getting better. I need someone else to throw my attentions on to but then again, would that be fair to whoever the person is? Could it not just be said I'm still (I hate this phrase but it's the appropriate one) on the rebound?

Saturday was pretty crappy. I felt depressed and spent most of the afternoon hiding in bed. I emerged to make soup but it wasn't as nice as the previous time I made it so that didn't make me feel any better. Simon came round for a while and gave me strokes and a small Yule present as my main present, CDs from Amazon, hasn't arrived yet. He gave me a small tube of blue body glitter and a glass star to hang in bedroom with my other hanging ornaments. They're very ace. The glitter is everywhere already and the tube hasn't even been opened yet. Somehow the glitter is escaping, making my room sparkly.

Rory and I had a big conversation in the evening. He says he's been depressed this week which is why he's been short and unsupportive with me recently. I confessed that I've been depressed for weeks too and hadn't told him as his responses to such news in recent times has only made me feel worse. Maybe this is the start of sorting the mess out. He says he doesn't want to lose my friendship so hopefully we will both be working at keeping the relationship afloat.

I'm worried about the next fortnight. I've been more depressed than I ever have been since starting with my current medication and my support base is disappearing for two weeks. David is going to visit his family down south, Simon is on holiday from work and so is uncontactable as I can't ring him at home, and things looked as though I couldn't ring Rory for support either though hopefully that may not be the case now we've discussed the situation. In addition to all this, SHIP isn't running at full speed. They're providing some support between Christmas and New Year but the first session is on Friday which is a very long time away in tangible terms. I can only hope that I can cope, as there's not much I can do if I can't cope. SHIP are having a Christmas party tomorrow though which I'm looking forward to.
16:42

It's a grotty, foggy day. Three days to go til the Solstice... Then things will start to get better. The dark has been affecting me psychologically. I don't like going out when there's no daylight so after four o'clock I'll only leave the house for essential things, like bread and sweets. It's started to get icy in the mornings and there's been frost on the rooftops. We're supposed to have had snow last week but there's still no sign of it, which is good if you ask me. It's hard enough for me to persuade myself to go out as it is without the weather and thus also the traffic getting worse.

I felt very depressed this morning but I also had a raging hunger so I absorbed myself in curing the second which made me forget about the first, luckily. Women's group was quite good. Aside from my usual ramblings we also had a discussion about how to change the world, things we want to change in our neighbourhoods, what stops us from trying to change things and the like. I left the group with my spirits increased, ready to take the world head on. I walked round town for a while and drooled at all the pretty people. And there was so many pretty people. I felt very inadequate and ugly. I wanted to buy all the pretty clothes around me but I checked my bank balance and my money's the lowest it's been in two and a half years. If it hadn't had been so desperate I would have got my nose pierced but I really can not afford it right now. I did get a price list for Pagan body piercing though. I totalled up how much it would cost to get all the piercings I want done and it came to £82 - £40 for my labia (x2), £20 for my pubic region, £10 for my nose and £12 for two additional holes in each ear as I saw someone in the Fenton on Saturday with three piercings in each lobe and it looked very cool. Of course I wouldn't be able to get it all done at the same time, that would just be a little over the top. I want a tattoo or two as well so that will cost somewhere between £30 (for one) and £100 (for two medium sized ones). And of course the price of replacing my wardrobe is phenomenal! And don't forget I need to redecorate my house...

Bumped into Spike in Grin. I haven't seen her since I left Bradford. She says she's in London at the moment doing a degree in Fine Art. She still has all her piercings, if not more. She was with Helen, shopping.
15:25

I have remembered some of the things I wanted to say earlier! Yey for me!

Andy at SHIP was saying that in the new year a facilitators training course should be running which is open to SHIP members and he suggested I go on it. It would be the natural path to take but I really don't think I would make a good facilitator. I can't stand listening to most of the people there, they just irritate me. I only go because I need the social interaction and interaction I hate is better than none at all. I'll see how I feel when the course is starting though. We need a female facilitator in the LGB group and someone to start an eating disorders group is badly needed too. I don't know if I would be the right choice though, and it could seriously screw up my benefits.

Michael told me that there will be a meeting soon to arrange a trip to London for Hope. He said that in his eyes at least I am still a member of Hope but from the way he said it and his facial expressions I got the impression he didn't really feel that way and if he did then he didn't want it like that. I also felt that he didn't like me and he thought I was messing him around and wasting everyone's time. In fact I think that's what most people at SHIP feel.
16:50

I know I said that having a blogging application would make me more likely to blog regularly but, hey, I'm lazy. And if you haven't been past in a while, check out the December archive for previous posts, I had to archive them as having them on the main page along with posts from a different application would have been a logistical nightmare.

My Arts Springboard course at Swarthmore has finished. I'm pleased I managed to make it to the end even if the items I produced weren't quite what I wanted them to be. I've signed up for Arts Splash on Monday afternoons which will involve more pottery and some textiles - tie-dying, batik and the like. I wasn't very happy with my pottery output but I realised that it had been my first ever attempt and I shouldn't be expecting amazing results. So I'm going to have another go and see how it turns out.

On Saturday I went to see Codex play at the Fenton with David. (Their singer, Donna, is Four Planes' drummer's girlfriend.) We had a game of pool and drooled at pretty people and I enjoyed myself. The band were good through the mixing left something to be desired, the vocals were no where near loud enough. I've got another gig to go to on Friday as Four Planes are playing at the Packhorse again. I'm really looking forward to it.

It's just typical - I spend half a week not being arsed to blog loads of stuff then when I finally get round to writing something I can't remember any of what I wanted to say. Oh well. Worse things happen at sea.
14:08

I don't want to get you all excited just in case it's not true, but I think I might have found a blogging application I'm happy to use.
14:39

Still no blog application. Must be rectified. I'm lazy though.

On Saturday I made red pepper and sweetcorn soup. It was a very simple recipe - chop, fry, combine, heat, eat. It was really nice though and I felt very proud. I took it to Rebecca's house in the evening and she enjoyed it too. We had arranged to go bowling but we hadn't rung in advance to check a lane would be free and there was a five hour queue. Instead we played in the arcades for a short while with her children then set off home. Once her children had gone to bed we sat down to watch some television, drink vodka and get stoned. It felt so good to spend an evening like that, it's the kind of experience I've been craving for months. Hopefully it won't be a one-off occasion but that decision lies with Rebecca. She also introduced me to her blokey Danny, who's very pretty, friendly and funny. Jealous.

I'd arranged with Simon to go round to his flat on Sunday as he lives quite near Rebecca so it made sense to go see him rather than vice versa. Rebecca gave me directions to find my way but being me, I thought I knew better and ended up in completely the wrong place. After about an hour of wandering lost around Hyde Park and Headingley (yes, Headingley, I'd made it all the way up to the cricket ground) I managed to get to where I was meant to be. Simon and I watched The Magic Roundabout and then after a couple of hours I set off home. I had a craving for yoghurt though so I stopped off at Kirkstall Morrisons. I was stranded there for what felt like days but was really only about 45 minutes in the freezing cold. It was horrible.

There's things I want to write about but I don't have the energy to properly explain and explore everything. I've been eating huge amounts and it's very depressing; none of the Access courses for next year look suitable so I was considering doing something at Leeds College of Art and Design - maybe the vocational Art A-Level (but it doesn't say how many hours a week that is) or possibly attempting A-Levels again - Photography and maybe IT or Media; things aren't going well between Rory and I, he's become very annoying and I hide my depression from him so I don't have to listen to him repeat his theories and solutions time and time again; I miss David; I've still not stopped spending money and soon it might be critical that I do; I badly need to start self harming again as it will help me control all the other parts of my life that are spiralling out of my influence but I can't find the courage to initiate it; I've still not committed to anything for Christmas as I don't want to admit spending it with my parents is my only option.
23:00

I need to get some blog software working soon, the lack of it is putting me off posting, and we don't want that. However we do want this corset rather desperately. If only it didn't cost half of all the money I have.

I haven't been having a good week. Aside from today I've been rather depressed for various reasons, none of them new. It's the same old things - loneliness, lack of creativity, no friends, dodgy heating, no money and so on. I've been buying more things I don't need - CDs, books, clothes, magazines, and when I checked my bank balance today and realised just how bad the situation is I promised myself that this was it, no more unnescessary purchases for a while. I think I lasted ten minutes, until I went to Borders and bought Large and Ergo. Oops.

Yesterday was a very busy day. Things didn't go right during the daytime and David and I were meant to be going to the Hope play in the evening. In the afternoon we were arranging when and where to meet but I wasn't sure if going would be a very good idea. I was pretty upset and was feeling lonely and I thought seeing David might just make me much worse, being shown the things I desperately want but can't have. David suggested we meet a little earlier though so we could go for a drink and a chat so I made up my mind and decided to go. If things went bad then I'd just have to cope with them at the time. I got the bus to Kirstall and walked up the hill to Headingley. It was the rush hour at the time and traffic jams always frustrate me so I figured that this would be the least stressful method. Thankfully the bus wasn't true to form and turned up within five minutes of waiting. Meeting up went smoothly so we went to a nice bar near the church where the play was and had a quiet talk. We caught up on what each other had been doing and so on. He had another gig sprung on him, Four Planes at the Primose, tonight, but James swears that he should have already known about it apparantly. Still, at least the amount of notice he was given has doubled since last week.

The play was held in a church, not a church hall but a church, which was unusual. The turn out was quite good and I saw lots of people from SHIP, including some I hadn't seen in some time. Tamsin was there and so were Nicola and Steph. I had a bit of a chat with Tamsin, a chat with Nicola and I said Hi to Steph but he ignored me, not through rudeness but through being Steph. The play itself was pretty bad. It was very shakey, poorly acted, unrehersed and rather embarassing in parts. They did get some good jokes in though, and their hearts were in it, and it got the point of the evening across in a friendly and laid-back manner, which makes the rest forgivable. In the break there was biscuits which pleased me greatly and then after that there was a chance to ask questions to some of the actors about the play, about Hope and about self-harm in general. The questions were from people who ranged from self-harmers to people who had come along to support friends and family members to medical professionals who knew very little about the subject. The questions reflected that range but all the questions were answered successfully. Two points were raised though that I think need seriously addressing, and as soon as they can be. They were that you have to be aged 16 or over to join Hope and thus those in the 11 - 15 age group are excluded. If a group such as Hope had been available to me when I was at my most depressed and in my worst self-harming period I've no doubt that I would have coped much better than I did. Of course all that is stopping such a group from being set up is the lack of funding. The other issue was that there is no safe place for people to go outside of SHIP opening hours. If someone is in a state and has harmed themselves they are quite often too scared to go to A&E as they like to try and get you placed in hospital. Some place needs to exist for people, not just self-harmers but certainly not exluding them, to be able to go at any time of day or night where they can sit alone and chill, or have a warm drink, or talk to someone, or have a hug and so on. There is no where offering that and it's desperately needed. I'm at my worst during the weekends but I have no support at the weekends, and the two help each other. I'd love to help set up such a place. The obvious answer is somehow get SHIP to be accessable at all times as it's already offering what's needed during the daytime and thus doesn't it wouldn't all need to be started from scratch. Of course such a thing would be a huge project and it just isn't feasible at this time.

After the play David and I went back to his flat for a while. We sat down, had more of a chat and a smoke. I told him how I've been doing and he gave me hugs. I caught the last bus home. It was very difficult, I wanted to curl up and hug him as we used to. I managed to stop myself from getting too upset though.

Today I woke up in a good mood for the first time in days. Women's group was good, lots of people turned up, well, lots of people for recent times at least. I talked about what's going on and people sympathised. Other people talked, were extremely honest, which made me feel good that they felt they could confide in the group. It means the group's functioning as it should which is a very encouraging sign. Afterwards Rebecca asked if I wanted to meet up with her to do something over the weekend which really made my day. We haven't arranged anything yet but even if we don't the huge boost it gave me just by being asked was amazing.
21:52

Today has been one of those days where it seems everyone is conspiring to wear me out. I've been selling some things on Ebay again and someone decided to pay for their item through Billpoint even though I hadn't said I would accept Billpoint payments. It seems like a simple enough occurence but it made me so depressed I had to go back to bed and it's been a long time since something like that has happened. Looking back there doesn't seem anything too bad that has happened today. After all, the pilot light on the boiler managed to stay lit over night so that I could have some heating today, this is something that hasn't happened in over a week - my dad's had to come across every day to relight it as I refuse to go in the cellar. There's far too many spiders down there for me to even consider risking such a trip. Also I've started using Opera for my browser and I can't get my CSS to work. Well, I can, I just can't come up with a version that looks the same in Opera and IE. It's IE that's being awkward but I'm only feeling it now that I'm using Opera. So I've given up trying to fix it for the moment. The only pages it won't work with is this blog which is twice as infuriating.

The other thing that's been bugging me is that when dad came yesterday to switch the boiler on he brought me an advent calendar. He'd removed the milk chocolate and inserted melted Bournville instead. Now I can appreciate him thinking of me but he obviously didn't think hard enough. I went vegan for many reasons admitedly, but one of those was that I don't wish to contribute to the dairy industry. So by buying me an advent calendar he's contributed on my behalf, whether the chocolate in it contains milk or not. There's so many similar examples from him but I can't raise the issue with him because he'll become defensive and start playing up the emotional blackmail again and I'll end up being made to feel even worse. It's reasons like this why I want to live far away from my family.
22:35