There's not much to say about what I've been doing. Though I did buy and eat more gorgeous onion bagels from Morrisons yesterday. Mmm, I wish I hadn't just bought one packet. So instead of regaling you with details of my offline life, here's some things worth checking out online.

First of all there's what appears to be the largest pixel art picture ever made. Amaze at its enormous proportions.
Traffic Light Wars is a series of animations made by Koit for B3ta featuring the Green Man and Red Man from, you've guessed it, traffic lights, fighting, yes, you're on the ball today, wars. They are possibly the most wonderful animations on the planet.
Green Fairy highlighted this article from the BBC about a sex education course currently being taught to teenagers which is creating some hysteria about its explicitness. She says on the subject, "Sex education works. It works because it is explicit. However, it should be banned because it is explicit. Even though it's working. Better to be coy and tell kids nothing else but to keep their legs together until they're married and watch teenage pregnancy rates soar than give them the information they need to make informed decisions. How is it possible to say that the course is 'going too far' if it works?" As usual she's right. It's just a pity the morally superior and censorship supporting idiots can't see that.
And finally we have a story about a nine year old girl who was pregnant after being raped. Unbelievably the "family minister" of the country (Nicaragua) and church representatives both said she should have the baby. Nine years old! What nine year old is able to give birth successfully? Essentially they had given her the death sentence. Luckily though some people with some sense about them were kind enough to offer an abortion. Sometimes human behaviour and moral righteousness sickens me. Actually, no, it's not just sometimes, it sickens me all the time.

14:11

I'm finally selling the fantastic offensive red t-shirt I bought at Glastonbury when I was 15. I thought it would be a pity to lose what it says though, so I've decided to save it via the time-eluding method of blogging. It is more than just a little offensive though so you shouldn't read the rest of this post if you're of a nervous disposition.

Bend over and get screwed by the system.
We'll all suck and fuck for a lovely filthy
buck. They steal it label it and turn
it into shit. I shop therefore I am.
I can taste the bullshit mummy, yum.
Time to put the freaks back on the
streets. Question everything always.
Keep culture evil. Sold my arse feeling
sore made myself their little whore. Will
your credit card get me hard? Nothing
is true, everything is permitted. Art
is dead. Never trust a hippy lefty crusty
politician. Be realistic demand the impossible
I saw it in a magazine, I can't afford it but
it's definitely me. Fingered buggared
wanked spanked by the dirty old men
of capitalism. The tyrant grinds down his
slaves, they don't turn against him, they
crush those beneath them. Freaks faggots
fisting fucking in the streets. We are
all slags on holiday in a prepackaged hell
Television is the retina of the mind's eye.
You can't have the romance of revolution
without the bloody noses. Passionless porno
playground, a paradise with price tags.
Anyone who is not with us is the enemy
You all deserve every fucking thing
you get. Art is dead we are the future.
23:57

I need to get some college work done this week, to have something to show my tutor when we go back on Monday, but instead I've spent the day making a huge collage from the bits and pieces I have stuck in my hallway. My hallway is the one thing I'm proud of, it's a giant, living entity. It's covered, literally, in photographs, postcards, quotes, magazine clippings, posters, leaflets, stickers and other similar items. Some items I've had as long as seven years, it's taken me all my teenage years and longer to accumulate this store of information. Some of the older pieces are tattered at the edges and I don't think they would survive another move, and in any case now I'm out of my phase where wall decorations are limited to music posters, I probably wouldn't be able to find a suitable place for them when I move. All these things considered I decided to collage the best bits and the oldest bits. They won't deteriorate any further as they won't be moved again and then restuck to a wall, and if I mount them in a picture frame I can still have them up and not create such a teenaged theme with my interior decoration (which obviously is of prime importance). So that's how I spent this afternoon - huddled over some cardboard with my Pritt Stick and selotape. I'm pleased with the result, being creative always picks me up, and it's less work for when I finally do move and have to take down the remaining hallway decorations. I would have taken a picture and blogged it, but to be frank I can't be arsed.

Speaking of moving I have another house to view tomorrow morning. It's near where Jessica lives and the page about it on the estate agent's website didn't even include a photograph, which I hope means it was newly listed when I stumbled across it. I'm sick of viewing lovely houses only for them to have already been sold! And continuing on the creative theme above, I finally took some of the photographs I need for my exam. On Tuesday I went to Rebecca's and she posed for me for the day. We went to Headingley and bought nice things for tea - nut and bean flan, mmm. And oven chips, as we were too hungry to wait two hours for jacket potatoes to cook. It was good to get out, as very little is happening this week. No photography, no women's group, and I had to miss the LGB group as I was at Rebecca's on Tuesday afternoon. Even Simon canceled on me for Wednesday evening, though with promises of a long stay on Saturday. The loneliness really affected me though and combined with eating huge amounts of cereal I was very depressed and crying last night. I knew it would be pointless ringing Simon for comfort as he would only try to tell me I'm not fat, Rory would ask what I was planning on doing to be not depressed, David wouldn't be able to do anything other than not say much, and Rebecca, my last option, normally goes out on Wednesday nights. I tried her anyway, after Rory and David had both failed to answer their phones. Luckily she answered and wasn't drunk or asleep, which given that it was half past ten and she has young children, she could have been. She was good, she talked to me and comforted me and we ended up talking for an hour. Not all about me being crap, of course. I was very glad for the comforting and sympathetic ear, even though she couldn't solve my problems. Maybe I'll ring her more in future when I feel terrible.
19:49

It's half week this term so there was no photography class today. Instead I spent most of the afternoon in bed being depressed over my thighs. The rest of the week looks similarly grim. I got a call from SHIP to say there's no women's group on Thursday which means no support til a week tomorrow as I won't be going to the LGB group. I've arranged with Rebecca to take the photographs then instead. I'm planning on ringing her later though to check that's still OK. If it's not then it seems all I have to do this week is that group. Oh joy. I've been arguing with Rory again. He seems to want a detailed plan of how I'm going to get better but I don't want to do that, at least not whilst I'm feeling crap. He's meant to be coming over next week. I don't know how things will work out. Everything seems very scary at the moment.
19:20

Book Lovers
by Jenny Lewis

Let's meet tonight between the covers
to thumb each other's spines
like true book lovers.
Steamy passion or sweet romance,
with titles picked at random,
our mood will depend on chance.
I'll stroke your hard back and thighs,
trail my fingers over your fly-
leaf - admire your point size.
You'll enjoy ogling my index,
fondling my frontispiece, thinking
I'm just the type you like for sex.
I'll let you flip my pages, skim
my contents, skip my appendix
or linger over my fine lines at whim.
And if I get pregnant (which I won't)
let's meet again - in nine months' time.
You choose the font.
22:36

Rebecca didn't turn up for the women's group on Thursday. She hadn't left a message and wasn't answering either of her phones. Worrying enough without allowing for the fact that she's the facilitator. Two other women turned up though and we sat and chatted for an hour and a half. I'm getting better at this running groups lark. In the evening I rang her to see if I could find out why she was absent and she said she was just very depressed and had spent all day hiding in bed. We were meant to be taking the photographs I need that afternoon but she wasn't well enough to commit to giving a time when we could take them. I told her she had to look after herself first and that the photographs would wait, and as true as that is I'm still worried that they'll never get taken and I won't be able to complete my exam, and thus I'll fail the course, which will stop me continuing college in September. It may sound melodramatic but there isn't anyone who can take her place to model for me and I've failed to come up with some other ideas. In any case it's too late to change subject now. Things will work out, I know that, it's just a question of whether they work out successfully or not.

After leaving SHIP I went to the library to return some of the books I've been borrowing. The Dreams of Ours exhibition was finally open so I went in and was amazed. They had some beautiful work that made me very jealous. It was run by a bunch of gorgeous hippies, a few of whom I've seen in Beanos (the local health-food shop) occasionally. After wandering for ages trying to get the courage up to talk to them I finally approached someone and asked how I could get involved in such projects. She seemed very happy I'd asked and told me a bit about how it had come together and what they wanted to gain from it. I left my e-mail address with them and they said they'd be in touch. Whilst I was still was too scared to talk to them, I overheard them mention A-Spire, and looking at the site it seems they are indeed involved with them, which is a very, very cool thing. I told David about how proud I am of finally taking steps towards getting involved in such projects and he seemed pleased for me. He also mentioned that Jessica has some work in the exhibition though I failed to spot it whilst I was there.
00:27

This is turning into a very busy week. Yesterday I went shopping for a sofa throw to replace the manky orange one which hasn't ever been cleaned due to it needing to be dry cleaned, which by now would probably cost more than it cost in the first place. I eventually found something suitable - a king sized lilac throw reduced in a sale from Ł32 to Ł16. It was large and awkward but I bought it nevertheless. Opportunities have to be taken. Today I went to Bradford to see Brainstorm at the Pictureville with my brother. It was a very scary film about a typical rebellious teenager who's dad sections him, thinking him too unruly. It's based on a true story and some of the events were horrific. It made me very glad to be living in a country with, at least compared to the rest of the world (the film was set in Brazil), a decent mental health system. Of course a hundred years ago, and possibly even fifty years ago, the standards in the hospital would have been normal in British institutions. We can be glad that such changes are being made but much ground has to be covered before British standards become world-wide, attitudes have to be changed, prejudices and misunderstandings have to be countered and overturned, abuse needs to be reported and rooted out, new rights need to be granted to those housed in mental hospitals, especially with regard to their treatment. It's a very long and hard battle but we can't give up, we can't allow ourselves to let people rot away in dark cells as the Victorians did, there has to be hope, we owe it to these patients, not least because we could be a patient ourselves one day. And none of the "it will never happen to me" bollocks, mental illness affects one in four people (a conservative estimate) at any given time, and it can strike at any age. It's something that's at epidemic proportions but is granted all the attention and funding of Butlins. This country's "stiff upper lip" attitude needs to be abolished, the phrase "pull yourself together" criminalised, people need to be made to see what is really happening, and that it's not just weakness of character or melodramatic, attention-seeking warbling, but a life threatening illness, something that if left untreated or mistreated can kill you.

Sorry, was I ranting there? But if what I said did make sense and you want to learn more, Mind Out will be able to help you.

Tomorrow I have arranged with Rebecca to take some photographs of her for my exam. She was the only person I could think of who would be a suitable model for my project (children's viewpoints) and who was readily available. She asked if I wanted to stay for tea too, so that provides me with plenty of time to capture some good images. I'm also taking some more a week tomorrow, as some of my ideas need her to not have to worry about her children and their safety, and she won't have them with her next week. She also invited me out on the 22nd as it's her birthday, and on March 7th to a cabaret night at Brudnell Social. At this rate I'll begin to think she doesn't object to being around me! Other diary dates coming up include Four Planes in Four Days playing at the Fenton, David guest-playing with James's country / acoustic band Montevideo who will be supported by the Seven Inches a week before the Four Planes gig, The Rapture, Mars Volta, Parva, Erland Oye and The Jeevas all playing dates in Leeds, and the facilitators' training course which stars on March 14th. I'm really looking forward to it now, after many people have encouraged me and said they think I would be very successful at it. My one last piece of news is that the B3ta gods have asked me to judge this week's challenge! I was very proud when they wrote to ask, I never thought someone like me, who hasn't donated and who barely ever contributes a picture, would be chosen, but they have! Can you feel my power? *Insert evil scientist cackle here*
19:58

I've installed Opera 7 but I'm not sure if I'm keeping yet. I desperately need to be rid of the previous version as it has a bad habit of randomly deleting my cookies whenever it feels like it which in practise is sometimes every couple of days, sometimes every couple of weeks. I'll give it a few days, then make a decision.

Simon and I played Simpsons Monopoly yesterday and I won convincingly. He stayed for a long time as he said he thought he hasn't been around me enough recently. I didn't complain. The weather was beautiful today. It was very warm for February and the sun shone most of the day. I went into town with my parents for a couple of hours but nothing special happened. I've been reading Selling Manhattan, the Carol Ann Duffy book I borrowed from the library. I love her work, she's very talented. I wish I could mould words the way she can. My grasp of our language may be sufficient for mundane usage but I can't use it to stimulate emotions as she can. All I can say is I think you should read her books.
19:26

I was very busy on Thursday, the busiest I've been for a long time. If I've previously said I was busy, compared to Thursday, I wasn't. I woke up not feeling too good but in the post I received a funky vest I bought from Ebay and the Casiotone For The Painfully Alone CD I ordered from Amazon on 31st October. It cheered me as I hadn't been expecting it to be delivered until March.

There was some new recruits at the women's group, one of whom I've met before and don't like very much. I spent the session staring into the middle distance so that I didn't have to look at her. It was still quite a good group though, despite it and despite my decision not to rant as I didn't feel comfortable saying everything in front of them. The possibility of me taking the facilitors' training course was mentioned though and everyone encouraged me, said they thought I'd be really good at it. It made me blush but was nice to hear reassurance from them. The other thing to come out of the meeting is that Rebecca's given up smoking. She hadn't had one since Tuesday, which includes spending the night in the pub on Wednesday. She looked unusually happy and radiant. Whilst I don't really fancy her, but wouldn't say no if she offered, yesterday she looked so lovely it was difficult not reach across and stroke her.

I went to the library at lunchtime to try and do some research for my photography exam. They didn't have very many relevant books but I did get to look at lots of pretty pictures so it wasn't all bad. I met Rebecca and her son Sam in the children's section as they have an activity session there on Thursday afternoons. Apparently last week they all made glittery balloon monsters but the woman who normally runs it wasn't there this week so we just coloured in instead. I did a picture of Bob the Builder and Clifford the giant dog who lives in a barn. I also coloured in Big Ears which was cut out and then glued together at the sides to create a pencil adornment. He had a beard made from purple glitter glue. I was proud. When they had gone home I browsed through the poetry section as it was adjacent to the kids books. I ended up taking 6 home with me:
Elegies by Douglas Dunn
Atlantis, Source and Sweet Machine by Mark Doty
Selling Manhattan by Carol Ann Duffy
Five Sugars Please by John Hegley.

Seeing as the library visit hadn't been very fruitful in my photographic search, I went to Waterstones, which was even more barren. There was some pretty people though, and I managed to get hold of The Photo Book and the Ansel Adams 2003 calendarin a sale at the vastly reduced prices of Ł5 and 99p respectively. Borders bore more fruit for me and I spent a while drooling over their shiny, expensive books.

I had a quiet evening but an old troll appeared on B3ta before I made it to bed. I made the mistake of leaving a comment in one of the threads he'd started and he remembered me from a previous appearance of his when I had stood up for astrology as Devil's Advocate against his onslaught. He started taking the piss out of me, despite not being able to fulfill my requests of showing me where exactly I had said I believed in astrology. Eventually he posted a picture of me he had taken from this site and overlaid it with huge neon words to the effect of "Believing in astrology makes you wear really bad cardigans". Being someone who fears that people will make mockery of her and that no one wants her around unless it's explicitly said otherwise, I didn't take too well to this. A lot of people were incredibly nice and stood up for me and stood up to him, people even wrote to me on m3ss3ng3r saying I should ignore him and they liked me even if he didn't. It was wonderful, more than I could have asked for, and I feel a lot more comfortable on B3ta now I know that people don't object to my presence. One of the founding members even took the time to send me an email saying I was welcome there and he wasn't.

The only occurrence of note so far today is a trip to the supermarket. They were selling fresh onion bagels and they're gorgeous. Mmmmm!
17:50

I've downloaded the latest version of Opera and am currently battling with it in an attempt to make it remotely user-friendly. Times New Roman as the default font? Urgh! Here's some things of note I've found on the interwebby whilst using outdated old Opera 6.04.

Julie Burchill, in a moment of clarity and sensibility, is saying going to war is Good. She actually makes sense.
Like Superbad, Nobody Here is one of those sites I adore - an internet maze which seems to have no end. I wish I was clever enough to make something like this.
I only managed to make it six paragraphs into this lengthy article which questions why feminism hasn't tried to help Islamic victims of torture, some of who have been deemed newsworthy since the horrors carried out in Afghanistan enlightened the world as to what happened there and in other countries.
The Golden Ratio is a very special number. It appears throughout the universe, from leaves to black holes, from architecture to music. It is second only to pi.

Simon's canceled on me again this evening. He has to work over time. He did promise to bring round a copy of Simpsons Monopoly on Saturday though, and spend lots of time with me to make up for it. And I managed to get Cinnamon to go outside for the first time in almost a week! There's still some ice and snow around, but the sun has melted half of what originally fell, so I think he felt brave enough to venture into the street again.
18:19

The weekend saw the passing of Imbolc. Predictably I didn't do anything to mark it. However I have been noticing the world around me a lot more. I saw some snowdrops last week, and some crocuses are already showing, I even saw a few in bloom today. There's been a couple of blossom trees with flowers on display too, which seems remarkable for this time of year. I think that my increased attentiveness makes up for my lack of celebrations though. It might be the start of a better relationship with the Earth, a founding point for restarting my interest in Paganism, which has been hibernating in recent times.

I left my arts course at Swarthmore. It was making me stressed and depressed so now I can come home and be safe and warm on Monday afternoons. Yesterday morning the photography tutor gave us our exam. Yes, the proper exam which contributes 60% towards my final grade. There are seven options, we have to choose one. We get four weeks to research it, 10 hours to produce some pictures of it, and some undefined length of time to mount them and make it look pretty. There's no option that grabs me so I'm unsure what to do. Most of the options give you the names of some photographers they want you to research so I think I'll research them all first and see if it provides me with any inspiration.

I discovered today that the Raveonettes are playing at Brighton Beach (local club night) on Saturday. They're one of my Favourite New Bands and I have no one to go see them with so I'm a little pissed off. Cinnamon hasn't been going outside recently as it's been too cold to do so, in fact its been snowing for the past few days, so he's spending lots of time inside making my house smell. I ate a whole bag of cereal yesterday and became very depressed. I still don't have anyone to come round and give me hugs on demand.
17:50