I went over to David's on Wednesday evening for a bit of company and some sympathy at my illness. I was planning on catching the bus but after spending forty five minutes in the freezing cold and still no bus in sight (though six, yes six! had gone in the opposite direction) I gave in and called a taxi. When I finally arrived at David's it took me half an hour to be able to feel all of my toes again. I wasn't impressed.

We had a laid back evening. Watched the final episode of Tipping The Velvet which was marginally better than the previous two and ate some lovely homecooked red pepper and mushroom soup David made. We were both tired so we went to bed early though I didn't get much sleep and kept waking him up with my coughing and sneezing and so on. First thing in the morning I made a doctors appointment.

The doctor said it was a throat infection and gave me some anti-biotics which have worked wonderfully. It doesn't hurt when I swallow any more! My throat is still sore however and it hurts when I laugh. I spent Thursday afternoon in bed trying to get some more sleep, at which I was rather successful. Rory arrived in the evening and we hugged and went to sleep early.

Yesterday we didn't get up to much as I was still not up to trying to go shopping. Instead we went to the supermarket which was rather stressful. I was sick of having an over-sized monitor in my kitchen so I moved my computer upstairs and did a little bit of cleaning which seemed to annoy Rory as he sulked off to read alone. We didn't really get along well yesterday though we made a bit of an effort in the evening and sat downstairs having a couple of spliffs and laughing at Cinnamon who seemed rather stoned himself. He took to sitting inside a cardboard box and sleeping which struck us as very amusing.

Things have seemed tense between Rory and I again today. He made apple crumble earlier and I went for a walk to take some photographs which I'll need for my class on Monday. David's meant to be making chocolate and raisin hash cake too so there's going to be lots of yummy food later.
14:15

Yes, I haven't posted in a week. I've been busy. And when I have a bit to catch up on blogging seems like a chore. So it gets put off even further. On Friday I met David from work as he was nervous about going home after the flat inspection in case the landlord had decided to throw him out. We went to his friend Helene's house first with some of his work mates and we all had a bit of a chat and smoke for a couple of hours. It wasn't as bad meeting his friends as it could be, they all seemed pleasant and were friendly to me which was a relief. David and I walked back to his house and by the time we arrived there and he had got changed it was around half past nine, too late to really be going out to the pub, so we decided to stay in instead and make our own fun = ) I had to go home on Saturday to feed Cinnamon (whose pooey bottom is now sorted, in case anyone was wondering) and David decided he was far too achy to go to ju jitsu so we decided to spend Saturday together too. Before going home we went round to David's friend Jessica's house. I was really impressed with it, there was so many things she had done that I've wanted to do to my house but not had the creativity to do. I wish I could describe it here but I don't exactly have the best grasp of the English language in the world. After visiting her we stopped off at Morrisons to gather triffle-making ingredients then sped on homewards. Where I discovered the door upstairs was open, Cinnamon was no where in sight, there was hay and gerbil food all over the spare room, and no gerbil to be seen. I raced round the house frantically trying to find clues / animals to no avail. Cinnamon came downstairs of his own accord a minute later and there was no traces of blood on him. I went back upstairs and rumaged in the hay and found Jesus asleep in it, with no missing limbs etc. So the crisis was over, triffle was made and I was starting to feel snuffly. Sunday isn't worth commenting on, not much happened at all, though I was definately feeling snuffly by then and bunged up too. Monday I got a lie in as it's half term this week and I needed it as I was feeling crap. All ill. David offered to come over to hug me and stroke me better, which of course I readily agreed to. We sat and ate my pot of raspberry ice cream and hugged for the evening. I certainly wasn't well enough to go to Hope. Yesterday I dragged myself out of bed and went to the LGB group where I had a little rant about this coming weekend. Rory's coming tomorrow evening, you see, and he and David really need to meet but we're all very anxious about it. The chances are that everything will go fine, it's just that that hasn't happened yet. Today I'm still ill. I'm not as snuffly as yesterday and my brain isn't performing acrobatics inside my skull as much any more but it feels as though my throat is swollen. Talking is painful and makes me cough; coughing is exceedingly painful. I went to the psychologist's this morning and only lasted 5 minutes, I could barely say anything. I went to Morrisons instead and stocked up on medicine and orange juice. I'm going to David's tonight, hugs and ice cream hopefully. Simon's coming round tomorrow evening, and so is Rory. It's going to be a busy day.
15:22

My moods have been erratic this week. I've been depressed mostly but still happy, if that makes any sense. I didn't go to Hope, confidence building or the LGB group as I was feeling so bad, but I managed to make it to my Arts class. We made another pot using a mould and in the afternoon we did a still life of a brick, two pebbles and cylinder. Really exciting stuff. Wednesday evening I went to David's to watch more Tipping The Velvet, which was as bad as last week's episode. He made lasagne and we ate that and ice cream. It was delicious but made me feel very fat. We managed to get his flat cleaned up in time for tomorrow's inspection by his landlord. I'm seeing him again this weekend - woo yey.
20:05

I had a very active weekend. On Friday I went to see Trans Am at the 1 in 12 Club with David and his friends James and Mike. First gig since Arab Strap (if you don't count the festival and Airport Girl at Strangeways) and so I was rather nervous about whether I would be able to cope with it well. I turned out to be fine though. I got a little anxious at a couple of points but I sat down at the side of the room and it sorted itself. I even managed to drink vodka! The music was really good and it was a great evening really. David and I stayed back at my house and hugged through the night.

On Saturday David said he wanted to go to his ju jitsu class. As much as I wanted him to stay we'd agreed not to let ourselves be absorbed into the other person so I let him go and we agreed to speak later about meeting up to go to the cinema. I was alright then for a few hours but by 4pm or so I was getting worried. He should really have been home from training by about 3 o'clock so why hadn't he rung me? The first solution my head provided was he'd had time to think whilst he was away from me, had decided that he hated me and never wanted to see me again. I ended up rather depressed due to thinking this and he still didn't call to convince me otherwise. I managed to get a bit of rational thought in however and realised that the chances of him deciding he hated me in a few hours was rather slim and even if that was what had happened, he was the type of person who would call to say they hated you and not just leave you wondering. With that option as to his silence being stuck off, the second reason I decided upon was he was dead or injured. Maybe he'd been hurt at ju jitsu or travelling home afterwards and was dead. None of his friends would know to ring and let me know so I'd spend forever wondering what had happened to him. I was still depressed when he finally called at half past five. He wasn't dead, he didn't hate me, he'd just been at a friend's house instead of ju jitsu, having a smoke and a chat. I was so relieved he still wanted to see me, and incredibly jealous of him being able to go and see friends, of having friends to go round and play music with and just spend time around. I miss that, I haven't had such an arrangement in at least eleven years.

The film we ended up seeing was Elling, a Norwegian comedy / drama about a recovering psychiatric patient set loose into the real world. It was very funny and I'd recommend it though I suspect your chances of seeing it aren't too great - not many Norwegian films make it to our cinemas. When the film had finished David and I went and bought some lovely burgers and chips to feed our faces with and seeing as we were both tired, went to bed early. We spent most of Sunday hugging, with some cereal-eating included in the mid-afternoon. I hated having to go home and leave him, I ended up crying all over him at the bus stop. It was rather soppy. I get to see him again on Wednesday though so all is not lost.

I had an easy time in photography class which cheered me up from my sullen state due to missing three buses in a row this morning. I mounted the photographs I printed and handed the work in. It's half term next week so I get a lie in. We've been given our next project already though and the teacher expects us to turn up with photographs already taken after the break. We're supposed to look at the environment around our homes and find inspiration in that. Luckily the park is only five minutes away - there's some wonderful views of the valley to be seen from there. And some not so lovely views of the neighbouring council estate.
15:55

Luckily I felt a bit better on Wednesday that I had done previously. In pottery we finished making our pots. Everyone else's look so good, I'm very jealous. Mine's pants, but then that's to be expected. In the art bit in the afternoon we did watercolouring and I screwed that up too. It brought back many memories of school. In the evening though I went over to David's and we had plenty of hugs and a nice curry that he made. We watched Tipping The Velvet which was shite, a huge disappointment. The corsets were nice though. In town yesterday I bought his band's CD which is ace. We're meant to be going to see Trans Am in Bradford tonight with some friends of his but he hasn't been online yet so I don't know all the details yet.
14:38

I went to Hope yesterday evening feeling reasonable. I was considering talking, explaining how that despite having many good things in my life at the moment, I some how find ways of ensuring I'm not as happy as I could be. I wanted to say that I'm getting better and this scares me. Soon I'll be almost "normal", I'll have a job and hobbies, friends and a social life. Well, if it all goes to plan at least. And all that is good, it's what I want, what I need but simultaneously it is incredibly scary. I've been living with my illness all of my adult and "young adult" life. I've been depressed for eight years. I don't know what being normal is. I know how to cope with being in a situation where, often inexplicably, a feeling of hatred and despair could wash over me at any moment, but I don't know how to cope if such an occurence is eliminated. I don't know how to wander around from day to day not perceiving possible threats from mundane objects and I don't know how to deal with people who haven't been ill themselves. So I've found that I've been putting up defences to protect myself from getting better. Ensuring I remain depressed so I don't become well and have to learn how to live in the world. Clinging to my sadness because however bad it may be, it's a bad I can deal with, it's familiar, it's my sadness. Changing would mean exposing myself to so many new ways of failure and rejection and to all the associated anxiety and paranoia. "I miss the comfort in being sad." And I don't know how to stop myself from doing this. Whatever my subconsious may be telling me, I don't want to be become so depressed again that I spend most of my time in bed and can only shower every third day or so. But I don't know how to resist it.

The reason I didn't get to explain all this at Hope was I found biscuits. I ate five of them. I had already eaten a lot that day but this pushed me over into depression and I decided to leave early. It took me about half an hour to be able to persuade myself to move from my chair though. When I got home I tried to talk to Rory but I couldn't explain myself quick enough for him and we had a very frustrated conversation for about ten minutes, terminated due to our communication problems. I ended up going to bed at half past nine, in the hope of catching up on some of the sleep I've missed recently. Luckily I managed to sleep fairly well.

Despite my extra rest I woke this morning still feeling bad from last night. I didn't want to go to confidence building but forced myself. I don't think I said more than four words all morning due to my mood and also feeling irritated by other people on the course. I came home afterwards as there was no LGB group today. I talked to David who also wasn't feeling optimium and crawled off to bed to rest my head for a while. My mood has lifted a little over the evening and I've managed to read some of my book, The Remains of the Day which is really rather excellent. Tomorrow I have to go to the Arts springboard course which I am not looking forward to, though I know it probably will not be as bad as I fear. Tomorrow evening I'm going to David's to watch Tipping The Velvet - lesbian corset porn, what more could you ask for?
22:19

A week to catch up on. I guess I'd better get started then.

My confidence building class started on Tuesday. I was nervous but luckily this disipated as the class went on. The people all seem nice enough, though some are a little too outgoing for my liking and I can tell they will probably end up irritating me. I think I can deal with the class though, it shouldn't be too difficult.

David rang me on Tuesday evening. He wasn't feeling very well and was looking for hugs and comfort so I agreed to go round and try to help him clear his thoughts. He went to his band practice and I arrived just as they were packing up so I got to meet the rest of the band, who all seemed nice enough. We went back to his flat and spent a couple of hours hugging, which was good for both of us. I slept the night which meant that on Wednesday morning I had someone to hug me when I was nervous about the start of my arts class at Swarthmore.

The class was difficult as it brought back a lot of emotions from school about my inadequacies and failures but I persevered. We spent the morning making coil pottery which I ended up enjoying despite myself. It started out with a circular base but I went wrong somewhere down the line and there was more clay on the top of the perimeter of the pot than was at the bottom. To try and even this out a bit I had to make the top into a square. It's sure gonna look interesting when it's finished.

After lunch we had a drawing class. Again I was anxious due to my previously proven lack of talent but again I still enjoyed myself. We learnt about different grades of pencils, about perspective and we stretched some watercolour paper in preparation for next week. The people in the class are more to my tastes than in confidence building so hopefully I can continue to have a good time for a duration of the course.

Thursday was a laid back day as I decided not to go to the women's group and instead stayed in bed til late afternoon. Friday was different however. I said something in a message to David that I intended as a joke and was misinterpreted. He became upset and as a result I also started feeling depressed. It was the worst I've felt in a long while. We made it up though and all is well again. In the evening we went to see Le Souffle which was showing as part of the Leeds International Film Festival. The program described it as David Lynch meeting Emmerdale but I didn't enjoy it too much. I find it hard to put my finger on why though.

Afterwards we came back home and had an early night. On Saturday we decided to go into town as we wanted to go to the Early Learning Centre. I bought fuzzy felt games! I haven't had a fuzzy felt set in at least 15 years. This one contains exotic animals, such as green giraffes and pink zebras and purple horses. No hodgehegs though. We went back to David's to play with said fuzzy felt and eat chocolate custard. It was a good afternoon. In the evening we went to see Samsara, also part of the film festival. It looked beautiful and featured some very attractive actors! I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the questions it raised it asked quite overtly in that it was written on a stone which was read by the lead character. The question was "how do you stop a drop of water from drying up?" The back of the stone read "By throwing it into the ocean" which is a wonderful sentiment.

We slept at my house again on Saturday and Simon came around on Sunday morning. He didn't have much to say though. We were planning on going to see Decasia but found that motivating ourselves to move from our hug was too difficult for our own good. David went home around tea time and left me to myself. I'm planning on seeing him again on Wednesday, providing I can find a good enough reason to explain to my parents why I don't want to go out for a meal to celebrate my mum's birthday with them. Any suggestions?
16:52

Eeek! It's been a week since I blogged! Sorry, I've been busy, I've actually had a life. And right now I'm doing my photography homework. Hopefully I should find sometime to spare tomorrow afternoon as not blogging in a week is practically unforgivable.
23:06