Ho hum.

It's nearly five minutes long, but umm...have a look, see what you think.

(And we thought a drumming gorilla was irrelevant.)

(Have a bop anyway.)

The distractions, amusements and stresses of the weekend don't detract from the fact that things still aren't right. Up here. *Taps head*.

(Like it wasn't obvious.)

I'm at work, it's stifling hot, and totally silent. I have nothing to do and no one to talk to. My brain feels like a bubbling pot. It can simmer for so long but sooner or later it'll start spilling everywhere into a horrible mess. There's no one to wipe it up.

Never mind. I'll just sit here and drum my fingers.

After the fire drill this morning (they took 5 minutes to get out, tut tut - may have to have another...) I went back to bed and snoozed for a few more hours.

At about 2pm I had a bath. I realise this is an odd time to have a bath, but it's MY bathtime and I'll have it when I like.

I get in, shave one leg, get bored of that, and shampoo head.

*Knock knock knock* at the flat door.

(No no no no no, fuck off, I'm NOT on duty, it says so quite clearly on the door in front of you!)

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

(Argh. NO. Please go away, please don't knock a third time, please please plea- )

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!*

(Oh ffs, please just be a broken limb, don't be bleeding everywhere or knocked out or something...)

I clamber out of the bath, one leg shaved, shampoo on head, apply towels and dressing gown liberally to body, go to open the bathroom door and hear:

"She's obviously not in. Let's find the porter."

LLWNTS.

I'm shattered. I've had my 8 hours sleep, it's just been spread over 3 days.

Yesterday was nuts - 150 of the 168 students arrived, pretty much all between 11am - 1pm. The remainder arrived today in dribs and drabs between 8am - 6pm. It has been a very long weekend.

A couple of us went for a small relaxing drink last night just to unwind - I had one small glass of white one and two pints - as did the person I was with - but the total lack of sleep and the hectic nature of moving-in day totally caught up with us, and by 11.15pm we were walking home absolutely fucked out our faces. When we got back to the hall we caused chaos in the common room by terrifying the occupants, running around giggling, stealing some of their chairs and running back to J's flat with them - watched the whole time by the other staff, hall manager and security guard. The students had no idea we were staff. That's probably best.

(A particular high/low point was my neighbour asking me not to keep him awake. I think he was joking, but still, he likely had a point.)

I passed out about 1.30am. If anyone knocked on my door, I didn't hear them. Felt like death - all on 2 pints and 1 white wine. Mental.

Today, woke up at 6am, got up at 7am, on duty at 8am, until the same time tomorrow. Eugh. Long night ahead. Hope there are no dramas. I can't handle dramas. Not right now.

I can't have a lie in though, as we're having our fire drill at 7am. I'm at work 5.30pm - 10pm.

Tomorrow, I'm sleeping 8am - 3pm. If anyone wakes me up...

But so far, they all seem really nice kids. Even if one of them has never heard of M People.

and after what has been a very, very weird and stressful week all round, I am at home, in my nightie, waiting for Peep Show to come on (ignoring Derren Brown after he managed to stick me to the bed last week - oo-er), halfway through a bottle of red, after devouring toast and half a Bounty before I'd taken my shoes and coat off.

I want a lie in tomorrow - but the new load of students are moving in.

Yay/groan.

Adeiu x

You've set me off blubbing.

Are You Pregnant?
Girlfriend: You still have Jack Daniels in my fridge! All nice and frozen. Well, it's not frozen because alcohol has a high freezing point, but it's been in there for months so it's as "frozen" as it's gonna get, well, not really because...
Stressed-out boyfriend: Woman! Too many words in that sentence!

Saint Peter's College
New Jersey
via Overheard Everywhere, Sep 23, 2009

When everything around you is twatting up, there's always Pink on DVD.

Jeez, this is all so humiliating.

Nobody likes sour grapes, love, so shut up and piss off.

I'm going to go a bit weird. Shouldn't last too long...maybe only a day or two.

Apologies for previous outburst - I forgot how to breathe, again.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

Breathe again.

And again.

I have managed to instantly fix what three different plumbers have so far not managed to fix in five days.

For this I had to go underneath the bath, through the Hatch.

And there, infront of me, was a pipe, a red handle, and a diagram saying: Turn ← for Hall water supply. Turn → for Hot Water Tank.

I turned ←

Et voila - hot water.

I shan't speak of the cobwebs...nobody speak to me of the cobwebs...

I can have a proper bath! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Let the leg-shaving commence.

...that I'll never get any work done?

Brain and Sweetpea (the fishy formally known as Xiao) have new living arrangements:

This is Sweetpea, can't really see her very well but she is only a couple of inches long, more dark pink in her than Brian. Her fins are all tatty and torn from stress and bullying but I'm hoping they'll grow back:

Brian is trying to eat the fake flower on his plant.
Now he has gone for a lie down on his mossy bed in his pot.
Sweetpea is staring at me.
I really don't want to leave them for the weekend! My babies!

Muse's new album, The Resistance, had been sat on my desk a whole 24 hours before I eventually got around to listening to it.

I could have easily waited another 24 hours. Most of you will have no idea how much it pains me to say that. Some of you may have a clue. I feel like a traitor.

It's just...average. I'm not even going to call it really average, because that would be putting an emphasis on it of some kind that it just doesn't deserve. It is average.

There are a couple of tracks that made me say "Oh, this one's alright" but they weren't anything that special, just the usual Muse album tracks that you like, but could never be released as a single. The first track on it, and first single, is probably as good as it gets. Some of them sound too R'n'B, some of them sound like they're from 80s soundtracks (Top Gun springs to mind), one of them definitely sounded like an Ultravox song. Nothing made me lift my head and listen intently - in fact, I started watching videos of puppies and piglets and had to remind myself to listen.

Track(s) 9 - 11 is their new 'epic', Exogenesis, in three parts. Lots of nice piano music and soaring stuff - but the only way this would blow me away is if I hadn't ever heard better by them. And I have.

I'm approaching this with the point of view of an old-school Muse-til-I-die fan. This is so far departed from what they would 'normally' do (granted, they've never exactly been afraid to think outside the box) that's it's just very hard to get enthusiastic about it. I've never felt like this about any of their other albums - I even liked Black Holes and Revelations on the first listen, and that was my least favourite so far.

There is no WOW factor here that has been present before. I was trying to imagine these tracks being performed live - meh, can't see it, not like their old stuff which was EPIIIIIIIC live.

Perhaps it will grow on me. I'm sure some of them will eventually, but it has a long way to go.

I'm sure new and band-wagon fans will like it - they don't know any better.

I went on a rescue mission to my boss's flat last night. It wasn't my primary reason for going - I HAD to go - but in the back of my mind was the niggle that had been there for months and months, ever since I knew Brian had moved into that flat as well. I knew that one day he would be mine:

I am torn between renaming hm with a sensible name, or keeping the name but not telling my Dad (because guess what his name is.)

I also came home with his girlfriend, Xiao, who is the same colour but about the size of a Biro pen lid. She's living in an ice cream tub until I can find another little tank for cheap. Sadly, they hate the sight of each other so can't live together. Not an amicable separation.

I also acquired another red guppy, and two red high-fin-balloon-platys which are unbearably cute. This means my boss cannot kill anymore fish. (Though I might.)

And on Monday, I bought a baby albino catfish to keep my other one company. Her name is Marguerite.

But I still don't have any hot water.

Day 4 of being back in Hull:

Soy feels disinclined to blog anything more substantial until her flat has hot water and she is able to have a proper bath and wash her hair. She is hoping that when the 8am sparky said the plumber was on his way, he meant before 10am.

More here.

...have to say it...

LONDON BABY!

Hahahahahahahahaha, it's still soooooo funny.

Lock up your bearded pigs because idontknowwhy and I are on our way, 18th - 20th September. So, if anyone else is there that weekend, hurrah.

Hotel booked. Now to consider booking train tickets (naahhh) and to definitely buy a video camera. Muhahaha.

...is this, every evening.

If there isn't someone walking around the room, she just sits under the computer desk and falls asleep.

Just tattoo "MUG" on my forehead.

At least she's not retarded. Unlike:

On Monday I went to buy some pondweed for the fishtank and came back with some mini terracotta pots, which should've been 20p each but they were a bit battered and chipped, so the lady gave me them for free - which left me feeling a bit guilty as I had been planning on nicking them rather than pay 40p. One of them cracked in half when I got home which I think was punishment for considering pocketing them. Oh well, send me to hell.

Then I went on an exciting trip to B&Q with the parentals and I bought two larger pots as well, to put the weed in. I was getting VERY excited by this point.

I like it anyway.

I had this job application thing to have in for today (it now being an hour into Friday), so obviously I left it until 11.49pm to start it. The job is nothing exciting, just a few hours to fit around what I already do.

It was quite easy to do, mostly a cut and paste job, and I finished it at 00:00 precisely. Hurrah! Saved, doubled saved, triple saved it just to make sure, to my Desktop so I knew where it was. I'm a bit OCD about these things.

Go to email it to HR and...it has vanished. Not in recent documents, NOWHERE to be found. I even did an Advanced Search for Everything created After 02/09/09, and NOTHING came up. Fat lot of use that was. At this point I was starting to swear about Vista and Windows in general, if only to stop myself crying a bit.

There was only one thing for it - no, not rewrite the easy application, but to trawl through the day's temporary files. And about twenty minutes later, victory was mine.

A mystery, that one. But it is emailed off now.

Even weirder: As I was looking in every single folder on the system, I came across a random 'Downloads' folder, stuck in the middle of nowhere. When I opened it, it contained the entire Harry Potter audiobook collection.

This is confusing because:

a) I have never downloaded the Harry Potter Audiobooks, and
b) ...

There is no b. I have never downloaded the Harry Potter Audiobooks, and yet there they are. Just there in front of me.

I demand an explanation for this. I would go so far as to say I NEED an explanation for this. It's probably in your best interests to provide one, else have the loss of my sanity on your conscience.

It is 1.07am, and rather than go to bed I'm going to listen to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, because I had just started to read it anyway.

Stayed at idontknowwhy's house on Tuesday night, as we had a Grand Day Out planned for yesterday.

We got drunk. Talked, sang, laughed - she even made me cry, the cow.

Snippets:

V: "If I was being arse-raped by a big horrible man and you had to sleep with *unnamed* to save me, would you?"
L: "No."
V: "Would you rather shag *unnamed*, or be a giant carrot?"
L: "Giant carrot."
V: "Would you rather shag *unnamed*, or only have four hours sleep at the most a night for the rest of your life?"
L: "Oh my god. I'd have to shag him."
V: "So, you would let me be raped in the bum and would rather be a giant carrot than shag him, but wouldn't give up any sleep?"
L: "Yep."
V: "Ok. Would you rather shag *unnamed* or being purple all over for the rest of your life?"
L: "Be purple all over."
V: "Shag him, or give up carbs and chocolate for the rest of your life?"
L: "Shag him!"

And so on. Should give you an idea of what my priorities are in life, if you didn't already know.

"I have beef and kit kats! I'm so happy!"

"He asked me how it was afterwards. I said it was...fine."

To everything displeasing in any way: "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

We listened to The Best Dance Album In The World Ever 1995, Now 23 (I think), and New Hits 96/98/2000, and I'm ashamed (no I'm not) to say I knew all the words to everything.

*Harsh German accent* "FREED FROM DESIRE! MIND UND SENSES PURIFIED!"

"YA YA YA, COCO JAMBOO, YA YA YEY!" Amazing. 1996's finest.

I was finally allowed to go to bed at 2.30am.

On Wednesday, we went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield, on the recommendation of somebody Vicky knew who now lives in New Zealand but had bumped into in Thailand.

We walked 500 miles through ragged terrain, punctuated by 'art':

Vicky had Shepherd's Pie and a small jug of gravy. I had the most amazing bacon, egg and chips I've ever had - detailed elsewhere.

The rain held off.

In the car home, we sang to more 90s shite. More like bellowed.

"In t'love, in t'fear, in 'ate and in't tears, in t'love, in t'fear, in 'ate and in't tears, IN LOVE IN FEAR IN HATE AND IN TEARS, IN LOVE AND FEAR AND HAAAAAAAAATE - DOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOWN! OH siddown OH siddown, SIDDOWN NEXT TO ME-HEEEEEEEEE!"

"STOP! Doin! what you... KEEP! Doin! it toooooo... THINGS ARE GETTIN STLANGE I'M STARTING TO WUL-LEEEE! THIS COULD BE A CASE FOR MULDER AND SCUL-LEEEE!"

I have a sore throat today.

I got home, put my feet up on my bed, and woke up at 8pm.

A splendid day or two.

Back to normality now.

I am not talking about anyone I have any emotional attachment to.

If you delete someone in the sense that there is nothing physical there and you have no emotional ties and you never see them, it's like they no longer exist in a practical sense. And yet, they are still in your head, just an image of a person that you no longer have any connection to. It's like imagining up a total stranger, for all the connection you still have with them. Feels a bit alien.

People I don't know anymore. In all honesty, I couldnt care less whether they were alive or dead, and have no way of finding out anyway. Yet there they are in my head.

I find it strange that so many people can be stored up there taking up useless space. If you have no physical or emotional reminders of these people, and moreover do not want any physical or emotional reminders of these people, why can't our brains just let them go.

You can delete their phone number, delete text messages, delete links to their profiles on the net, delete emails, get rid of gifts and memorable items, return their possessions or just throw them away, remove every physical, digital and emotional scrap of their existence from your lives and never speak to them again - but you can never delete them from your head. Or can you?