"It's only when I'm nervous but I'm nervous more and more of the time"

What have I done since I last wrote? Well, written 2000 words on my dissertation, for a start :) Wooo. Maybe sometime before the olympics (2008? 2012?) it will be finished.

J came back from the Reading festival on Monday and we went to see the Mules. They were awesome, and I have now bought their album. It was lovely to see J, I get more and more excited about seeing him. This last 2 months has gone quickly, but also has seemed like forever in a really good way - like I can't imagine being without him.

On Tuesday it was M's birthday and we all got very drunk, and F and B did stripped, much to the shock of the (very traditional, very muslim, usbekistani) security guard, who honestly looked like he'd just walked in on an orgy and said he was going to call the state department. I hadn't seen uni people in ages and my god, everything changes! There's so much gossip. All a bit weird. I would write it all down but I'd have to write in code. And I can't be bothered right now as it's quite late.

Yesterday I met up with my aunt and we had a good old chat over some wine. She's so cool. My family is so strange. Particularly xxxx and what she did to the others about the xxxx. But actually, not as weird as when xxxx tried to get xxxx committed to the mental hospital so he could steal her house. Or any number of other things actually. My aunt is cool though, she is just like my mum in looks and manner, and is really lovely. I wish I saw her more, but she lives in Navan.

Today I went to the hospital where yet again they'd fucked up my appointment, but I managed to still see a registrar (rather than my consultant) and was told the following: my condition is quite rare, they don't know what caused it, the surgery is quite new, they don't know what they're going to do until they've put cameras inside my hip socket, they don't know how long I'll be off work, and that they might give me some steroids (not as good as ether but hey...). Still, I have talked them out of making me stay 2 nights in hospital. And I had an MRSA test, which consists of them sticking a really fluffy cotton bud up your nose.

#1 and I went shopping and I bought lots of black clothes. And driving gloves. Shexy.

Things I have done today that isn't writing my dissertation

- Slept in
- Been really excited about the new panda at Vienna zoo
- Looked up flights to Vienna
- Try to work out euro exchange rate and decide it's probably quite cheap anyway, bah maths
- Cleaned the flat
- Hung up all my clothes that were lying on the floor
- Hoovered up my USB cable
- Fished USB cable out of hoover
- Eaten 3 pots of chocolate mousse
- Felt a bit sick
- Fried polenta
- Swept the balcony
- Pretended to know about music so I could forge a timewasting conversation
- Written a long email to F about how much I hate hatred
- Internet stalked everyone I know
- Obsessively checked my phone
- Checked my email a lot
- Sniff permanent markers
- Taken off my 2 month old nail varnish
- Bleached my feet (this was unintentional)
- Wished I hadn't cut my finger with the breadknife the other day when I was making a cheese and pickle sandwich the other morning, cos I was daydreaming about J cos y'know, once we made cheese and pickle sandwiches together
- Read a week old newspaper
- Looked at pictures of pandas on the internet
- Picked at an ingrown hair on my knee
- Wondered if I should cut my hair, decided should wash it first, wash face and then get bored
- Listened to Borodin and Khachaturian (a lot)
- Not watched Edward Scissorhands
- Tied a ribbon around my head

On the plus side, I have done a plan for my dissertation and it is 2088 words long. Surely I can just flesh it out?

The other day I made #1 a CD and then I laughed hysterically at what a funny girl I am, as it included the William Tell overture. Later on she tried to seranade me with some Johnny Cash but I was on the phone so I didn't hear her.

#5 is in a french police station, apparently - her van got broken into, and her ipod is gone (along with probably loads of camping and climbing stuff). I may or may not be a very bad person, as I did think that this would mean she probably won't be buying me booze and fags, as requested, but it wasn't my first thought, so surely that gives me kudos?

Hopscotch and Handbags

I just wanted to share possibly the funniest article I've ever read:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2151155,00.html

I LOL'd, in the truest sense of the word.

Other things that have made me laugh include the following email I got from a friend:

You should be grateful that your mother is so thoughtful in her gifts. An ipod breaks just after the guarantee runs out but the memory of walking around a former death camp will be there to demoralise and depress you until you hear the (only marginally more harrowing) sound of your own death rattle. You'd better practice your Auschwitz face though because they punish you for not looking thoughtful and sad enough.

S also sent me an email. I was at work and trying not to laugh out loud, but it kind of escaped out of my nose, and the general manager said "bless you".

I took a hammer to it all

I always think of things to write on this when I am nowhere near a computer, and then when I'm on one, I can't think of a thing. Like my dissertation really. Though less likely to make me fail my Masters.

Today I woke up and I think I have groin strain, or a pulled muscle in my leg or something. Annoyingly, it's my good leg, so I am hobbling like a hobbit, or some other hobbling thing. I went to the doctors earlier (unrelated) and to get a blood sample, the doctor tied a rubber glove around my arm as well as the normal strap. DIY NHS.

I'm at uni today, doing some work on the dissertation. What fun. I need to get a large amount done (preferably 5000 words) by the end of this weekend. We shall see.

Last night was book group, and we were meant to be discussing "Atonement", only I hadn't finished it, nor had many others, so we didn't talk about the book much. We went to S&M, in Islington, which very tasty. Sometimes sausages and mash are just what you need, though being a dirty veggie, I'm limited to quorn sausages or various vegetable things. Mash is lush as well, proper easy food. I've recently been craving macaroni cheese, so I guess that explains my current love for surprisingly bland food (odd, considering how much chilli sauce I get through). The only real downside of last night was that I was in a really weird mood. When I am in that mood I shouldn't be out, I should be at home where I won't inflict my mood on others. I couldn't speak to anyone, and was quite consumed with self-loathing. Nice to see that my mental state is as fucked as ever I suppose. I am quite sick of it to be honest, this constant feeling of sadness and misery and all this kind of stuff. Plus, I know that I take it out on J, and sometimes I am so moody with him. I feel really bad, as he is always so lovely to me. I worry that one day he will get bored of me. He says he won't, and I do believe him... but I am a pain in the arse, so it is still a possibility (a horrible possibility). He makes me very happy, but it's annoying that we live so far away from each other :( I'm sure it doesn't help, with me feeling miserable already. One day...

Last weekend was cool though. J came to London on thursday until saturday, and then we went to Cambridge on saturday night to go to a party. The party was funny, mainly thanks to a man called Roderick, who was eventually thrown out for putting a cigarette out on someones knee. At one point he picked up the (not ringing, or even plugged in) house phone and started having a conversation with his invisible friend, before trying to pass it to me. When we got home, I threw up and so most of sunday was spent in bed feeling miserable and watching Black Books and cuddling. Went to the blues jam in the evening and saw a boy who looked like Harry Potter play a version of Gangsta's Paradise.

I could write this all day (quite a bit has happened really, I suppose) but I really need to do some work instead of spending all day on facebook and listening to the same two Silver Jews songs again and again and again...

I can hear cats that no one else can see

I am listening to a lot of Serge Gainsbourg. It's brilliant.

I will write something of more interest some other time.

I'm glad someone has powers of perception cos my spatial awareness is wack.

B - You really are miserable. I thought I was bad.

Me - I'm just up and down all the time and tired of it all. Tired from it all.

B - You need engross yourself in one mood and indulge it for a few days, and then do the other.

Me - I can't. I'm tired. I just want to be still and stable and normal. Then I can do my dissertation.

B - Pah, no you won't. And you won't be "normal" anyway. You're endearingly crazy.

Me - Thanks.

B - I'll tell you what's wrong with you. You've met this fella, J, and he lives in Cambridge. And all week you miss him, and you look forward to the weekend. Then the weekend comes and you're really excited and you have an amazing time. So then you look forward to the next weekend and you miss him even more. And you end up pissing the week away because all you can think about is this other person. Am I right?

Me - Erm, yes...

B - I've done it. Twice. It's crap. And it just gets worse. The only thing you can do is move in together. Otherwise it will just get worse and worse.

Me - But I'm here, or in China, and he's there, and we can't do it for ages!

B - Well, it'll be really shit then and you'll be miserable.

Me - Hmm...

B - Of course, two years down the line I've turned back into a selfish cunt, so there you go. Bye Potter!


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This is from the same guy who a few hours earlier had threatened to put me in the shredder. He's strangely perceptive sometimes, and I think if it wasn't for the whole war/guns fetish, we would agree on most things. Possibly because we are both quite mental, in the same kind of way.

Ironically I noted all of this down in my notebook on the page that had a big 我 at the top. A better choice would have been 爱. I can't wait for J to come back from camping. I can't sleep at night because I miss him. I even do that really lame girly thing of sleeping with his tshirt. I have never felt quite like this before.

It's the return of..........

101 reasons not to use google.
Well, 1 reason really. Never google your medical records. Gone are the days when you had to crane your neck to catch the odd word on your GP's screen, which would invariably be something like "asthma" or "tonsilitis" anyway - ergo, not that interesting.

No no, the real interest to be had is nowadays when they have to send a copy of all correspondence to your house. And I, of course, google everything I find. I'm just so glad I didn't get this when I was at the psychiatric hospital (google "borderline personality disorder" and tell me why I didn't feel suicidal - on a related but different note, how do I tell my mum about my scars? Christ, I'm so emo and teenage). Anyway, OMG google really is a fountain of knowledge. B tells me not to assume I know anything from just the internet (as he points out, I can't exactly quit work and become a hip surgeon based on my limited knowledge), but still - was I not listening when they said they would have to dislocate my leg by putting big weights on the end and then potentially sawing my bone in half and pinning it back together? Also, that they will use a vacuum cleaner of sorts to suck out random fragments of bone? My body disgusts me.

Also, it appears the only way I can get an appointment with my consultant before my pre-admission is by going to A&E. Is this a good use of my time? I don't think so. Part of me just wants to get run over and then they'd be forced to fix me. As I pointed out to B earlier, I have more chance of being run over and killed than any of the British forces have of being killed in Iraq. Still, the army sounds fucking wack, not least because I'm a flat footed half blind feminist pacifist.

Maybe I'm just grumpy today. It's a week until I see J. I feel really crap in general. Things in the flat are weird again, for reasons that are too complicated to explain. There's a mouse that lives on the balcony. I still haven't done my dissertation. I don't know whether I care any more. When people ask, I talk about my thereoretical frameworkl and that while I agree with Foucault's idea of "docile bodies" and his dismissal of cartesian dualism, I don't know how relevant it is to post-socialist China. This basically means, I have lots of ideas but I'll never have the guts to articulate them.

My firefox is broken. My computer hates me. My life hates me. Yes, I'm pre-menstrual, this might be some (or all?) of the problem. I don't know. For now I am tempted to try and suffocatre myself with a pillow, when in reality I will lie in bed for a while being miserable until I fall asleep and have generally unsatisfactory dreams.

Oh my god I am so fucking emo, I am just glad I have blonde hair or I would be drafted into play in whatever emo bands are called, "my best friend is a razor blade" or whateverer the fuck.

I think it's time for bed, I've got to be CHIRPY and HAPPY and GREAT tomorrow. You know it comes so naturally. I just want to stay in bed and perfect my zenophobic impressions of aussies (one aussie in particular - what can I say, I may have watched neighbours once or twice). Get a fucking grip Potter, it's not the end of the world.

Potter's so way not hotter than anything at all :(

Hospitals

Hospitals ain't much fun. I had an arthogram today, which involved mucho x-rays and injections and another MRI scan. I saw an x-ray of my hip with a needle going into the hip socket, it looked really gross. I started crying in the x-ray theatre because the dye they were putting in really fucking hurt. I did get wheeled about in a bed though, which was quite fun. I really had to fight the urge to shout "run!" and zoom along the corridor. I now see why I wasn't allowed to help push my brother's bed when he had his operation.

I got to wear the oh-so-attractive hospital gown again. Though this time I wasn't allowed to wear underwear. I won't explain how unattractive and highly embaressing this was, for a number of reasons - mainly that they only told me this when I was in the theatre and I had to try and wriggle out of my pants. The theatre has a big glass window. Putting on plastic pants in front of however many people is not that great an experience.

My leg is quite numb. I can feel that the joint is full of something, but it doesn't hurt thanks to the numerous injections of god knows what. Hopefully ether. Can you still get ether? I might request it. A man pushed me on the bus on the way home and then looked quite guilty when I limped off down the road. What a git.

I have a cup of tea now though so I'm happy.

If I wrote as much on my dissertation as I do on here then I wouldn't be so far up shit creek. Oh well.

LOADS has happened since I last wrote anything! Where to start?

On Wednesday I went back to work, and moved to my new desk - how exciting. I am far away from the rest of my team, but it does have some perks as there are more people to make me tea, woohoo! Not that there was much tea drunk on wednesday......... I had training, ostensibly on "accountability", but it turned into the most ridiculous thing. In a nutshell, the woman running it said that you could choose what mood you had - to the extent that if a relative dies, you can be happy. I said that people with depression didn't choose to be depressed and that they would quite like to be happy. She said that it was possible to choose. I tried to tell her that it was a scientific fact that depression was caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. She said that in my reality that may be so, but that I shouldn't be so close minded to other realities. Fucking evil bitch. I got really angry. I could feel myself going bright red. She made some more digs at me. I waited until the break and then I left as fast as I could - apparently I was bright red and I could feel my hands shaking. I didn't go back to training, I don't see why I shoudl have to listen to destructive pseudo-science from the world's most unsympathetic woman. She later came and spoke to me and said that she had realised she'd upset me but that she'd carried on anyway. Like that makes it any better.

We have since googled her and her "philosophy" and there was quite a nice quote along the lines of "it is all unfounded and the general consensus is that it's bollocks". Ha.

It was weird being angry. I don't really get angry very often - a bit mardy yes, but not angry. The last time I was angry was the whole S/D/A scenario. And then I was angry in a different way - enough to sober me up completely at 5am and shout very loudly. Ah, good times. This time was more a I'm-going-to-start-crying-and-not-stop kind of despairing angry. I have since talked about it with B and we have surmised that she is a fucking bitch and should perhaps be killed. I just never want to see her and her slightly rat-like face ever again.

So that was work. Otherwise, work is fine. I have a new position. It's nice to be doing more varied things, and to be trusted with stuff. I feel immensely flattered and (you know me) completely undeserving. I had missed some people, so it was good to go back and catch up with everyone. Except SS of course, only because he reads this.

Yesterday evening was really nice, I was just pottering about (being a potta as I am), making food for the next 3 days and doing washing. Earlier I'd been thinking about how I hadn't seen BG in ages and that I should really call him.... Then my phone rang, and it was BG! Weird coincidence. We argued about the merits of french philosophy over german philosophy (he's all for german - I disagree) and then I said that James Joyce was shite, which is what I say quite often, mainly because it's true. He commented that it was the first conversation we've ever had where I've actually sounded happy. I told him about J, and he said that he could see why I was happy. I went back to doing the washing up and put classic fm on, which immediately began to play Saint Saens Organ Concerto - my favourite piece of music. Good times. Happy Potter.

#1 got in really pissed and I had to put her to bed and stay with her all night. This morning she was really apologetic - she asked if she'd done anything embaressing, and I was tempted to lie and say yes, but I didn't because I'm a nice girl.

Things with J just get better and better. Weekends with him go so quickly, like in a very fast and very happy blur. Last weekend we saw the Simpsons movie and he taught me how to make sushi (though rather shamefully I choked on some wasabi and spat sushi rice everywhere - so classy). I just love spending time with him. Even reading books in bed is amazing. I feel so happy and so lucky to have him, he really is such a good influence on me and he doesn't seem to mind that much that I am a bit weird sometimes. Normally I'm such a cynic about relationships and stuff, but I'm just not at all with him, I trust him completely. I'm so content, he's such a good influence on me. I could think (and write!!) about him all day - if my dissertation was on J, I perhaps wouldn't be quite so fucked on that front.

Also, did anyone else see that story in the papers yesterday about a primary school teacher who read her class the last page of the Harry Potter book on the last day of term? There's been outrage at the school. That's so the kind of teacher I would be.

Also, in other news, I have news, but it's not my news to tell.... But it is very exciting.

I'm off to the library now. I got out of a £250 fine the other day by pretending to be stupid but I don't think it's a feasible long term plan. Really must stop taking out 10 books at a time as I can't read that many. Really must WRITE SOME DISSERTATION. Or at least choose a title.