I am turning into Mark Corrigan from Peep Show = bad

Anyway, so… I’m feeling decidedly odd this morning. I had really disturbed dreams thanks to Railtrack (or more likely, some PPP) doing the noisiest possible maintenance on the railway track all night. They had a floodlight as well, just in case the noise wasn’t enough to get to me. Fuckers. If I didn’t already take the bus, I would boycott the train. As it is, I just shook my fist at the window. Then I managed to sleep in and had to run around like a headless chicken before being half an hour late for work. Rubbishness.

Apparently this instalment has been eagerly awaited. Well, I hate to disappoint, I really do, but I am not sure why anyone would want to read this drivel. Not that that will stop me writing it. The alternative (doing my work/sending endless emails arranging what time to have cigarette breaks/wasting time on myspace/facebook stalking) is not going to fill up the day sufficiently.

I am procrastinating. I don’t think I have a huge desire to write about how shit and Hollyoaks-esque my life is at the moment. It was pointed out to me that however complicated things seem, they will always get more complicated. Well, that certainly seems to be about right.

Some statements to start off with.

Firstly, it has been made abundantly clear to me that I am a poor excuse for a human being. I’m not saying that because I’m all emo and everything. I have facts. I like facts (I was a historian. Of course I like facts). I am not a great person. Though I would like to point out that I’m not as bad as some people believe. I will get to all of that.

Secondly, I know that I have completely exhausted some people’s patience. I’m really sorry. I need to give myself a stern talking to.

Okay, so Friday at work passed almost solely on myspace talking to S. Somehow I managed to get things done. Not a huge amount of work, but then again there isn’t a huge amount on at the moment. I have perfected the art of talking on the phone while writing emails. Admittedly I didn’t do a very good job of hiding it, and R walked in and laughed at me for being such a lazy slacker.

After work I walked over to the city, and had a bit of a moment on London Bridge. I used to be terrified of water, or, more specifically, rivers, and the thought of drowning in rivers. London Bridge is different, though. It would be hard to be scared of London Bridge. It’s so solid and practical (unlike Tower Bridge, which I’m not a big fan of). One of my favourite things is to walk across the bridge at sunset, walking the opposite way to all the commuters. Now, on Friday, it wasn’t sunset, but it was still fucking cool. It made me want to skip a little bit.

I got to Tottenham Court Road and fought my way through the hoards of morons who insisted on taking up the whole bloody pavement. Some fuckwits were shouting in megaphones. I bought some wine, which was reduced from £7.40 to £3.70 as a treat for me and S as I think we have had enough of drinking nasty cheap wine. We had a big old chat about everything and were a bit maudlin but I told her she was my number one best friend. D came down too and she seemed really sad. I don’t really know her all that well but I think she’s lovely, and I don’t like to see anyone I know feeling miserable. We drank all the wine (except for the stuff that got spilt all over a chair) and talked about how silly things had become, and I wondered whether things hadn’t always been silly. I told them what had happened the week before with N, as it kind of demonstrated just how weird everything was. I was not expecting the answer: “Yeah, I know”

To me, that seemed like there’d been some “lad” style bragging going on. Which they may or may not have been. I probably shouldn’t have assumed that there had been. But I just felt hurt that I had only told S and D (S being my best friend, D being a lovely person I’d like to know better), yet they already knew. I was a bit pissed off they hadn’t said anything before hand, though that passed pretty quickly. It was just upsetting that people had been talking about me and probably passing judgement on me. I don’t like people talking about me. I may complain about it, but I am fairly happy with my status as semi-invisible. And because I am a pretty weak person, I get super upset if I think people don’t like me. Constantly seeking validation through other people is not one of my best traits.

Anyhow, we convinced D to come to the pub with us and took a cab. By this point I was pretty pissed, which meant that not only was I talking a load of shit, but I wanted to drink even more and make even more of an arse of myself. Which I managed, quite successfully. We went to another pub and I started to get really shy because there were so many people that I didn’t know. I hate being shy. It’s rubbish. People don’t believe me that I am one of the most horribly timid people in the world ever, because I normally put on this act that I am really OKAY and not scared at all. And that’s how I go through life- pretending that I am not petrified of walking into a room full of people I don’t know. It’s so lame. But sometimes I can’t keep it up and I fall into this black pit, which I just can’t get out of. I honestly don’t know why anyone would want to talk to me a lot of the time. As I said at the beginning of this entry, I am a poor excuse for a human being.

I would really give anything to not be such a cripple in social situations.

Things kind of got all fucked up. Everyone was angry with everyone. N shouted at his friend. Mainly thanks to me. I sat in the corner and shouted at M, who looked at me with a look of abject terror in his eyes. A was lovely and told me I was fabulous. D went home. I felt generally very out of sorts. Eventually we left and N apologised to me for making me feel bad, what with the whole me thinking he’d been telling people left right and centre about what happened.

What I should have done is GO HOME (or even better, not go out in the first place). What I did instead was go to Peckham with N, his friend E and A. And then drank even more. I got a pretty distressed text from S. I realised that I shouldn’t have been in Peckham and that I should have been with my friends. Even if meant sleeping in the hallway. Because I wasn’t around so many people, I could talk more. That made me quite angry with myself. I am so socially retarded that I ruin people’s nights and then afterwards, when all is calm, I seem like a normal person. It’s no wonder I haemorrhage friends. I was pretty sure that N would never want to speak to me again. He invites me out. I act like a social cripple. I refuse to talk to people and generally make even myself feel sick at the thought of spending a minute with. This self-loathing is not healthy. So then when E held my hand, I thought that a) maybe I wasn’t such an awful human being, if someone wants to hold my hand, and b) what the fuck is there to lose anyway? N went to bed and A fell asleep and I kissed E. I know how this makes me look. It makes me look like a fucking bitch. I know. I know. We didn’t have sex, but does that really make it any better? I was ultimately selfish, because I can’t make myself believe that I’m an okay person, and I need someone to constantly affirm to me that I do deserve some place on this planet.

And if it’s any consolation, the first thing I thought in the morning was this: I am a really bad person. Then I woke A up to tell him this. I think A has the patience of a saint. I remember once he held a party and he spent most of his own bloody party looking after me because I couldn’t stop crying. I truly am a bad person.

I digress, but only because writing this is hard.

I went to talk to N, to tell him that I was sorry. He was sad. I felt awful. If I ever see him that sad again, I don’t know what I will do. Especially if I am the cause of his sadness. I would really rather gouge my own eyes out than make him unhappy ever again. We talked for ages. I cried a lot. He hugged me. I felt more at home than I had in a while. I stayed.

I don’t want to write any more about that because it’s my memory and I want it to myself.

On Sunday morning, we had tea and brioche and I felt sad that soon I would have to leave. I was sure that when I left, he would never see me again. That hurt.

I wrote a poem on the bus on the way home but even that is too lame to put on here. I got home and made some tea (still in a saucepan). I put some laundry on. Then I went to my room and called S and sobbed down the phone to her. She told me to come round. I honestly didn’t think that I would be able to as I didn’t know if I would be able to organise myself sufficiently without wanting to crawl under the floorboards and stay there. But I did. I even called my mum (who said she was too busy to talk to me) and had a lovely conversation with my blogging friend, who knows me so much better than someone who has never met me should. He was lovely and gave me lots of damn good advice.

Anyway, I went to S’s and we drank tea and talked at length and she stroked my hair while we watched TV and generally made me feel lots better. She’s been having some pretty mental escapades lately and I wanted to hear about these. I offered some advice, though I did warn her that my advice should probably be ignored. We shared some valuable insights into the way of the world, or more specifically, peoples minds. We laughed at some people on the internet. I met someone who also has family who live in Navan (where my family are from in Ireland). I didn’t think anyone lived there apart from my family and the nuns. That’s what my mum has always lead me to believe. I didn’t want to go home. It’s funny. I used to live in that same building on that same floor, and I had a fucking miserable time. Now, I hang out there loads. I felt distinctly more cheery by the time I did leave, though I had a knot in my stomach the size of a fist and I knew that if I thought about things rationally for more than two seconds, I would be sick. Thankfully, I was somewhat distracted by taking the wrong bus and ending up in Brixton, and I managed to successfully not-think until I got home and got into bed.

This has taken me bloody ages to write. If only I didn’t have to keep doing stuff (like answer calls and emails and smoke) I would have been able to do it much quicker. The internet is apparently working at Camp Mansions now, so I’ll be able to do all of this at home. Which begs the question: what on earth will I do at work??

I'd just like to point out that I am really good at keeping secrets. This would have been the perfect opportunity- or indeed, any time over the weekend- but no, I'm good. I amaze myself.

Please be assured that that was heavily ironic.

Tonight I am going to N’s house for dinner, which I know is contrary to advice I have been given. But I can’t NOT go. I really want to see him.

For those that have actually read all the way through this, I apologise for my emo outpourings.