"This was definitely a good idea. There is no way that this wasn't a good idea."

The inevitable spaz out happened last night. I’d been expecting it for a while. It’s like there’s a person skulking in the shadows and I know they’re going to come out and engulf me but I can’t stop it any more than I can make it happen (and therefore be over) quicker. But it happened yesterday. After the evening of doom, I sat in the dark listening to the engaged tone of my parent’s phone, before having a weird conversation with them. Today I feel so much better. I actually feel cleansed and ready to get on with life and the world and stuff.

Yesterday we had some people round to look at the flat, and after having the most excruciatingly phoney conversation with #2, we kicked off the interviews. And my god. What a heinous task. We had five people come, at half hour intervals, and as well as showing them around, we sat down in the kitchen and had a “chat” (that’s a lie if ever I heard one- it was more an interrogation). Here’s how they went:

1. Probably the best one, 24 year old engineer who drinks a lot but seemed relatively house trained, for example, he cooks and cleans. Asked lots of questions and seemed friendly but not overly keen on overdramatic house bonding (a good thing).
2. Geeky sound technician who didn’t know how long he’d been in London and looked really furtive. He did offer to bring a piano though, which was swinging it for me.
3. Super keen 21 year old girl who seemed absolutely pledged to her company and had an irritating laugh. I think I would kill her if I lived with her.
4. Another nice one, 28 year old lawyer from New Zealand. We thought he was a square initially as he was wearing a suit (not that we're judgmental or anything) and didn’t seem very talkative but then we realised that he was just shy, and that he was actually pretty cool.
5. Oh ma days… he turned up in an anorak… his arms were as thick as matchsticks… he said he wanted to live near Brockwell Park so he could go running (on those legs? I don’t think so)… he showed far too much interest in the trains (I refuse to live with a trainspotter)… he twitched a lot… NO NO NO!

After we’d finished all the interviews, we each made giant cups of tea and #1 and I smoked a couple of cigarettes each and we laughed our heads off. It’s one of those ‘either laugh or cry’ situations, choosing a new housemate. I honestly don’t care. I probably won’t talk to them anyway, what with being a social retard and everything. I wish I could afford to live by myself. Of course, I then run the risk of becoming a total recluse, but who says that is necessarily a bad thing?

Choice quotes from the evening:

Me (on opening the front door): Hi, I smell of garlic… Er, come in.

Me: I can’t think of any more questions.
#1: What do you do?
Me: I guess that’s a question.

Interviewee: I work for the Times Educational Supplement. It’s a newspaper. About education.
Me: Really?
#1 (kicking me under the table): Shut up!

Me: Do you think that if we say there’s been a gas leak, we could get him to piss off?

I know that I am completely unoriginal for doing that (see S’s journal), but I am nothing if not resourceful (read: a plagiarist).

After being polite to the other campers for all of five minutes (the tea needed finishing), I threw some clean clothes in a bag and headed for the hills. I say hills. I headed for the bottom of the hill, where the bus stop is. Earlier #1 had been telling me how she was thinking of getting a bike, and I looked at her absolutely flabbergasted. Why on earth would she want a bike? It’s not like she can ride it all the way to work. Plus, there’s hills in these here parts. Clue’s in the name I suppose (Herne HILL, Denmark HILL, Tulse HILL, Brixton HILL, HILL HILL HILL). I’m a fen girl. I don’t do hills. Anyway, headed for Camberwell, where I was astonishingly late to meet N, despite sprinting across the green (it was never going to make all that much difference, I know, but it needed to be done- although it is probably the cause of my back being excruciatingly painful today). He had a colossal bag of halloumi cheese. I have recently introduced him to the joys of halloumi. Since I first tried it, I have been completely hooked. It’s like cheese smack.

I called my mum to say happy birthday (one of my brothers (middle lamb) had called me to tell me that I was a bad daughter for not calling before), and had a chat with little lamb, who’s still upset about the break up, which seems to be getting more complicated every day. I managed to give slightly more coherent advice this time, but there’s little I can do or say, being 80 miles and five years removed. I find it vaguely amusing/interesting that the more fucked up I am, the better advice I give. Or at least, the more appreciated it is. Perhaps it is just people being kind because they can see that I am stupid. If anyone asks me for advice today, it will be rubbish, because I am feeling okay. Store up those burning questions and put them to me in my next moment of bleakness, kids.

I had quite a weird conversation with my mum, as mentioned before. It was one of those conversations where I say one thing but mean something completely different. For example:

Mum: How are you?
Me: Fine. I feel like shit.
Mum: Are you still taking your prozac?
Me: Yes. No.
Mum: Have you heard from SOAS about your master’s application yet?
Me: No, but I don’t think I’ll get in. I really won’t get in and I can’t afford to go anyway so who cares.
Mum: I’m sure you’ll get in. Have you sorted anything out about China?
Me: Not yet, I’m waiting until I hear from SOAS. I don’t think I want to go and I might as well give you all the bad news at once.

I asked her what she’d got for her birthday and she said my dad had bought her a kettle. Apparently the old one had sprung a leak. The fun quite clearly never stops in my parent’s house. My dad was acting very strangely in the background though whether he was drunk or just naturally odd, I don’t know.

I was telling my mum about the badge I got the other day with the British flag next to the Irish flag, and saying how I was wearing it in an ironic way, as there’s no way you can put those flags together: you can’t be Irish AND British. She pointed out that I was actually Irish and British, but I told her that I felt more Irish than I do British. She asked how that could be, when I knew nothing about Ireland, and I said that that was probably a contributing factor. She said that she didn’t feel like she was from any one place, so I asked her whether she was, in fact, the littlest hobo. She said yes.

This morning I feel fine, and the sun is out, and I think I might actually be happy, which is good news for me, but not so much for you all, as I hear you’ve been saying I’m boring when I’m happy. Don’t worry, the next spaz out is never far away, and if you like, I could hold the next one in the library so we can have a repeat of last years fun and games. Only this time I’d be more business minded and I’d make you all pay a quid a pop to come and laugh at the incoherent wreck on the first floor terminals. For a fiver I’d let you feed me more pro plus and then you could really laugh, oh yes.