I'm barely able to function. Everything is taking twice as long as it should. I feel as though I'm walking in syrup. My throat keeps contracting so I can't breathe. I'm scared. I sob on public transport. I can't sleep. When I do finally get to sleep, I can't wake up. I'm angry. I feel like screaming. I laugh. I'm manic. I stamp my foot and shout "it's not fucking fair".

Apparently these are all natural reactions to death.

I just miss my dad so fucking much.

Paul Lee Foxall

29/05/1948 - 05/12/05

"As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent you asked for the latest party"
David Bowie, Diamond Dogs

Oh. My. God. I've actually done it. I've moved in with the boyf. We were helped by among others, Helski and House which was quite amusing due to the sexual tension between them. It's not often that your moving helpers are taking their tops off, doing handstands and flirting outrageously!

The last two days has been spent:

1. spending almost all the monetary gift that my mother gave us to help us move in tesco's.
2. amazing at the amount of crap that the boyf and I have collected over the years. Key things said include "I've had this for over 25 years, it's not going under the bed!", "why, why, why do I need 5 types of body moisturiser" and with a sweeping hand "but all this shit is yours".
3. Hearing the boyf yell around 100 times "how gay am I?" as he produces more bathroom goodies or clothes from boxes/bags and picks up tablecloths and kitchen goodies from the shelves at tesco.
4. missing the house rats like crazy.
5. marvelling at how quiet it is without the rats.
6. Going to Lucy, Kev and Grace's for pre- and post-firework dinner and drinks in their wonderful new flat.
7. Watching and laughing at beautiful little Grace sleeping through all the fireworks.
8. missing my rats....whaahhh!

Geek Love

Google has saved my life so many times...surely there can't be something better?

SEARCH ENGINE OF THE MONTH
London-based Previewseek is a new search engine that hides nothing under a
bushel. It claims to be better than Google. First, say its founders, it's a
lot smarter. Type in "Java", for example, and if you are interested in the
island of Java, Google will make you click through 70 pages before showing
you anything relevant. Previewseek, on the other hand, will acknowledge that
the word has several meanings and provide definitions for each of them up
front. Did you mean Java the island, Java the coffee, Java the programming
language, or something else? Regardless of what you are looking for,
Previewseek also organises results based on related concepts to help you
further refine searches without the need to understand Boolean query syntax.
That said, Previewseek is a metasearcher at heart. It may have its own
patented set of exceedingly clever algorithms, but it applies them to
results gathered from other search engines, rather than spidering the Web
itself.
http://beta.previewseek.com

(cut and pasted from the Zen Internet monthly newsletter, Issue 57, November 1st 2005)

Everyone should sign up to the Pick Me Up weekly newsletter. It's a newsletter where people share ideas, events, advice which will make you very happy. The most fun things so far are what happens when:

you dress up as air hostesses and give out tea on the Tube

you send a love letter to someone you barely know

you turn off your mobile for a day

you put on your own festival

Love, love, love it.

Highlights - randoming bumping into friends that you haven't seen for ages in the street and the gym. Only Darian would be having 5mins on a sunbed before work!

Another low light: finding out your father has Liver Cancer

There are options all of which are pretty fucking horrible:

• a liver transplant
• chemotherapy
• radiotherapy

Blurgh, all in all a pretty shit afternoon.

Lowlights = temper tantrums, endless rain, grey clouds, the damn cold, the inability to rise in the mornings, a boss with a short fuse, accounts, house hunting, lack of money to move house, grandparents, cirrhosis of the liver, black hair dye that just turns your roots a dark brown, not being able to hold my drink anymore, vomiting copiously, feeling odd because I have no real desire to travel the world (the wildest trips I'm planning next year are Sherwood Forest and Newcastle Upon Tyne)

Highlights = Egyptian perfume, porridge readymade by boyfriends, decaff coffee, bbc radio player (8hrs of comedy a day - although methinks the boyf is boring of Lee and Herring jokes now), thinking about how our new home is going to look (nesting instinct!), TGI Fridays 2 '4' 1's, having tickets for 5 differents shows in November, Helski determed to go swimming and go to the gym (the envy will only spur me on!), giggling with friends, being able to say no to nitrous balloons at a party at the weekend (yay me!), bumping into old crushes, discovering that I'd like to learn how to scuba dive (better start going to the gym and swimming!)

I spent some Saturday lost in epping forest with the boyf but we rewarded ourselves with a couple of pints and a pub dinner (it was meant to be lunch but y'know when there are NO map boards anywhere in the forest it takes a while to get out of it!). It was wonderful to walk through the forest and only bump into the odd cyclist, horse rider and 40 bikers by a road side cafe - I still haven't quite worked out what they were doing there.

Note to self: next time take a map and a bottle of water (and also perhaps Kendall mint cake)

During all the being lost, we also came to a pretty major decision - we're going to move in together. We were planning to wait until after xmas but circumstances are right at the moment. It means no longer living with my ladies and I'm really upset about it but it's time to grow up and leave the nest. We are however, planning to move within the area so I'm sure they'll be lots of visiting!

Another weird thing in my life at the moment is the fact that I have developed a love of english folk music (I'm currently sticking to the young good looking boys - Seth Lakeman and Jim Moray but I can feel the love for the music increasing which is fills me with a wonderfully creepy dread!) Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The darkness is all around...actually I'm beginning to pull myself together a little. The last few weeks however have been terrible. I tend to shut down when I'm depressed and do and say very little (apart from "I'm going to my room to watch CSI" - comfort zones are very important, aren't they?). I have too much on my plate at the minute but I made a ridiculous over the top meal last night (prawn satay as a starter for goodness sakes!) and that always makes me feel a bit better. Also all those CD's that I ordered on ebay are turing up, which is fantastic. Maximo Park, Seth Lakeman and Jim Moray are all sending shivers down my spine. The others are rocking my world (apart from the Futureheads, which makes my head hurt - bloody shouty Mackems!)

Tuesday blues have extended into full on miserableness. No matter what I do things go wrong at the moment and people around me seem to having a bad time of it too. Feeling very down but sitting at the parents surrounded by dogs and watching The Simpsons so beginning to feel a little better...Also I'm spending too much money on ebay CD's. So far I have brought:

Bravery - The Bravery
Hot Fuss - The Killers
A Certain Trigger - Maximo Park
Futureheads - The Futureheads
Antics - Interpol

and bidding on:

Happiness in Magazines - Graham Coxon
Kitty Jay - Seth Lakeman
Sweet England - Jim Moray
Odyssey - Fischerspooner
Howl - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Bang Bang Rock 'n' Roll - Art Brut

That should cheer me up!

Got the Tuesday blues like you wouldn't believe...Have you ever had one of those days where everything goes wrong, where you can't get through to anyone on the phone, your email buggers up, you can't fill out a basic VAT return, you have mega healthy snacks and lunch but still somehow remain hungry all day so go and ruin it all by eating crap on the way home, you can't do the IT homework because your computer's a cunt, you only have 2 weeks (and 3 units) to finish the IT course, you fail a basic bookkeeping entrance exam that you thought you had a good chance of passing, you piss of all you friends because you're a miserable cunt, you run a bath to try and cheer yourself up and there's no hot water, you sit in your room listen to miserable songs while the darkness descends around you, you consider running away from everything ("would anyone really notice" says the voice in your head)...I really had too much fun at the weekend methinks...Tuesday blues are awful...

What I did at the weekend:

Friday - my leaving do from the old job which was fun. Certain thank yous which meant a lot, a wonderful leaving speech from the nice boss, a bottle of champagne from the landlady and landlord (wonderful, wonderful people you all must go to The City Darts in Aldgate East - they are perfect!), going to the Pleasure Unit and no-one was there, more champagne, taxis home, lots of laughing!

Saturday - we went to a circus themed club in Bethnal Green Working Mens Club run by Oh my God! I miss you. We got all dressed up as show girls, it totally rocked.

Check out Jessies site for more pictures!

Other things that happened in the age since I last posted:

Jessie went to desert and came back all hippie (trying to steal my crown young lady! No really it's actually really refreshing being around someone actually trying to be positive about things, makes a difference from the darkness in my head today!)

I started my new job - too early I think to say much more about it. I'm getting settled in, trying to get used to how quiet it is working alone in an office some of the time (so different from the last place with 18 staff and millions of participants to deal with!).

Attempting to loose weight yet again (mainly need to sort my health out!). Carla has suggested Weight Watchers but I don't know if I could bring myself to pay to be humiliated (sorry weighed in front of other people!)

Endless bickering and making up with the boyf

Sea kayaking (in a wet suit goddamn!)

My whole family had food poisioning for 6 days because of the place that I took them to for lunch!

Festival season over and done with. I'm too old for that shit anymore, it's just not fun to work for that long if you don't get to enjoy breaks and go and see the bands!

Note to Carla: I promise I won't leave it so long to update next time!

Once again I don't write anything for ages...lots has been happening though. I've got a new job which I'm really looking forward to. It's working for a guy whose just set up a festival and event production company; so a lot of it is setting up new systems. I really feel like I'm going to be challenged in a good way. Also I gonna have to start a bookkeeping course in January and doing a VAT course asap to get up to scratch on that front!

Other news:

Carla got 3rd degree burns at Glasto and hid for weeks but she's back on the circuit again demanding that we drink too much and have load of fun in inappropriate place (The Hilton for one!) Hurrah, hurrah, we love Carla!

Lornie and Yam (the boyf) are holidaying in Greece but she forgot her very important anti-biotics and so had to have me emergency mail them to her hotel!

Jess is almost in the US of A to work at Burning Man, we've had her goodbye from work party, her goodbye from friends party and next week we'll be having the goodbye from the house meal!

Richie is going to Edinburgh with a huge amount of shows - we wish him huge amounts for luck and good fortune - that boy is going to go far...

Helen has become a social butterfly, out every night having lots of fun and waking up every morning with the same statement "I'm so late for work, they are definitely going to sack me this time".

I've had my bag nicked with everything I own in it (trust me to keep a huge sack with me at all times!). Cards, phones, etc have had to be canx. Boring!

Stuff I've done:

Early July

Went to loads of shows at the National Theatre's Connections Festival. Fantastic, those young people really blew some 'professional' actors off the stage!

24th July
Lovebox, Victoria Park

Jess and I managed to get 4 comps tickets from our local community centre and then found out that our festival mates were working it and managed to get a few more tickets. Hel, Jess, Josh, Joe and Reece (who managed to get renamed Trixi at Jess' party!) and partied in the Lost Vaugeness arena.

27th July
Edinburgh preview double bill at Chelsea Theatre:

Bill Hicks: Slight Return and Confessions Of A Jingle Writer

The Bill Hicks thing was amazing, it took a while to remove myself from the "but it's NOT really Bill Hicks" thoughts but once I'd let go and allowed myself to enjoy it...he did it as Hicks coming down from Heaven to talk to us. The set was a mix of old Hicks routines and new jokes about American Idol, Coldplay, Live 8, Bush, Iraq, London bombers, Dennis Leary...all in all very funny and with a serious bit at the end. Go and change the world because I can't anymore theme!

Confessions Of A Jingle Writer was ok, quite funny in places but Tom was just too nervous. Lots of stammering, repeating and not enough content...it took over an hour to tell a story that could have been done in half that time. Also a bit too much of a Dave Gorman "it's my life funny" feel to it!

It's...too...hot...

The ladies went off to Glasto this morning. I really wish that I was with them. Work is too hot and bothersome to cope with. Life is too hot and bothersome to cope with...

I'm looking forward to the weekend though. Dash and Jan are visiting. I'm seeing Patti Smith perform Horses on Saturday night. I intend to eat, sleep and avoid the sun and very little else.

The desks are in but we didn't leave until around 11.30pm last night...the computers went in this morning and IT peeps checked them all and made all but two work (they need some extra bits which are now on order!). Telephones will go in on Wednesday and I'm now going home to rest...the cough is worse, earache is constant and my eyelids are heavy with sleep. I'm going back to bed!

So, here I am at work on an early Saturday morning - cold and flu lemsiping it to the max and trying not to cough on the builders! Hopefully the desks will be in by this afternoon and I can get the first layer of paint done this evening. Then tomorrow will be spent doing a couple more layers and then doing a matt varnish on them (boy/f is helping for the price of a slap up lunch, bless him). Monday will be taken up with IT and telephone guys (my savior's!) and then the new office will be finished. There's bound to be complaints from some staff...I'm really not cut out for this office manager lark. I like to organise things (ok, ok I love to organise things*) but the rest of it...aarrrgggghhhhh!

*as a child I converted my Barbie dream home into a book case and the books were in alphabetical order

The weekend was amazing - a whirlwind of no sleep, alcohol, mushrooms and behaving like a twat. Fantastic fun! I had to see The Bravery - thanks to Carla for carrying the gibbering mess that was me back to the stall afterwards! Missed everyone else due to having fun on the stalls and generally holding Lornie up and keeping her from biting punters.

We got back around 9.30am on Sunday morning and I then slept most of the day. Jessie, Hels and I then order the nicest Chinese take away that I have ever had and watched Batman and Robin (which is rubbish - I knew there was a reason why I hadn't seen it before!). Monday off work was lovely - loads of time to chill and recover fully (and spend some extra special times with my boyf).

Back to work on Tuesday and back to the horror that is work at the moment. I've taken over as an office manager but unfortunately I don't have any real experience of the computer side of things...I'm having a short, very sharp introduction to servers and I really don't like them. I really don't like the attitude of some people in the office either - certain people have been making what feels like personal attacks on me because things aren't working well. I don't actually have control over the drains, the water supply or the electricity supply you fucking idiots! I haven't gone out of my way to cut the water/electricity off in the whole of east London to fuck you up, have I? I'm really not sure what to do about it - in other areas of my life I'd say that I'm a pretty strong, self assured woman but the minute I'm in this office I feel like I can't say or do anything right...

Sam from The Bravery - wrong, wrong, wrong 

Good things about my life:

• Me and boyf being back on track - things are good at the moment
• Frappuccino Light (yummy, esp on hot days like today)
• Festival season starting (I've done One Big Weekend in Sunderland where it hailed for two days solid!)
• Spending a whole weekend with my baby bro for the first time in ages at foresaid festival
• Homelands this weekend with all the girls for Lornie's birthday
• Buying loads of theatre tickets and treating myself to Artist's Dates
• The new and worrying crush I have developed on Sam from The Bravery - see picture above!

Bad things about my life:

• Getting a bizarre, burning reaction on my hands two weeks ago. Woke up with a rash that developed into blisters and vomiting, it's still here and I look like some burns victim
• Being generally disrespected (and shouted at, in front of everyone else in the office) at work
• Crying at work because of the shouting
• Not being brave enough to tell them to shove their fucking job up their asses
• New glasses that hurt my eyes
• The general darkness that is all around - what the fuck am I doing...etc...

Ok, basically I don't post when I'm having a really crap time in my life and as I've been having the whole "oh my god, what the fuck am I doing with my life" thing, I didn't think that you'd be interested. I mean, jesus, I've bored myself stupid over the last 6 weeks.

Fun things from the last 6 weeks:

Went to see Stoning Mary at the Royal Court - really, really good. The repeating of words works really well. I loved the arguments with the voices in their heads made visible to us... Poetic, fast-paced, beautiful. I liked the way they were individual stories but all linked. Literally tears in my eyes at the end - really powerful imagery - I especially liked the blue stone (little things like that always stick with me for some reason...). The writer has been talking about the fact that the stories are based in Africa but transposed to the UK and how we 'don't get it'. To be fair we (the 'west') don't have any real concept of fighting over a AIDS prescription, child soldiers or being stoned to death so it's natural for us to repond to the relationships because that's what we know...

Went to see the Manic Street Preachers at Hammersmith Apollo (or whatever it's called these days!). I really didn't want to but y'know what bugger it, I love 'em! I'm really fucking love 'em - I don't give a shit that they're old and a bit boring these days, I mean I'm old and boring too. I'm not the angry 14 year old that used to shout their lyrics while swigging on vodka and smoking fags and lusting after Nicky Wire...oh, wait I still do that bit...(my truth is that I went for a meal before the gig and was drinking white wine!)

Less fun things from the last 6 weeks

I asked my boyf if he'd like to move in with me in a few months...but for gods sake I can't spend more than a weekend with him and not want to kill him at some point - I'm taking this growing up thing rather too seriously...

I changed my doctor and I'm finally getting treated well. I get really bad periods and I mean really bad. I vomit, I blackout with the pain, I stab random people on the street for looking at me funny (alright, I haven't actually done the last one but I certainly would like to!). My new doctor has changed my medication and is sending me for a scan.

I got promoted, YAY! But I haven't been coping too well as I really have no idea about computers and/or IT. I've been able to blag it before but I couldn't this time. I actually had to ask for...help...yuck!

Things have been a little crazy of late...starting with the wildness of the recent party. I mainly argued with people for the sake of it and got generally annoyed with other people…apparently I was lots of fun but I kinda started thinking about my level of drinking. I mean I do like a drink. In fact, I’m known for liking a drink but it’s beginning to get out of control. If I don’t remember the night before and I literally vomit for 2 day after, then it’s no longer any fun, is it? Here starts the beginning of me trying to be ‘controlled’ in my drinking…


…until Saturday maybe…’cos you can’t do ‘Scope sober…

…no, right this time I really mean it… etc…etc…

Vote for a later tube on Friday and Saturday nights here - lets drag this city into the modern age!

Party update here - I still feel a little bit sick!

Yay! I had to get up early this morning and start off one of our training courses at work...came home shattered to a dozen red roses! Hurrah!

We're currently getting the house ready for our party this evening - I'm a little over excited.

I'll update on the goings on tomorrow!!!

Carla came around last night and we all had a wonderful, yummy dinner and moaned about how we never really go out anymore! I'm in real need of a wild, drunken girls night out at our favourite club Bedrock and we have booked one in for end of Feb (it seems that growing up means that you have to schedule everything including hedonism!). Although we do have another house party before then but being the hostesses it means that you don’t really relax until much later in the evening (and, of course, by relaxed I do mean falling over drunk!).

Things are looking up on the job front – I’ve been offered more money (for more work!) but it’s defiantly what I was looking for and it means that I don’t have to leave just yet…Jessie’s had good news on that front – she will be working at Burning Man this summer (we’re all really happy for her after the jealous spitting finished!)

After some wise words from Jan-Jan and Lee (mum & dad!)
("Darling, if you didn't forgive people you'd have no lovers and no friends", "people make mistakes") I met up with the boy/f yesterday and we've laid down a few groundrules...and things are back on. Hopefully it'll all be ok! I'm certainly feeling a lot more positive about everything at the moment. I was great to have the parents down although I haven't seen them much because they've been sorting out my grandparents old shop but we managed to arrange me visiting Hastings in a couple of weekends and for them to visit London again in mid-Feb.

Today I'm planning to clean the house a little and then go to play badminton with Helski!

I am worth $1,660,820.00 on HumanForSale.com - should I be offended that my mates are worth more???

melodramatic, moi?

Boy/f front has changed again – he came round drunk and after some bad behaviour from me (after being woken up and laughed at!) he launched into an hour-long intimidating bullying session, which pretty much consisted of him shouting “CUNT!” in my face…not sure where we stand now. Morally, I shouldn’t take him back under any circumstances…emotionally, I miss my fucking boy/f. Taking him back however, would validate his behaviour, which cannot be allowed…
On the work front things are getting worse…I feel that I have been systematically belittled since I joined and after 2 years and 4 months I was at the point of believing that I can only do a job that a school leaver could do…but after a couple of recent comments (including “didn’t they teach you anything on that course of yours?” – a two year Arts Management course (!) and “you should maybe put these students details on a database” – what? Really? Thanks I hadn’t thought about that! and being told that I should spend “more money on clothes” – hello, some months I don’t have enough money to eat, let alone buy new clothes!) anger has got a hold of me and I’m thinking about fighting back. I have complained to the Board before but to no avail and I’m now at the point where I have to decide to either ask for a pay rise or leave. Much thinking is in order.

Hyperventilating! I can't wait!

The last few weeks have been pretty tumultuous - I have decisions to make, as those of you who know me I find this quite difficult at the best of times...I need to think about my job. I have a wonderful job, I'm rarely really bored (although there's only so much admin a girl can do without loosing the will to live!) but I really don't feel like I'm being pushed enough in the right directions. I constantly fire fight and have no time to think constructively about or plan for the future...the company has been in a particularly difficult period so I have been not asking for a pay rise, not rocking the boat but we're still in this 'difficult' period over a year later and I'm beginning to feel stuck. There's a more senior job going which some people in the office have suggested that I go for but it's an awful lot of work for not much money (although so much more than I'm on now!) and I'm not sure if it's the right direction for me to take. It was great recently meeting up with my best friend from school (finally off tour and settled in one place for a while!). She reminded me that all I wanted from when I was 14/15 was to have my own theatre, producing my own productions, etc. It was nice to be reminded of this dream and acknowledge that I am on the right path but there's so much more that I need to grab for with both hands!

On the relationship side I have been with the boyf for almost 1 and 1/2 years now and we've both been pushing the boundaries of the relationship - good behaviour is out of the window! This has however led to an understanding that we do want to be together but we both need to spend some time sorting out our 'careers'!

Friendship front - I had a lovely evening at the Turkish Baths with Helski and Jessie on wednesday. It was really good to catch up and have a good old girly bitch and scrub down!

This weekend the boy/f is coming over for a quiet Friday night (this month is frugal beyond belief), Saturday we're going to meet his sister for a wander round Brick Lane and Spitalfields Market and on Sunday (if I have money left!) I'll be attending the wonderful Chris K's birthday meal and visit to the cinema!

This holiday season I have mainly:

- spent xmas day with boy/f (a wonderful day!
- received lots of lovely presents (although loads of grown up ones - is this a hint do you think?)
- had housemates families visiting (thanks to Jessie’s step dad for fixing everything in sight, thanks to Helski dad for joining in with our face pulling on the tube)
- a quiet new year with Lucy, Kev, Jess and Helski (boy/f turned up later) - full of champers, food and best friends - all you need from new year really!
- Jessie’s b/day - a stroll along the south bank, the snow slide at Tate Modern (I took photos at the bottom!), a pub, a meal at The Stockpot and homemade birthday cake
- bought a new camera phone
- bought a plug in sega and so have been playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 obsessively for the last week
- thought a lot about what I want from 2005 - I spent a lot of last year being unhappy about various things and situations that I allowed myself to be put into...I'm not planning to let that happen this year

Resolutions include:

- to do more home baking
- to pass 1st degree in wicca (I bought a lifetime membership to Witch School in a hope to encourage this)
- to cycle more (and so far I have cycled to and from work twice - including in the rain!)
- to have more leisure time (or at least use it constructively)