kbk

Ohhhh, I am baking and now the whole place smells like chocolate and I can't even eat it when it's done because it's for a 'tree-decorating party' tomorrow at parentals. It could be crap, because it's a new recipe I'm trying and the measurements were in american, but, but, it sure smells goooood. Dammit.

Laa was over earlier and then we went to hers and watched Sweeney Todd, it was dead good (boom boom).

If I have time in the morning I will make icing. I am not sure what time I am supposed to go over, I think one o'clock-ish is probably reasonable. Man, it really smells good in here. Damn.

ETA: wait, holy shit, it's quarter to four, I totally gots to sleep now. Anyway, I just made chocolate icing and applied it, and put some dark chocolate sprinkles on top, and now I am licking the bowl, having already licked the spoon and the little bits I dropped. It is very sweet but the cake batter was not, so I'm hoping it'll work out. Mmm, chocolatey.

So today I got up to go to the shrink. I have not seen him for the last three weeks: first he was on holiday, then I completely failed at getting out of bed, then last week he was sick. Turns out this week he is still sick. And I didn't realise until I got to the hospital that I'd gone out without putting on a bra. Well, I just had to go out the door and get the bus, which was just arriving, so there wasn't much walking around or anything, but it was odd.

He hasn't even seen my hair yet, I am sure he will have something to say about it. I chopped it off a few weeks ago and attacked it with my clippers and it is all short, I like it. Reactions at Key were mostly positive; I got one "Jesus Christ what happened to you?" and a couple more 'shock', one "your beautiful long hair" and one person not recognising me, but a number of "that actually really suits you."

I meant to go into town afterward, but I went to the shop for food and then I came home and instead of putting on a bra and going straight back out I lay down for just a little while which turned into about five hours. Oh well. Tomorrow will do. I really do need to, though, because it is to finish buying christmas presents. I am knitting some, also, need to finish a couple by this weekend because Mau is having a tree-decorating party (because some of us will be elsewhere for christmas) and then I can leave them there.

Ho-hum. Also, here is a video of octopusses.

The wind is high, and
Some great beast of the treetops
Roars its displeasure.


Bah. The weather is horrid, there are big puddles and my boots are not exactly watertight.

But now I am home and curled up under my duvet and I don't have to go out tomorrow. yayz.

Dad came over to nag again, but for once I do not mind, because he brought me a wonderful magical letter which told me a wonderful magical thing: my appeal is allowed! I am to get money! woot!

Also he was surprised that I own tea - I blamed Mim - and then we made the internet work on the better laptop and then we set up wireless, so now I can sit in bed and have quick internets.

Also my blanket fell down off the side of the bed and he put it back the wrong way up, so the sun-face is upside-down, I will have to fix that.

In distinctly less awesome news, the Housing Benefit people called me and told me to get a letter from my doctor since the letter dad sent them (being as he is my landlord) mentioned my 'condition'. And I still have to give them proof of a bunch of things, most of which I have assembled.

Now I am going away to eat a Pot Noodle, followed by chocolate, and possibly drink a celebratory beer. Yayz.

I have finally ordered internet for the flat! should be installed in a couple of weeks, fingers crossed.

Also I have packed up a few more things, crushed a binbag full of bottles, and disturbed enough dust to have me sneezing a lot. My nose is sore, I have blown it so much.

It finally feels like I'm getting there. I mean, sure, I still have two bookshelves to empty, but there's... not that much else.

I was in town Friday afternoon sorting out stuff at the bank, which really needed done. Also went to my woman at the JCP and round the houses to get my bus ticket, so the walk home was fuelled by thoughts of lying down for an hour or two with my laptop. And then Dad was there and asked about it and suggested I go do something else, and I snapped a little, which I feel is allowable.

There does not seem to be any chocolate in this house. That is ridiculous.

I came over to house last night and promptly got eaten by the internet; stayed up all night reading crap fic, slept all day, did not actually do half what I meant to; parentals have gone out both evenings; planned to get the bus back while they were out but failed and am now waiting for them to come back so I can get a lift.

Argh. Money issues etc continue, but I finally got my arse into gear and went and applied for housing benefit, which is a good step, and I phoned the gas company to change over the account (the electricity had an online thing and oddly enough got achieved like a month ago).

I have way too much stuff. I am now at the point (again?) of throwing my hands up and saying, jesus, too much, may as well just throw all this stuff out because I won't even notice 95% of it is gone. Which is not entirely true but it damn well feels like it.

I re-read 'The Fifth Child' by Doris Lessing, which was an odd experience. It is a book I did for Higher English; it creeped me out quite a lot at the time, which stuck with me through, christ, ten years. On re-reading, I managed to identify a few of the issues which freaked me out so badly, stuff about the destruction of the family, the danger of maternity (I have this whole irrational issue linking femininity to death) and suchlike. Also of course this was just after my mother died. Anyway, I re-read it from a more analytical perspective and hope that has helped; but it was odd because I must have read it a dozen times, and before I picked it up I couldn't have told you more than the bare outlines, but I kept recognising parts of it and feeling like I could have quoted them by heart.

Anyway, then I read the sequel, 'Ben, In The World' and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's kind of odd, again, especially reading them in the same day, because in the first book Ben is basically your archetypal changeling/monster child, and then in the second he's the central sympathetic character. He's still depicted as being 'wrong' but it leads to him being taken advantage of, etc, and it's a very different perspective on the character. I guess that's part of what makes a Nobel-winning author.

Also I watched the Star Wars trilogy, again, and I realised something. The rebel base at the end of the first film, the outside is filmed at Tikal. Which I have visited. I have watched the films before and since, but I don't remember noticing before. I was just looking at it, just when they return from destroying the Death Star, I think, and thought, those bits of stone temple sticking up out of the trees, those look awfully familiar... So I have been to Yavin IV.

I am at the house, came over yesterday, am totally leaving tomorrow because with every day I spend in the flat - even failing to feed myself properly, lacking internet, having insufficient curtains and street noise and etc and more - even with all that, I am so much more relaxed and contented there than I am here. Even with internet. Not that I don't miss you all when I'm gone, but there are a couple of places in town with free wi-fi if I ever get really twitchy, and I am going to organise it for my flat very soon.

I own so much crap. I mean, so, so much stuff that I don't need, that I don't touch from one year to the next, but I don't throw it out because it might be useful, or, whatever. Ugh. Argh. Etc.

Something hard - explaining to eighteen-year-old step-cousin that depression bears little resemblance to logic, and that I can still feel entirely worthless despite having better exam results than he does.

Is the boy's 21st birthday, hence family party, and havbedrunk a fair amount and also ate a fair amount of chocolate sponge cake, and wound up talking for a while to future-step-sister-in-law and step-cousin-I-think-ish for a while and fssil is older/wiser than me and has experience with depression and various societal shit that goes along so, yeah.

Odd, odd, odd. I only went downstairs to start with because I was hungry, and I felt I should socialise, and then there was some talking and then some board-game-playing and I was drunk enough to talk to people without huge awkward. Ate more cake than actual food; not exactly unprecedented but still.

Nan (who has Alzheimers) had to be reminded that I was Harry's daughter. Keir tried to get Dad to say something nice about my tattoo. Wine is useful. I won the second evening game of Carcassone - afternoon game was Stephen, me, Martin; first was Phil, Andrew, me, Martin, iirc; second I think me, Phil... Martin, Andrew? Andrew, Martin? Do not recall.

Am have drunk several glasses wine/champagne. Also eaten much sugar which is not exactly sobering. Hmmmmmm. Stuff about bartering and religion and... things. shit. I hope I pass out, it is useful, because I often have trouble going to sleep which gives me too much time to think about things I don't want to think about. A lot of the time these are things that I really ought to think about at some point but just prior to sleep is possibly not the point in question.

Um. I do like my gecko. It is a bit obvious and cetera, but I do like it and I am not normal, dammit, so I may as well show it in ways of body mod; because if people are busy looking at the tattoo they might not see the scars. Or the spots, the hair, the fat, etc.
No se, no se, yo quiero... Um. Estoy cansada, but that's for physical exertion. Tengo... Tengo sueño. Yawn. Etc.

Flat is now basically ready for moving in, so that will happen gradually over the next week or two. This means I have to do something about the shite all over my room here. This is effort. Also I need car & driver for a trip to IKEA and a few trips to the flat.

Also everything is happening at once and I do not know how to deal with half of it and agh, stress.

*eats chocolate*

I am going to sleep at the flat tonight! which means I will not have internet (booooo). The cooker is getting delivered ridiculously early tomorrow (7-8.30, they claim) so, yeah. This afternoon I went smashy smashy with hammer on the ugly cupboard doors that I took down the other day, and then painty painty made hall ceiling yellow, and then tidied up, then some more painting, then played with goo (otherwise known as decorator's caulk, for filling up little gaps).

Carpet is supposedly getting delivered Thursday morning, so I may just stay over there tomorrow night as well. But lack of internet is a problem.

Breaking the doors was good fun, and I think did more for my mental health than talking to Mr Man earlier. He is OK, just I hate the whole therapy process which is not really helpful.

Hm. Things. I only have an hour or so left to fit in vital internets! I don't know what to do first!