This is what hate feels like.

To understand what I'm talking about in this post, you need to know a bit about the relationships and the people in this house.
Dan, Okana, Anna and I signed the contract and are the legal tenants. Last year, we were all in the same halls of residence, in the same building (though not the same flat). Anna and I were good friends - well, by 'friends' I mean that I looked after her and there was some sort of sister thing going on. I was her shoulder to cry on. But then she had to leave Uni for personal reasons, and Dan moved into our flat. Before, Dan lived on the floor below, in a flat with Okana. Okana couldn't stand the people they lived with, so he moved out and ended up in the house we're in now. Dan escaped by coming up to our flat.

Anna came back to Derby frequently, usually getting herself completely drunk and ending up asleep on my bed as she had nowhere else to sleep. Except from those nights where she had found a new pretty boy to shag, anyway. Perhaps I should have spotted the warning signs from that: in her world, her next fuck is far more important than friendship. Promises mean nothing when there's the promise of a bedmate. But I didn't see it, and in September I moved into a house with the three of them.

One week into staying here, she had met a guy, brought him back to ours and asked him to move in. Hang on. Did I say a week? I meant after one date. And she didn't ask a single one of us. That was where everything started falling apart. She started staying in her room all the time, getting him to do everything for her. He began to think he lived in the house, a proper tenant, and started telling Dan and I (he wouldn't dare tell Okana) what to do.

Today, he walked into the kitchen and Anna, ever the little lapdog, was at his heels, making puppy eyes and being generally gross. They went into the kitchen and started complaining about the mess in the kitchen. The mess, might I add, they made.

Boyfiend: That's Dan's, so that must be Kim's over there.
Kim: Actually, I keep all of my pots in my room. So it's not mine.
Anna: That's really unhygienic!
Kim: I can't see how it affects you, so I couldn't give a fuck, to be honest.
Anna: Oh, that's very grown up, Kim. Bad language. Very intelligent.
Kim: I show my intelligence in other ways, darling.

Her bloke didn't like that one bit - he yelled at me to shut the fuck up and get out of the room before slamming the door. I didn't. I pay for that room, he doesn't.
Either they are incredibly thick or they don't know that I could hear them talking about me. I would say it's the former. Anna is clever, but she is too naive, too lacking in common sense to get anywhere. It's one of the reasons why I looked after her last year.
A few minutes later, the pair of them appeared, clutching plates to them.

Him: You EVER speak like that to me or Anna again, Kim, and I will make you wish you had never been born.
Kim: Oh great, so I'm getting threatened in my own home now, am I?
Him: *explodes*

It possibly wasn't the best wording I could have used - one of the things they were talking about in the kitchen is how I thought I own the place - but hey, I just got threatened and semantics weren't really high on my agenda. And I do own the place. More than he does, anyway.
Outcome: Threats, abuse, insults. Being called the c word.

I texted Wayne and told him what had happened, and he made me feel lots better. I love him more and more every day, I swear it. I wrote some emo poetry that made me feel even better. Wayne asked me to join him and his friends at Uni so I could get on with some work and not be afraid of dickskin coming through.

So, after having a few days of busy running around, going to birthday celebrations, doing work, writing to penpals and sleeping, today was the first day I have had in what seems like ages when I haven't actually done something.
Nothing.
Well, I have done a bit more of my coursework, but that is literally the only thing I can say I have achieved today. Unless chatting to my boyfriend on msn counts, anyway. Yesterday was far more interesting for it was finally the night of the Mod fancy dress.

Krissy first suggested it three months ago, and since then I have been frantically researching what sort of stuff I could get away with wearing, what the make up should be like etc. My dress arrived two weeks ago. When last night finally arrived, I was so looking forward to it.
Fate, it seemed, had everything against me, and everything went wrong before I set out. Mods had their eyes big, so I needed lots of mascara. Unfortunately, I had been into M&S earlier that day and, because of their confusing new set up (the make up should have been on ground floor, but wasn't) I couldn't find any more make-up. Typically, when I was getting ready, the mascara was completely empty, and so was the concealer. The coat I was going to wear had a stain on it. I realised a couple of minutes before I was going to set out that my tights had a hole in them.
Despite all that, I had a fantastic night. Wayne was there, looking great in his Mod gear (skinny fit jeans, black t-shirt, waistcoat, tie and Trilby hat) and I got to meet Clare, the friend that Krissy goes on about all the time. You can certainly see why the pair of them are friends!

Anyway - the reason I am writing this is mainly a way of procrastinating from the work I know I have to do. The hand in date is May 5th. Not far away, and yet I have so much to do!
There's four modules to my course: Short Stories, Narratives, Research for Writers and Non-Linear Narratives. The coursework is as follows...

- A non-linear hypertext of 2000 words.
(I have my first draft completed, and I have just finished putting it onto a website thing with all hyperlinks in.)
- A portfolio of work for non-linear narratives, and short stories (1,500 - 5,0000 words)
I have done one story of less than a thousand words for Short Stories and I have done a couple of bits and bobs for Non-Linear Narratives.
- A dissertation proposal
Mostly done

So yeah...it suddenly dawned on me earlier how little time I have to get everything done, and yet I still can't stop procrastinating!

Alice in Wonderland

Everyone and his dog knows the story of 'Alice in Wonderland'. A young lass sees a rabbit in a waistcoat, follows him, falls down a rabbit hold and ends up in a magical place known as Wonderland. My boyfriend, who is a massive fan of the book, has been waiting for years for the recently released film to come out and, last night as part of the birthday celebrations, we went out to see it.

What a crock of crap. Seriously.

It wasn't that I didn't want to enjoy it - I only read Carroll's book once, and that was many years ago, so my loving of the film wasn't dependant upon loyalty to the book.
Nor have I seen the entirety of the original, so I had no preconceived ideas about what the film would be like. Still, for all the all-star cast, the film was completely dire. There will be spoilers below, so if you haven't seen the film and wish to, I wouldn't recommend going any further.

Why?
Let's start with the Queens. Whitey McFloatalot (aka the White Queen) was so calm that she had to prance everywhere with her arms flying about in the sky, her white/black face was completely and utterly terrifying, and some of the dialogue that came from her was appalling.

[White Queen] Have you been speaking to the trees?
[Random attendant] Yes, your majesty
[White Queen] Perhaps a bit more kindly?

I mean, WHAT? This is the woman who banishes her own sister to the Outlands, right? The same one who condemns the Knave to spending the rest of his life with the Red Queen, the woman he hates enough to try to get himself killed?
The acting from her during the Let's-Gross-Out-The-Kids-In-The-Audience scene (the one where she is creating the antidote to Alice's largeness) was so badly written and acted that I was squirming in my rather painful cinema seat.

The Red Queen, however, was the opposite. Helena Bonham Carter was brilliant as the queen known for her most frequent order - "Off with their heads!" You know a film is bad when you are rooting for the bad guys to win, rather than the good ones. Okay, so I didn't want them to win so much as I thought they were far more interesting than Lady Graceful and her cronies. All of the best bits come from Reddy - the slapping of the Knave for allowing Alice to escape on the Bandersnatch with the Vorpal Sword. "Can I have a pig here?!" The hilarious which-frog-stole-the-tarts scene.

Okay - I have just mentioned it, so I will talk about the poem, 'Jabberwocky' now. I might not have read Alice in Wonderland, but I have read this poem more times than I can count - I have read it so many times that I can recite the poem from memory. Therefore the Hatter murdering it in a rather thick Scottish accent wasn't something I appreciated, though I understood it: it's quite a long poem and doing the entire thing would have taken away from the film. But it still ended up making me want to slap Burton for murdering an awesome poem. It also made for one of the most cringe-worthy parts of the whole film: the Jabberwocky is dead! What do they say?
"Oh Frabjous Day!" And in the background you hear another guy going "Calloo! Callay!" I was sitting there thinking - they did not just do that.

Hatter. Completely off his trolley, funny, brilliant - at least, he was supposed to be. Depp's version was rubbish - although most people I know seem to disagree with this assessment. His ranty mode, stopped only by someone saying his name forcefully, so funny the first time, I admit it. But three times over the entire film meant that it got old quite quickly. Also, what was with the Scottish accent that he kept breaking into? It was slightly odd - maybe it was because he supposed to be insane, but changing accents? Really?

Alright - I have done enough whinging. Now for the good things about the film.
1/ The Mad Hare. "Spoon!" Got the biggest laugh from the entire cinema (which was packed, by the way - surprising, as it was the 10pm showing) and was just brilliant.
2/ The Cheshire Cat. Voiced by Stephen Fry, what could possibly be wrong?

What's that?
I missed out Alice?
There's a reason for that, and I'm not even going to go near her.

GREEN CHICKENS

Tomorrow is my good friend's birthday, and we are spending the week celebrating in a variety of different ways.
Today was Shopping and OK Diner Day.
Krissy and I went shopping, and were later joined my Kelly to go to the OK Diner. Much fun was had. Boyfriends were discussed, the Oscars were laughed at, green chickens escaped ovens, flapping and squawking.*
Oh, and I may have got stuck inside a dress.

It goes like this: Miss Krissy challenged me to try on a dress - she said it would be funny and I, not liking the idea of turning a challenge down, accepted. It was New Look, and the thing I tried on was a spotty thing with a love heart cut into the back. (http://www.newlook.co.uk/1901121/190112141/ProductDetails.aspx)She had three things to try on, so we headed to the changing rooms.
This dress has a zip at the back - a very small zip.
I put the dress on, pulled up the zip...and it promptly came off, leaving the dress fastened up. It would not come down again, and so there I was, stuck in this bitch of a dress, unable to do a bloody thing. Krissy tried on all three of her dresses and left.
I carried on struggling.
Eventually, I gave in and had to ask one of the nice ladies in the changing room for help - there was no way I was going to get the zip done by myself. If it had been at the front, I would have been fine...but at the back? No way.
Miss Krissy was highly amused when I told her.
I was less so.

* This may not be true. It was discussed, though.

The relationship killer is dead!

My boyfriend, for the past 6 months or so, has been battling with an addiction. He got over this addiction sometime last year, but for some stupid reason started again this year.
It wasn't drugs, alcohol or gambling.
It was playing on World of Warcraft.
When he came over to mine, he usually went straight on WoW after saying hi to me and setting his laptop up. Sometimes a cup of tea would precede it, too. But most of the time, he would go on the bloody game within minutes of having walked in. Being a lenient and kind girlfriend, I knew how much he enjoyed playing it, so I tried not to get too upset or annoyed about it - I might be getting no conversation from him, but he was enjoying it, and that mattered. Besides, I was battling against my own addiction - Farmville - at the time, so I could hardly complain without going into pot/kettle/black territory.
Farmville and WoW, however, are now gone.
Without any input from me, he sold all of his kit and then uninstalled the game from his laptop. I am so proud I think I might be swelling up to several times my own size. If I need a larger size of clothes, I am gonna kill you, no matter how much I love you!

Man at the bus station

I return from the ether of the internet and the massive pile of coursework to bring news from the terrifying place that is known as Real Life. Like most people I know, I prefer to bury my head in the vast world of the internet and try to ignore that, around me, Things Are Happening.
Occasionally, though, I can't pretend any longer and, for a day, I emerge from the slumberous mass and spend a day with living, breathing people, hemming me in on all sides. And, once I remember how much I hate people, I flee back to my internet.

Over the past couple of days, I have made a Special Effort to be a Civilised Human Being(TM) and ventured forth into the realm of the living.

Yesterday, 6th March 2010, I hopped on a bus and travelled to Bakewell, home of the very yummy cake, with two of my very good friends, Mr D and Fawson. I'm trying to remember some amusing story or anecdote about my trip, but I am coming up with nothing - the sole amusing thing of the day came courtesy of a random man in Derby. Mr D, Fawson and I were sitting around, waiting for the bus to arrive, and, sitting yon side of the path (on top of a small wall) was a middle aged man. There was nobody sitting next to him (in fact, everyone was sitting as far away from the poor bugger as they could) and yet he didn't stop talking. Not to anyone - just talking.
And talking.
And talking.
He didn't stop - he barely even seemed to pause to draw in a breath. The bus arrived and there was a scramble to form a queue, every single person hoping that they wouldn't end up near Mr Talkative. We needn't have worried, though - he ignored the presence of the bus and the departure of his audience, he just sat there, in his own little world, talking to himself.

On the one hand, I kinda felt sorry for him. On the other, envious. How great must it be to exist in your own reality, where nothing and nobody exists apart from when you want them to? While I wouldn't say I would love to live like that, you have to admire him for it. Even if he's a bit nutty, you have to admire his courage.

Sir, I don't know who you are and the likelihood of you actually reading this is slim to none, but I salute you all the same.