Dear Internet,

Please stop calling him MJ because I keep thinking of Spider-Man and now is kind of not the time. :(

R

Michael Jackson has died of a heart attack.

Ugh. *head desk* I just went to the doctor, for the appointment I was called in for by Dr T, to discuss the results and establish what to do next.

What I got, was a locum who didn't have a clue why I was there, didn't know what to make of my results and basically umm-ed and ahh-ed at the screen for ten minutes, told me my hands weren't cold (which they weren't - they were hot and sweaty, which is the flipside of the condition we think I have) and acted as if this meant I obviously didn't have the condition.

In the end, I told him I'd come back on a day when Dr T was actually in, and he gave me another blood test, this time for my thyroid.

The receptionist (who was a nice chap but clearly either new, or a temp) tried to give me the plastic wallet/form to take home with me - I had to tell him that it is always kept at the surgery and no, there was no way I was taking that home.

My blood test is on New Year's Eve! Two weeks away, basically.

I'm going to call on Monday and speak to the older, lady receptionist who knows what she's talking about and try to get this fixed.

I'm kind of pissed off that they changed my doctor without even notifying me - especially given the nature of my appointment - because this guy didn't have a fucking clue why I was even there.

Last night, just after ten o'clock, Julie and I went down to the beach, planning on checking out the mega-moon that was supposed to be visible.

Unfortunately, it was super cloudy, so we couldn't see anything - but we did spend half an hour standing on the pebbles watching the enormous waves crashing against the shore. It was amazing. Last time we were down on the beach at night, it was really quiet and still, but last night there was just so much energy. It was amazing to be there. The tide was in, and there were a few times when the waves coming at us were so huge and violent that we actually found ourselves moving back for fear that we would be swept away - even though we were standing maybe ten feet from the walkway.

I wished I'd had my video camera.

Any of you who come to stay down here need to come down to the beach with us if it's a stormy night and check it out. It is insanely cool to be down there.

My new doctor is awesome.

He's the first person who has actually listened to me when I said to him that I had an idea of what was wrong, and didn't just dismiss my symptoms.

Basically, for years I've had a problem with sweating - not nasty sweating like a late night taxi driver or anything, wet sweat; soaking through t-shirts and make-up running sweat... pretty Patrick-esque, although not quite as severe as his - and as well as that, I've had what seems like really bad circulation. My hands can be freezing hold and stiff, with my toenails going blue, but the rest of me is boiling hot.

People who've known me in RL for any period of time will have noticed this, if only from the fact that my face sweating used to make my fringe go curly and look stupid, and my eyeliner melt.

Well, I brought this up with my doctor, and he was totally cool. I told him I thought it was Raynaud's Syndrome which my great aunt had, a skin condition where your skin's thermostat is basically fucked and your body acts like a big, beige drama queen at the first hint of cold or heat and either cuts off the supply to the skin to preserve heat, or in one variant makes you sweat profusely; and he agrees that there's a very good chance it is. Alas, that's something no one's bothered to look for a cure for, yet.

However, given other symptoms and things (such as borderline high blood pressure and sudden period pains after never having had them for the last thirteen years), he's also testing me for about ten other things, from hormone fuckery, to kidney problems, to a tumour.

I know that when anyone sees the word "tumour" they immediately do that Kermit D Frog panic and run around flailing - and in many cases for good reason - but the type of tumour he's talking about is benign (it's just there, it's not hurting anyone and it's not going to start attacking other organs... rather like a third nipple) but it causes the body to produce too much adrenaline and that makes you sweat too much. It's apparently super-rare, and in his career my doctor has never personally seen it in one of his patients, but as he says, there's a first time for everything. I doubt he would have brought it up unless he thought it was relevant and I'm being tested for it, so I'm sure we'll know soon enough. It would also explain why I have that jerky knee that I can't stop bouncing up and down, wouldn't it?

To be completely frank about this, I think I would prefer to have a benign tumour that can be removed, than Raynaud's, which doesn't even have an established treatment or medication. People with it are usually given pills to reduce blood pressure, which make them so hot they sweat (more!) and their skin glows* like they've been for a run, and it can cause them to faint or have dizzy spells because it reduces their blood pressure...

The best I can hope for with Raynaud's is a medicated anti-perspirant and gloves. If it's anything else, they can do something about it.

So yeah, I'm not scared or anything ridiculous like that, I'm hoping that next summer I will be able to wear light-coloured clothes and not worry about sweating through them, which would be nice. Even if it was something more serious (which I think we can safely say it's not) I wouldn't really mind. In all seriousness, and no morbidity whatsoever, I don't feel like have many ties to this mortal plain and I don't believe in extending human life, so if it was a life-saving treatment rather than one to fix a harmless but bloody inconvenient annoyance, I wouldn't have it.

Voluntary human extinction, ftw!



* Funny story: when the doctor said to me "it makes people's skin glow" I balked at him and it took us about two minutes to work out that I half-thought he meant like something out of Chernobyl.

In this kind of mood I'm not sure whether watching Band of Brothers (Day of Days) is a good thing, but I've missed this show so much.

I wore a dress today. A real, honest to God floral dress. And I didn't feel awkward.

For those who know me in RL, this is the dress I wore for my birthday when I turned 24, so it's quite an old dress but I've probably only ever worn it four times since I've owned it.

Basically, I met up with Vicky today. Vicky was my best friend (along side ashe_frost for years. We met just a couple of weeks after I turned sixteen and she turned fifteen. We share the same birthday and at the time were obsessed with the Manic Street Preachers. We met after I made a post on a forum and she emailed me. We were genuinely soulmates back then. We used walk around holding hands (and this is before all kids started doing it). Fuck, I can remember nights when we slept holding hands.

It's probably testimony to how close we were, that within seconds of seeing each other for the first time in four or five years, we were walking ahead of her other friends, nattering away, and when the others decided they wanted to go to another pub instead of staying at the poetry reading we were at, we were totally cool with hanging out by ourselves. It was as though we'd only seen each other a week ago.

She's going to come down nearer Christmas and come shopping and stuff.

The poetry reading itself was really nice. It was a teeny, tiny pub called the Grosvenor on the street Julie and I were originally going to live on. It was full of quirky, eccentric people telling rude or ridiculous poems and it felt like stepping back in time, to the days before TV or something. When people had to amuse themselves. The lights were soft and warm and it felt like winter.

I loved it.

But the fact that I was wearing a dress with leggings (or, more accurately the same pair of cut-off opaque tights that I wore in Chicago when I went with Lib, last year!) and pumps was really... liberating. I felt good about the way I looked, without feeling like I was trying. The dress itself is so flattering and made of such stretchy, comfortable material... I'm going to have to wear it more often. I recently bought a plan black one in a similar style, as well, which I'm glad I did. I've been trying to grow my hair out for a couple of months, and it's at a kind of ridiculous in-between stage at the moment, but I even managed to pull that off, today.

Generally, it was a wonderful day.

And topped off with the new Domino's Bacon Double Cheeseburger pizza it was pretty much perfect.

I'm so excited for autumn.

*Flails* I have an interview tomorrow!

It's for a company which makes fire safety equipment, and they're apparently walking distance from my house, very casual dress and the money they're offering starts at between my minimum workable wage, and the wage I was on in London.

It would be for a PA role, as well, which is good - I've got experience in that field, plus the transferrable skills from years in Customer Service.

They sound like a really good company. I don't think I'd be starting until 1st November (which is the day FYS play the Underworld, and I'd have to dash off after work - but the good news, obviously, is that I wouldn't have to go home and get changed) if I got the job.

The first interview is apparently based on your personality and whether you fit in to their company, which the girl at the agency said I would from the moment she offered to put me through for the role.

So - fingers crossed for this.

But even if I get this job I still need to work for the next few weeks - which I do trust Huntress to find for me. It's all just very nerve wracking.

So, having had a really stressful day, today, I thought I'd post some pictures of my favourite hats. A new one arrived this morning: it's a fake-fur lined ushanka/trapper hat. And although all you can really see in these pics is EPIC FAKE FUR, it is green.

I told Matte I'd post a picture of it, and ended up taking pics of all my silly winter hats - and a couple of less wintery ones. I wish it was colder, here, so I had more excuse to wear them.

( Pickachurs. )

...so yeah, I quite like hats.

I just went through my box of comics.

During the time I was actively collecting them, I bought all of Ultimate X-Men up to I think 68, except issue #1. I did buy #5 and #28, but for some reason they're not in there. I also have a compilation issue of #1-3.

I have a complete Gambit mini-series, including two copies of the first issue, in mint condition.

I have an X2 movie collection, and an Iceman collection and issue #1 of an Ultimate Fantastic 4 mini series. And #1 of the Gambit & Rogue annual, or something. Plus a bunch of Essential X-Men comics featuring Gambit.

They are all in mint condition, or very, very close to mint condition.

Even at face value those cost me between £1.60 and £2.00 each. (UXM #1-3 cost me just shy of £8 about three or four years ago.)

I doubt they've grown much in value, yet, but... damn, I spent a lot on those. I wonder if they'll be worth anything in a few years time?

But for anyone who ever doubted my interest in comics - I may not have collected them for decades like some people, and I may not have collected the 'coolest' comics, but I did stick at it for a fair while. Those things came out monthly, and I started buying UXM at about issue 19, if I remember rightly. I'd probably still be buying them if I hadn't stopped going to coffee...

I wonder what became of poor, gay Piotr...

I never fucking learn.

I've always sworn - even to myself - that I was totally transparent. That what you see with me, is exactly what you get. But it's not. What you see with me is the person I was when I was five, as she should have grown up. In between times, there was an avalanche of shit which killed that little kid and left a self-pitying, self-doubting neurotic in her place.

I can't remember the last time I was actually happy.

Quorn 'chicken-style pieces' taste like wads of sodden toilet paper. This is not a good thing.

It's 3.38am on a Wednesday morning in London, and I'm sitting on my back door step listening to the dawn chorus (and QTV playing Corinne Bailey Rae, which dear God, please end soon), smelling the pollen from the plants in the garden, and watching my cat stalk defenseless rodents in the shadows.

The fact that it's nearly four in the morning isn't at all unusual for me. Even on weeks when I need to be in the office, I may go to bed at midnight, but I won't be able to sleep for ages. Naturally, my bodyclock seems to want to run about six hours behind what it should; which would be useful if I lived in the Midwest, because I'd end up actually living at the right time, more or less. (*sigh* One day - one day...)

Maybe I'm just nocturnal. Given my nature, that's probably closer to the truth. I want to sleep when the sun is coming up.

It's not especially cold, this morning - sitting in pyjama bottoms and a Broadway Calls t-shirt I feel fine; it's a weird, surreal sensation just being here. Sort of on the verge between home and nature. Our garden is slightly overgrown, with mature trees around it, vegetables and flowers in the borders and an a-typical fairy garden at the back. The TV seems really loud, even though it's on as low as the decrepit old box we have in the living room is capable of going.

I feel a little bit between days. It's morning, now - people will be getting up for work, soon - but I haven't even been to bed yet. It's been like this for a while. Maybe I'm sleep deprived, or maybe I'm just secretly a bit less mature than I'd like to think, but being up at this time in the morning makes me feel special. Like I'm the only one there. I watched Interview With The Vampire a few nights ago... I guess something stuck. I kind of hate that this time of day is so brief. The sun will be up within an hour. I've watched it getting lighter even writing this.

Aside from the birds, everything seems so still. There's no breeze at all. Except just then there was - one strong gust and then perfect stillness again. How odd.

I love this time of day so much. I'm going to hate being back in work and not being able to see it.

Vegetarianism, then: something I never really thought I'd gravitate to. To any extent.

However, I've lately made the choice first to restrict the meat I eat to ethically farmed sources, and more recently, I've stopped buying meat products from the supermarket altogether. Don't get me wrong, I love meat and seafood, I really do (especially the seafood) - there is absolutely no squick behind this decision. I'm doing this because of the way the animals are farmed and the greed of the meat industry itself; there is an on-going pressure to force down meat prices so they are virtually unsustainable for the farmers and inhumane for the animals. I've chosen not to personally buy into that and help promote farming on such an enormous scale, which is ultimately detrimental to the farmers producing the end product anyway. (A recent programme here in the UK revealed that the average chicken farmer selling mass-farmed roasting chickens which would be sold for around £2.50 in the supermarkets would only receive 3p per chicken.)

So, I've started trying out the vegetarian substitutes (Quorn escalopes are not my favourite :|) and figuring out for myself what exactly I'm going to exclude from my diet, devising my own set of rules for acceptability.

I have no problem with eating meat from small farms, where the animals are at least treated with a certain respect and the sale of the produce is generally fairer on the farmer (on-site farm shops=major bonus), but living in London, as I do, finding and affording such products seems to be relatively impossible. The fact that I'll be moving to Hove in East Sussex, with my best friend Julie, will probably aid this to some extent as the south coast is lined by countryside and not surrounded by mile after mile of concrete.

I would love to have the same self-sufficiency and respect for food sources promoted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (one of our country's main proponents of eating with conscience), but my chances of ever owning a small holding are slim, and frankly, I'm too lazy - so I'm going to have to do this as a lowly city dweller.

So my main rules will have to be:

- if it had a face, I'm not buying it from a supermarket (unless it's a jammy biscuit);
- if it had a face, but I can be sure of the source and know that it was generally ethically farmed, I will consider buying from respectable local suppliers;
- if it contains egg (such as mayonnaise) it must be from free range (thank you Hellmanns);
- where dairy is concerned, soya products are always preferrable, however, vegetarian-approved cheese is also acceptable if necessary (I haven't explored the cheese issue, as yet, but I already use soya milk rather than dairy and have done for some time).

As I already mentioned, shellfish - especially oysters and prawns - are my favourite foods. They're a peculiarly ambiguous category, because they don't have a face but they do seem to have greater cognitive activity than say, a potato. For this reason, I'm going to categorise them under meat; which means no 'fresh' packs from the supermarket. I generally only eat oysters at restaurants anyway (which creates my next issue) but prawns I will usually eat at least once a week; it'll be a strange change to my diet to rule them out.

On the matter of restaurants, is it okay to eat meat or fish at restaurants, as I haven't purchased the original product myself? I suppose it's similar to the argument presented by my vegan friend, Edge; on the matter of vegans purchasing second-hand leather: it's acceptable because the individual has not directly contributed to the original demand for the product.

I think this is one to test when I next eat out at a restaurant and see what I can find out from the staff and weigh it up in my conscience then...

The thing is, I am not calling myself a vegetarian - I want to make that clear, because I don't want to steal the thunder of the people who do dedicate their lives to the lifestyle, as I have a lot of respect for them (unless they call themselves 'pescatarians' or 'vegetarians who eat fish' in which case they can fuck off and die) and I don't want to be a hypocrite. Friends like Edge and Matte who are both vegan, H and Jay, who have each been vegetarian for, if I recall, over a decade, have been my main inspiration in this, and I appreciate their support

So, this is kind of a big thing for me, so I've actually decided to blog (notifithadaface) the process and record my experiences of exploring vegetarian products, recipes and finding respectable sources. I'm not sure whether it will be of interest to anyone, but it makes sense to separate it from my regular journals.


The ultimate concern here, is to not actively contribute to the meat industry - human beings are designed to consume meat, that's how we've evolved, but we did not evolve because of factory farming.

So, Brighton!

Julie loved the place. Absolutely adored it. Therefore, we will be moving down there. However, we don't plan to move to the Brighton side of the city, we actually preferred the part of town around Brunswick Square and Norfolk Square - which falls under Hove.

It's only around ten minutes easy walk from the shopping centre and the Lanes/North Laine, where all the cool shops (including the cupcake shop!) are, but it's really laid back. There were loads of restaurants and pubs with chairs and tables out on the street, the roads are mostly made up of Regency terraces with rounded fronts, all painted white or pastel like this:

( Norfolk Square )

The beach is less busy down that end, because tourists spend more time down by the pier. It's a pretty historic place; Brunswick Square is apparently an excellent example of Regency development. None of the pics I have really do it justice, but it's so pretty:

( Brunswick Square view to the sea )

The end of town around Norfolk Square is a bit cheaper than Brigton itself, because it's between stations, but I doubt we'll be using the trains that often. And it's still only a fifteen minute walk to the Brighton one. The whole place is small enough that we could walk anywhere we needed to. We walked about eight miles on Saturday alone.

I really liked the place. It just felt right. Western Road, the main shopping street through that part of town, kind of reminds me of a cross between Angel in London and Lakeview in Chicago. We signed up with a million estate agents so we should be able to find something. The market down there is mad at the moment - really booming. I just hope the job situation will be the same!

I just want to record this, because I'm sure I'll want to look back at it later.

This is the moment I disowned my family, via my youngest full sibling.


( Like it's a great fucking loss anyway... )



I guess the worst part is that I genuinely don't care about never speaking to him or Cristian again. They really don't mean anything to me. They're just these ungrateful little cunts I protected when they were children, and who responded to it with lies about what I'd said to stop our mother hitting them when they told her the truth about hating her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend. She asked them if I'd told them to say it, and they said I had. Which was a load of bullshit. How could I have told them to say it when I never knew she was going to ask?

I should probably have forgiven them for it, because they were kids, but I can't. And even as adults they've been so brainwashed by what she's said to them about me over and over that they've blocked out stuff the rest of the family completely remembers - and then refuse to believe it when they have it confirmed to them.

It's not like I ever even see them. They do mean nothing to me. They're basically just people I used to live with.

I don't even have the energy to hate them; it'd be a waste of effort.

But that's my family. One day, I'll emigrate and never tell any of them where I'm going. Then I won't have to deal with people trying to pressure me into talking to that evil piece of shit any more.

So, I just got back from the Cobra Starship show in Brighton with fredtheguava. We sat on the beach for a while before we queued up, and it was so good to be by the sea, again. I miss open water so much, when I can't be near it - so much so, that I really do find myself wanting to move down there, now. I was excited about the prospect before, when I was trying to get into BIMM (although they ended up cancelling the course), and the more I think about it, the more I want to get down there.

Obviously, my first choice would still be Chicago, but in between times I don't know if I can handle London for much longer. It's so dirty here. As Rachael and I mentioned earlier, when you've been out in London for any significant period of time, you come home to cough up/sneeze black stuff. For someone with hypersensitive lungs this is not good, and probably part of the reason I'm so susceptible to chest infections in the last few years (namely, since I've been living here, in or close to Central London).

There's also a real feeling of claustrophobia that I've been getting in the last year or two. It is so rare for me to leave the city for any period of time (the furthest I usually go is the suburbs, to visit family, 25 minutes outside of the centre); getting out to Somerset and Sussex in the last few days, has kind of reminded me what else is out there. THERE ARE FIELDS, U GUISE! And hills. And woodland. And the sea. In London there is nothing but buildings and traffic - and mostly we travel underground, and never see more than the five or ten minute journeys to and from home/work and the nearest tube station. The tube is convenient (except before 9am and after 4.45pm on weekdays) but it turns you into subterranean drones. You never get to see the rest of the city. On weekends, the place is overrun with zombie-like binge drinkers from the suburbs.

I'm rapidly growing to hate it, here.

Brighton itself is so very English, and I totally feel that. It has the pier and the promenade you expect in English seaside towns, an extremely well-known gay community (which, apparently, I'd fit in pretty well), a pretty good music scene, the Lanes (which is the boutiquey shopping district), it has the sea - which is a huge factor for me, I've always wanted to live by the sea - and most importantly, it's just not London.

Right now, moving away feels like the smartest idea ever.

I got a tattoo today, kind of on a whim. I've wanted one pretty much like this for ages, although I was considering getting it in the inside of my left elbow, rather than in the middle of my inner right forearm where it now resides.

It's a simple tattoo, I literally drew the whole thing myself while Julie was getting hers done, and I may well add to it later. Right now, I love it. It's simple, it's pretty (and it's not as crooked as it looks, although the little embellishments aren't symmetrical and were never supposed to be perfectly - if I'd tried to make them symmetrical, rather than just kind of balanced, I would have been so pissed when they inevitably weren't), and it pretty much means the world to me, right now.



The way I see it, I've been close to straight edge all of my life without even realising it; even during the time when I did drink, it would be occasional and minimal. When in the past I did drink, I didn't like the way it made me feel. Now I've chosen to commit myself to a lifestyle free from recreational drugs, intoxicants or narcotics of any kind and I plan to stick to it. Completely separate from any bands I'm into, and even the history of the scene (which for straight edge people my age and younger is probably so far removed from why we're doing this), this is who I am. I'm not as diplomatic about it as people like Dan and Alan - frankly, if you drink, smoke or poison yourself with unnecessary substances I think you're a bit of a prat, even if I generally like or even adore you as a person - because I know the people I know and care about are better than that. I know you're generally too smart to be subjecting yourselves to it, and that you don't really need this stuff to make your lives better or to enjoy yourselves. In the UK, in particular, it is so ingrained in society to drink heavily and regularly that alcohol consumption is encouraged on adverts for telephone companies and on TV shows for home movers. We're a nation consumed with binge-drinking. I fucking hate it. I hate everything it represents and everything it says about society.

So, yeah. I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on the history of straight edge - I know where it came from, I know how it developed, I know where the X symbol allegedly originated - but it has evolved since then; most of the sXe kids I know have no real interest in the bands who started the movement. It's stopped being about what bands we like and what they advocate (well, for the most part) and it's more about looking at the people around us and not wanting to be like them. Amongst my friends it's a sense of solidarity and shared disdain, I think.

But having grown up in a family where literally both my parents, both my eldest brothers, my uncle, my aunt, my mum's cousins, my grandad and god knows how many other people have been heavy pot smokers, alcoholics or all-out drug addicts, I know that this lifestyle is the right thing for me. And I'm proud of that and I'm damn well celebrating it.

So, yeah... that's my story for this tattoo.

Tonight we save the world, but today we need to save ourselves.

Technically, they did. Them and the dumbasses stampeding Mayday Parade.

It's a long time since I've come back from a gig in quite this much pain. Not that I'm complaining. It was an amazing, if remarkably short, show and they were the nicest kids (consider it a lesson: people like you more if you buy them confectionery).

But on the other hand... they make me feel old. Most of them look at least my age or older, but they're not. In some cases, they're HALF A DECADE younger than me. That is just... remarkably depressing. I've been out of the whole gigging thing such a long time... On Tuesday I'm supposed to be going to see the relaunch show of a band I knew when I was about 20-22. It'll be the first time I've seen most of my friends from those days in maybe two or three years. It's going to be weird. I don't even have any 'new' friends I can bring with me.

I'm not a very sociable person, really; friendly, but not sociable.

Being in my mid-twenties is proving a really weird place to be. I don't feel quite like I have the right to feel old when some of my friends are themselves a lot older than me and I would never consider them 'old' in any way, but I'm at the stage where a lot of the bands I love seem like little kids. As much as I hated Staines, and I hated home, and I hated growing up, sometimes I wish I could be sixteen again, back in those years, with the time to start all over again. I don't have regrets - I don't believe in regret - but if someone gave me the chance to live that again, I think I would. I'd get out of home faster and give myself more direction. I also wouldn't have wasted my time on people.

I mean, I've learned over the years to just cut the fuckers out of my life, and that I'm proud of - but I wasted a lot of time on that, early on.

It feels a bit too late to change.