girlofprey

Halloween was on Friday. I enjoyed Halloween. I made a Spooky Songs playlist, and just about had it finished before I went to bed and it wasn't very appropriate to listen to it again for another year. Also there were a bunch of songs I wanted to put on, but for some reason my laptop won't recognise a lot of my older CDs as CDs so I couldn't rip them. I could buy the MP3s, but I am loathe to pay for them having already paid for them. I could get the MP3s for free but I have forgotten how to do it while simultaneously avoid viruses. I'll try again next year.

But my point is that it's Bonfire Night - and my dad's birthday - on Wednesday, and I realised that after then we are technically into Christmas season, as far as I'm concerned. Also my YN's birthday is in early December, as a little ambush event. He's just old enough to realise if someone forgot to get him something, and to be discerning between presents, so I'll have to get ready for that. Ugh. I LOVE HIM. But ugh. Also about a million PS4 games are coming out, which will be hella expensive. I'll have to choose wisely among them.

I sent in my application form for the Hospice, and they called me up to come in for an informal interview on Thursday. It's nice that that's bobbing along, but I remembered that I'll probably have to dress semi-formally if I start working there, and probably for the interview, so I'll have to get some new clothes. And shoes probably. I always used to work in low-heeled boots, but the ones I used to wear fell apart long ago, and I remember it was a pain to get them. I'll have to check through my wardrobe to see if I have anything suitable, and if not buy some more. And a shirt. And probably some work jumpers, since the weather's finally on the turn. It's not that bad, the position's only for one half-day a fortnight. The problem with the shoes is that the Hospice is on an awkward road. I'll either have to get into town and walk quite a way down and along from there, or get a bus and then walk through a bunch of estates I don't really know to get there. I'd rather not have to do that in uncomfortable shoes. I'll have to check out my wardrobe tonight.

So my plan for tomorrow is to go into Wakefield, buy a new shirt (preferably blue), buy my dad a card and present, and maybe buy some new work shoes. It's funny how once you start spending money you tend to have to continue spending money. But you do tend to get things you need. So.

Thought Bubble's coming up in a couple of weeks. Oof.

I hate Tracy on Coronation Street, but she did have quite a funny line about a carriage clock on Friday. We missed a chunk of that episode, so I had to catch up today. Also saw David being like "well, we thought he was up to something and he was, so". I missed quite a lot of Emmerdale this week too, after having to go out on Wednesday, and caught up mostly yesterday. Charity is spectacular. I'm glad the show remembered that. Also spectacular is Nicola. And I love Ross even though he's a bit shit. And Debbie. Well, I love quite a lot of people. They should whittle the show down to just the people I love, and let them have a show of their own, is what I'm saying.

I called and emailed my volunteering people again yesterday, as a sort of 'last chance' thing, and I mostly expected no-one to answer so I could just get on with things. The call went to voicemail, as all my calls there do, but I did get a reply to the email about 4 hours after I sent it. Telling me I could come in Tuesday or Thursday if I wanted. Tuesday was a little short notice, and I'm having a haircut on Thursday, so it's out anyway. But. Now it's like I actually have to inform them it was just a polite email, I don't really want to come in anymore.

I emailed the guy back today to say I couldn't come in this week, but I would like to talk to him in the office at some point. He said he was in the office on Friday, then off again next week (??), then back in the last week of October. It's like, I do want to explain that they're doing great work with their organisation and everything, but I'm not really enjoy the lack of organisation and being constantly left hanging so that's why I'm going. But I don't really want to say it in an email, since the entire office gets those, and I don't want to do it over the phone, especially when I can never get through when I actually feel geared up to do it. So I've got to make a whole trip into the office to have a conversation about how I don't want to come into the office anymore, and if I don't do it on Friday, I have to wait till the end of October to get it really sorted out.

Also on Friday Dragon Age: Inquisition comes out, whether or not I actually start playing it then depends on if I can get my hands on the edition I want, but chances are good I will be incognito from that day forwards for a bit. And I really won't want to be in Wakefield explaining to a charity man than his volunteering gig is shit.

Anyway. In Emmerdale news, Priya's boyfriend is almost unbearably attractive, and I really hope they don't make him evil. They've been doing a pretty good job of that so far. Please don't make him another abusive POC, please please please. Also Priya is pretty crazy attractive too, I would say they should have kids but they already have one each, and I don't know if the world could bear it.

A fandom thing: When you read a fic and it so completely wastes all the potential of its premise that it makes you slightly sad for the entire pairing.

I have been watching Emmerdale recently and I have been enjoying Ross Barton grieving over his dead secret girlfriend and tonight he wore an amazing suit and sat on the edge of her open grave, and then his only friend Debbie came along in a funeral miniskirt and sat on the edge of it with him, and then he got locked in a garage and had to choose between a series of increasingly destructive tools to break the door down with and then he calmly took off his jacket so it would stay clean while he went at the door with an axe and then he explained death to a small child and gave her a hug. IT WAS SO GOOD.

I want terrible things. I want him and Debbie to go on crime sprees together in suits and black miniskirts, and I want something to happen ??? So that he cries in front of Laurel and she gets weird and maternal over him. And I want him to have a past of selling himself on the streets after he ran away, and to have to explain to his gay younger brother that it's not the same as what he does, in any way, and I want him to dive in front of a car to save a child again and get fairly badly hurt, so his dad has to sit beside him at the hospital and look at him with worry but also pride for once, and I want Laurel and Ashley to get back together because I always preferred them to Laurel and Marlon and still do.

I'm not enjoying this week. Which is a shame, because it's barely started.

It's my birthday week too, although I suspect that may be part of the problem. I also have a Jobcentre appointment on Wednesday, a few hours before I normally wake up, and I have an appointment with a service worker dude two hours later, so it's like - if the Jobcentre appointment is weirdly long, which would be dreadful, it might clash, and if not I have to kill time doing nothing before I kill time doing nothing with my service worker dude. But it's the only time he was free, so. Maybe he'd be happy to come to Leeds with me. That's mostly what I want to do on Wednesday.

And then last week I suddenly started CBT therapy, getting a letter a few days before my first appointment. And the man I'm seeing seems super nice, but he's given me this homework which I seem to get every time I have CBT, which is an 'anxiety diary' to fill in, of situations that make me anxious, how I felt about them, what happened to me physically, a different response I could have to it (??), what I did, and how I felt about it later. And I never know how to deal with them, because if I fill it in for every ritual I have, I will literally just be doing rituals and filling in the diary, and probably coming up with rituals for how to fill in the diary. Which this week especially is not really a possibility. It was right at the end of the appointment when he mentioned it and we didn't have time to discuss it, so I don't know if I am meant to fill it in every day, or just one day, or just for every major situation that makes me upset. I haven't been doing it, essentially. I probably will fill in a few entries over the next couple of days. But ???? I'm sure it's really useful, and useful for examining your responses to things, hence why I'm apprehensive about doing it, but uuh. I just never know what to do with them.

And then in between that there is my birthday, and I'll be 29, which is lovely, but nearly 30. But it'll still be my birthday, and I'll feel like I should be enjoying it, but I probably won't, purely because I'll feel like I should. Also we'll be having my YN down. Because we're not going to go upsetting the regular routine for it or anything. We went out to a special different restaurant for Sunday lunch yesterday essentially for my birthday, we would have gone this weekend but it's Mother's Day so who needs that. But mostly my parents seemed to be making some subtle comments about how they didn't really want to, like my dad saying it seemed like a really long way to drive, which is funny because he used to drive all over the country, and my mum saying they have the same chefs as over the road, so we may as well have just gone there like usual. That was a whinge, but I wish they hadn't. It was really nice though. They had parsnips.

Also I have to remember to buy a Mother's Day card.

And the present I have asked for is a PS4 which I'm going halves with them on. Which I've wanted for a while, and will become necessary soon if I want to keep playing console games, but I'm still not finished with my PS3 or its games, and having them both hooked up to the same TV is probably going to be a hassle. I can't have them both hooked up, essentially, because the little TV in the other bedroom only has enough connections for one, and there aren't enough plug sockets in the wall either. Nor enough room to have a bunch of plugs lying loose all over the place because of all the kids toys they don't play with.

Also I have started my period. That might be a lot to do with things. My head feels high and tight.

I was meant to go observe a kickboxing class tonight, in the hopes of going to it soon, but I didn't, I'll leave it till next week. Also I keep waking up at 9am for some reason, when my alarm's not set till 12, and I can't get back to sleep, which isn't helping me not feel tired.

I need to start getting into more fandoms where the bad guys are just jerks, and not actual monsters, because I keep thinking up plotbunnies and then thinking 'Wait. That wouldn't be fun for anyone.' You would think the Legion from Fallout: New Vegas would be a great example, because they're idiots who are trying to be actual ancient Romans and wear feathers on their heads, but unfortunately they're also [trigger warning for rape] [spoilers].

And Kevin's back in Coronation Street, so I have to keep avoiding looking at his face, especially when he talks about how great it is to be back and other people welcome him home with big smiles on their faces. Also they have him living with Jack in a house with Tyrone, who spent the first 6 months or so of the baby's life raising him IN THE SAME HOUSE as his own, what the fuck?

But I love:

• Maria talking to Kirk.


• Maria on a counter.


• David being nice to Roy about sandwiches.


• Maria, Carla and Julie as witches, CAN YOU IMAGINE JULIE AS A WITCH? She would just make flowers grow and mend holes in people's clothes, and give them outfits so they COULD go to the ball. Also she would get to live with Carla and Maria and their babies, and help them raise their babies, and she would be so happy, oh my god.

I wish Ross Barton from Emmerdale would throw himself in front of a car to save a child again, or have another conversation with his dad where he sounds uncharacteristically upset or anxious. Moira is going to do some matchmaking between Chas and James this week, and for a minute I thought the episode description said Ross and James. That was probably tired wishful thinking on my part. But. Someone should do some matchmaking between them. Loving family matchmaking.

Not enough people write fic about Dane Vogel, or even remember he existed, it's the bane of my life.

Blah.

I might start watching Emmerdale again for Ross Barton. Also for Finn being gay for Declan. DECLAN COULD REALISE HE'S BISEXUAL JUST IN TIME FOR NATHAN TO COME BACK WHO KNOWS? It's a shame it's always brothers that seem to drag me back in though.

But mostly I laughed so loud at Ashley telling Debbie "this is what happens when you hire criminals!". Like, he's saying that to Debbie? Who runs it with Cain? Maybe you should find a new garage, Ashley.

HELLO FRIENDS. I COME TO YOU TODAY WITH GOOD TIDINGS. It is the story of a guy called Edgardo, A Guy Called Squid, and an RPG forum/world full of jerks.

Read it, you won't be disappointed

I haven't posted in a while, essentially because most of what I'm doing is playing Minecraft. Which is a game that's very attention-consuming but also probably very dull to talk about. I have a house and a furnace and sheep and cows and pigs and 4 wolves, one of whom I bred from the other wolves. They have names but not different coloured collars, because apparently that's not available in the PS3 version. I just have to remember which one's Simba, Kimba, Benny or Jenny. Also I am growing melons and sugar cane and I planted some rosebeds. It's all very good. Eventually I hope to get onto some proper mining. And crafting. Although I presume a lot of that's not available in the PS3 version either. Hmph.

In TV news...um. I hate David from Emmerdale. I always felt like I should, and now I really do. Fuck you David. And I caught a bit of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars over Christmas, and it was genuinely awful, but Crichton and Scorpius continued to be gay so I kind of got back into that fandom.

And in ( Coronation Street )

Oh, and I finished Yonderland, the Sky show from the Horrible Histories team. I quite liked it, and I hope they get a new series. Also I kind of shipped Debbie/Negatus, but that's par for the course. I DIDN'T REALISE ABOUT SIMON FARNABY'S EYES UNTIL THEY PUT HIM IN WHITE MAKE-UP AND GAVE HIM ALL THE CLOSE-UPS. But now I do. I hope they get a second series. From what I hear it's been popular, so maybe.

( Me ranting about I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here )

Also I watched Coronation Street tonight. ( Spoilers )

And I have been watching a bit of Emmerdale this week, because I knew Declan was going to go weird. I stopped watching it again shortly afterward. It did make me reminisce about the good old days was Declan wasn't a cunt and Nathan was around though. And I will be eternally grateful to hestia8 for writing fic about them. ETERNALLY. At least there is some fictional universe where they are happy, or at least shagging.

I got my passport renewed this week, or I sent off the forms to have it renewed at least. I don't know if I mentioned, but I'm going on that holiday with my parents and two of my nephews this summer. So I'm going to need it by then. I always hate filling in forms, and having passport photos taken, but the real kicker was the fact it costs £80 now, including the 'check and send' service. Following a week where I'd decided I had enough money to finally get a few random things I'd been meaning to for a while, and when my LJ account suddenly needed renewing. All of which left me a little closer to overdrawing on my bank account than I'm used to. I've had a payment from the DWP since then though, so I'm sort of alright for now.

However tomorrow I'm taking my ON to the cinema, just me and him, after suggesting it earlier this week. Despicable Me 2 is out, and I figured he'd want to see it, and that mum wouldn't be interested in taking him/us on a weekend, and he's old enough now that I can probably manage him on my own. It does mean I'm going to have to talk to my sister though, for the first time in a few months, to arrange times and stuff. I've already called her, but she was in a shop, so I'm just waiting for her to call me back now. I basically have two things to ask her about or tell her, so hopefully it will be pretty straightforward. And short.

It was mum's birthday on Wednesday as well, and I was concerned things might get awkward if we went out for a meal or something, or if we went and didn't invite my sister. We did go across the road in the end, but not anywhere my sister would probably expect to have been invited to, and mum went to see her for some cake before that anyway. I do feel awkward sometimes with how my family has to deal with the fact I don't want to see my sister much, especially if it's making mum feel bad, or making things complicated for her. But we did manage to have a conversation on Wednesday anyway, about my sister and the way I feel right now, and about some of the stuff that happened when we were younger that I consider abusive. I don't think she wholeheartedly agreed with me, but I think she understands where I'm coming from a bit more now, and some of the stuff I told her about she said she didn't even know about. So there's that, I guess.

( Cut for mentions of pet death )

I have no fandom news that is happier than that news. Adele and Lana Del Rey apparently have the same tattoo now, I'm forced to assume they're in love. I've started playing video games again, mainly Deadly Premonition (which is good, but strange), Remember Me (yay female main character, but so difficult to control), and trying to finish the Borderlands DLCs, finally, so I can maybe start Borderlands 2. I would have liked to start The Last Of Us as well, but it came out a week after Remember Me, and I've been having the aforementioned money problems.

It seems to be drama week on all the big soaps at the moment, Lauren in Eastenders and Debbie in Emmerdale are both falling apart. And once again, I would love to have kept up with Coronation Street for David Platt, but I go out on Monday nights and find it hard to catch up again after that. I'm planning to do it tonight though. I love David. I love how much shorter he is than Nick.

And yesterday I saw a Tumblr post with promos for a bunch of new shows starting up in autumn in America. They were, if I recall, Sleepy Hollow, Dracula, Believe, Almost Human and Resurrection. And the ones I missed were apparently Once Upon A Time In Wonderland (by the same people who brought you Once Upon A Time!) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. They all looked dreadful, down to pretty much the last one. Except Almost Human and Resurrection, but I can't understand why Resurrection wouldn't just be a film, and unless I'm very much mistaken, all of the people of colour in the Almost Human trailer were playing non-human parts. So. There's that. Perhaps I'm wrong. And perhaps I'm wrong about all the shows, maybe they'll all somehow be amazing. Even Dracula inventing lightbulbs. But mostly - unless there are plenty more shows coming out on other channels or something - I am not holding out too much hope for anything brilliant coming out of this autumn.

I went to Redemption. And then came back from Redemption. It was v lovely, though also freezing a lot of the time. We saw Virginia Hey, and I saw Man Of Iron for the second time in my life, and we planned for TrainCon, and I got an inflatable air guitar. The hotel did seem to be falling apart slightly, but hopefully they can patch it together with sellotape and glue and it will still be there in 2015.

In more recent days I found out about all the shitty things that had happened at the Oscars this year. Well done, world.

But I digress. I watched a bit of Coronation Street tonight. What I mostly like is that everyone is telling Gail she shouldn't tell David about Nick and Kylie because he has a chance to be happy. Rather than explaining to her that "Gail, you can't do that. He'll kill us. He'll kill all of us". Which is the only thing that makes sense. Rather like ( Spoilers for The Following the other week )

( And yet more spoilers, for The Following 1.06 )

I also wish:

• Eastenders was just the adventures of Michael Moon. And not at all about zombie Phil. I would watch it all then.



• Carl in Emmerdale comes back at some point as a MURDEROUS GHOST, protecting his son and niece the only terrible way he knows how. Emmerdale doesn't have enough ghosts. Or any.

At Redemption I also managed to avoid getting spoilered for Mass Effect, even though there was CONSTANT DANGER OF IT. I have finished the first game now, and started the second. I'm not going to spoiler anyone - I know how terrible that is - but I have to say it is kind of ridiculous the lengths games with specific storylines but lots of character generation options, have to go to to make sure you have ALL THE OPTIONS at the beginning of each game. KIND OF RIDICULOUS.