girlofprey

I'm bleeding. So I'm going to guess that it was pre-menstrual tension. Also I said something to my MN. He claimed he and his friend didn't even do anything, they just went over when the girls shouted to them and then the girls said they were perving on them, and he seemed vaguely actually indignant about the whole thing. He is a pretty good liar though. So idk. I said some stuff about things boys did to me when I was a little girl, and told him it's not okay to hurt girls to impress other boys. Don't know how much of it went in but. It's all I can do. Respect women, kids.

Trying again. Shorter version. Highlights of the day included:

• Watching the back end of Gone With The Wind this morning while opening presents.



• My mum's story about how she got me Far Cry 3 because she saw the cover, thought it wasn't very Christmassy, went off to look at the two other games I'd suggested, looked at Borderlands 2, looked at Dead Island, then went back and got me Far Cry 3.



• Hearing the story of how my MN, who will be 5 in a month, was apparently crying his heart out in bed last night, and when my sister went to see him and asked him what was wrong, he said it was because he thought he might be on Santa's naughty list, and wouldn't get any presents this morning.



• Things not kicking off with my sister, despite all my fears. Possibly because I was relieved about this, we ended up all having kind of laugh together, and it was a pretty good Christmas actually.



• Catching the tail end of Shrek Forever After and it almost making me cry again.



• Watching bits of the Strictly Come Dancing special, and my YN (who's now 1) doing his version of 'dancing' (turning his torso from side to side) whenever the music was on.



• Also my YN's now super awesome walking skills.



• And a lowlight would probably be catching any of the Doctor Who special. Seriously? Did the power of a single emo tear SERIOUSLY save the world/London this time? SERIOUSLY?

Is this all good? No eating this time? Hurray.

Hello.

I went to see my grandmother on Saturday, with my family and sister. I want to say it wasn't that bad, but really it was kind of a mixed bag. Like, the fact that even though we called my sister before we all set off from our house to make sure she was ready and she said she was, we still had to wait half an hour for her to actually get in the car and set off. But I didn't have to talk to her much. And at the hospital, my grandmother was basically just asleep, so we didn't really get to see her that much. But I'm still glad I went. And, because my sister didn't want to leave all three of her kids with their dad on his own, she ended up bringing my YN with her, who I've only seen a handful of times since he was born. So I got to spend some time with him. He spoke to me! Sort of. He made noises. And he looked me in the eyes and laughed sometimes. So it wasn't a terrible day, overall.

It's been really hard to post lately. For some reason, no matter what I do, I always end up only just getting on the internet at about midnight, and I don't really like to post then because I assume people won't be around. The main non-family things that have been happening in my life recently are:

• A few months ago, in a moment of either genius or psychosis, I decided there really should be a Silent Hill Texts From Last Night tumblr. And lo and behold. It is amazing.



• The Interceptor was a game show on TV in the 80s. I never saw any of The Interceptor. I do not know why.



• SUNSHINE! It's slightly unbearable to be out in. But quite nice to look at. And the poppies are starting to come out, yay!



• I am playing Dead Space. I LOVE DEAD SPACE. 'Survival horror' is apparently the phrase I was looking for when I was talking about Shadows Of The Damned, and that's what Dead Space is and even more so. You get to play Isaac Clarke, an engineer on a routine repair mission to the mining ship his girlfriend works on, but when he and his team get there, they find the ship deserted, and also infested with alien zombies. Then you get cut off from the rest of your team, and basically have to fix everything and kill everything while everyone else (apparently) dicks about on computers for you, and sends you videos telling you what to do. It is terrifying and I love it. I was going to post angrily about it for a while, after hitting a suddenly horrendous bit, but it's not all been horrendous since then, so I think it was an intentional narrative twist. Still. Love. It is terrifying. Every nerve I have is wracked, and I can only really stand to play it for about an hour at a time. But it is also kind of brilliant.
  
  The only annoying thing is that I kind of want to Google it, and see what other people are saying about it. But, whereas it's kind of like a TV show in that I personally am finishing it over a period of time, I get the feeling - and from personal experience with game fandoms - that a bit like a film, everyone talking about it probably have finished it and anything I look up will probably have spoilers. Also there is a whole other game. So I must WAIT. Which I will.



• I missed Eurovision on Saturday. But I had already sort of seen most of the songs. I actually quite liked Sweden's song (I think? Was it a lady rolling around in confetti and a man dancing?). If it is the one I was thinking of, I don't mind that they won. Sad news about Englebert Humperdink though. Poor Englebert.

I am watching almost no telly at the moment I think, and haven't seen any films. I wanted to watch Hit and Miss on Sky, but apparently that started last week, and I'd like to see The Raid, but chances are that's out of cinemas now too. Hmph.

New George Gently, hurray! I love George Gently. And in some ways, it's only gotten gayer. It was a little different tonight than how it sort of has been in the past, which I'm assuming is because they've moved over from filming it in Ireland to actually filming it in Durham. I don't know, it just seemed a bit brighter and slicker somehow. Also, the office and interrogation rooms and things have changed, that's just slightly unsettling. But maybe it's just because they've moved on from 1964 to 1966, and it goes with the move from the Slighty Grim Sixties to the Swinging Sixties. It was still good though. Hurrah.

Anyway. I have a slightly busy week. I've known for months that I had a dentist appointment 6 months after I went in March, but not knowing exactly when it was. I was worried I'd missed it, but I called last week, and it turns out it's on Tuesday. My front two teeth have been aching a little bit, but I think that's because of how I drink coke nowadays, which I'm going to try to stop. And tomorrow I'm going to Leeds to try to enrol in a school place so I can do a jewellery making course later this month. And then it's my sister's birthday on Friday, although it seems like I won't be doing very much then. After the argument we had, I was a little worried because I figured she'd be coming over, and I wasn't sure what that would be like. But my mum's said she doesn't really want her over if she and I aren't speaking to each other, and might just end up sniping at each other and possibly having another argument. So apparently I won't be seeing her. But mum will probably be out with her for a bit though.

Rrrrr, anyway, it's suddenly September. I knew it was coming, you know, but now it is here. It's only about a month off Connotations, and then it'll be Halloween shortly after that. Then Bonfire Night, and then pretty much Christmas. And in between now and Christmas, I'll apparently have a new nephew. How time flies.

I was in Wakefield yesterday, and the day before. We had my oldest nephew on Tuesday, and my youngest nephew yesterday. I just came back from Nottingham last Sunday, and I'm going on holiday with my parents and both nephews tomorrow. I really want to do nothing today, but I probably am going to have to pack today, and possibly wash my hair. Although I'm probably just not going to wash my hair.

There's a big part of me that wants to say I'm going to stay home for the week. We've had some problems with trying to house the dog - we normally leave him at a local kennel, but we arranged for my sister to have him this year since we're taking both kids so my parents didn't book, and then last Sunday my parents took him to their house to see how he got on with my sister's dog, and my sister's partner (who'd apparently forgotten they were having the dog) said she wouldn't be able to cope with them both, now she's pregnant. My mum has been ringing up kennels and possibly the RSPCA all week, with no luck, so my sister's basically going to have to have him. But if I stayed home, I could look after him, obviously.

I probably won't though, I'll probably end up going. I'm feeling a lot better about it today than I was yesterday, and I was going to discuss it with mum today, but she's working till half 8. So. Yeah. I'm just not really looking forward to a week of looking after both kids and running around, and then getting back and having to unpack and catch up on soaps and all the programmes I've missed. Emmerdale has sort of just started getting good, with Aaron getting all self-destructive over killing his boyfriend, and Carl sort of being almost nice about it, because he obviously understands guilt over killing people. But I probably will end up going. It seems a shame to miss my youngest nephew's first holiday away with us. And I've already discussed with my parents that if I find it all a bit much I might just need to sit out of looking after them or being in the middle of things and stuff. And it's only for a week. It probably wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't just been to Nottingham last weekend, and then had two appointments this week. But it's not like I could rearrange the Riverside Festival. So there we go. Also, I probably won't need to pack much - we're going to Wales, and with the weather being like it is I'll probably be dressing much the same as I always do. And we're going to a caravan park, so it's not like I'll need to be dressing up for dinner either. So today probably won't be that bad either.

In other news, I finally got the second series of George Gently on DVD yesterday, so there's no point in watching it now. Will have to save it till after the holiday. Sigh. But I do love Single-Handed and Jack Driscoll. He's like a terminator. And I like him a lot better now he's proved he's a terrible boyfriend, because he's a good garda. Also I'm really liking Emmerdale at the moment, especially if it continues in it's current vein, even if Carl is still being a twat. Also I love Seth in Hollyoaks. Yay!

Sigh.

So. I've had an interesting and full day. I went to the doctor's this morning, and got my second sicknote. Which was nice, because my mum seemed to think that the doctor I was going to see wasn't someone thought much of mental health issues, or something. She said she'd seen him with my grandma sometimes, and he seemed to be of the opinion that people should just get on with things. But he turned out to be really nice. He asked what the problem was, whether I'd been working before my OCD 'flared up', and where I was supposed to be heading with the sicknote and benefits and stuff. I said OCD, that no I'd mostly been unemployed for the last year or so, and that I was on the waiting list for some counselling, and they'd said they were meant to be contacting me in mid-April, so hopefully I'd hear from them soon. And he said okay, and gave me a sicknote. Hurrah.

But due to some mix-ups with me and mum, who'd given me a lift to the doctors and then went shopping, and me having not much credit on my phone and not calling her when I got out of the doctors, in favour of going to buy some toothpaste, and my phone being on silent so I didn't hear when she tried to call me, she ended up driving home from town without me. Which meant I had to get a £1.30 bus journey home, and then walk back from the stop, with my OCD kicking in all the way. Which led to me crying on the bus and in the street. And then at home when I sort of confronted my mum about it. It probably wouldn't have been so bad, but I really didn't expect her to go without me, even if I didn't call her; and I have no idea what it is, but I had the sheets changed on my bed the other night for the first time in a while, and the duvet sort of moved around so it's not so heavy, and since then I've had really weird unsettled sleep, waking up every few hours; and after I got upstairs after talking to my mum I started having some adbominal twinges, which suggest I'm going to be having a period soon. We sorted it all out, she came upstairs and we hugged, and I apologised for crying at her, and she apologised for going home without waiting to speak to me. I do think it was a bit weird of her, but I probably overreacted a bit, and we got it all sorted out.

Anyway. But then, my mum informed me that unfortunately, today was the day when we - or my mum and my dad - were meant to be taking both my nephews off my sister and her partner's hands so she and he could have some time together alone. My parents did this a few weeks ago, and I assumed it was a one-off, but apparently no, it's something they're meant to be doing every month. So. Anyway. My mum said that she and my dad would take them out, so I wouldn't need to see them or play with them until the evening when they came back to the house for their tea. But they were planning to take them to Halfords for some helmets to ride on their bikes with, and then to the park. And then it started raining in the afternoon, so they ended up bringing them back here. It wasn't too bad though, there were a few fights and tears, and then the rain stopped and they went out to play on their bikes and there was a bit more bad behaviour, and then it was about time for them to go home, and then there was a lot of bad behaviour. But they were pretty okay most of the time. It did feel like a different day to the one where I went to town this morning though. But anyway. Then my parents and I had our tea and watched tonight's So You Think You Can Dance. I disagree with the judges pretty often in that show, but I do tend to enjoy the dances. Especially the hip hop dances. I might start trying to watch that regularly again.

And then I came upstairs and went on my computer, and started listening to the rest of the Adam and Joe Show from today that I missed on the radio today. Hurrah.

In between all of that I have been watching more old Coronation Street episodes I have found on Youtube. Oh. I have found things I had almost forgotten about, and things I never saw and wished I did. I did not get to see the episode where David and Gary met for the first time, but I saw the episode where the Windasses moved in next door to the Platts/Mcintyres. It's weird how crazy and violent Gary was when he first came to the street. In some ways I kind of miss crazy thuggish Gary and evil mastermind David, who were obsessed with each other. Always with the underlying feeling that if some greater evil, like a MOTORCYCLE GANG came to the street, they might band together, and become an unstoppable two-boy gang. It's nice to see it though. I just recently saw the episode where David freaked out at his mum for letting Anna hug her, because he can't stand the idea of 'physically touching' one of the Windasses. Oh. And it's sort of the start of Steve and Becky's relationship, properly, and oh God. The first time they properly deliberately had sex, and it wasn't just a drunken mistake, Becky stopped and wasn't sure what she was doing because she'd never had sex sober. OH. In some ways Steve was her first. And these are also the episodes with Sad Detective Maria, who's convinced that Tony is a murderer and had Liam killed, and everyone else is just telling her she's mad. I'd almost forgotten how great she was then. It's weird, but even now, watching it back, I kind of hope she uncovers Tony's lies and gets him sent to prison. Even knowing like I do what happens later, and loving it so much. It's just good writing I guess. I LOVE OLD CORONATION STREET. I AM GOING TO KEEP WATCHING TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS AND WHAT HAPPENED.

Hello dudes. I am posting to you now from my fancy new laptop. Dun Da Da Dah! After getting most of the way through my bookmarks during the week, I made a decision to get my new laptop all set up and running before the end of the weekend. And then last night I decided not to let the fact it was 3am stop me from doing that. It was mostly set up with Windows, Internet security and Windows Office anyway, so I moved my old one out of the way, set it up with it power cord and everything on a newly dusted desk, switched it on and started transferring all my backed up files over. Most of which went without a hitch, except for the slightly terrifying moments when I couldn't get both the USB sticks into the USB ports properly and yet my external hard drive seemed to be hooked up to my laptop just the same anyway. Hmm. But I Safely Removed it and put it back in properly and it worked just fine as well, without having horribly damaged the external hard drive horribly in any way. So everything's basically in it's place on the computer, all my Favourites are in my Favourites tab thing, and all my files seem to be in order except for Windows Media Player wanting to download Licenses every time I want to play a music file I ripped from a CD. But anyway. LAPTOP. It is red and wide and strange. But lovely. And shiny. And has plenty of space on the Hard Drive.

My dad's reaction to my having successfully set up my computer now: "So you can get back on with your bedroom now then". My dad. No gratitude, never satisfied.

Anyway. Apart from that it's been quite a day. It's my oldest nephew's birthday (he's 6), and I didn't have a card or a present for him, and we were meant to be going out in the evening and I hadn't had a bath and my only pair of jeans were falling to pieces. So I sort of assumed it would be hectic. I'd asked my mum to wake me up before she went into town so I could come with her and get my nephew a present, and she woke me up at about half past 12, and said she'd been on the phone for some of the morning, because her sister had been taken into hospital after having had a stroke. She's getting on, my aunt, she's 69 but she doesn't really act it. On Christmas Eve me, my mum and my oldest nephew went to her house to take her a Christmas card (or rather talk to her, since we couldn't find the Christmas card), but we couldn't see her because she'd already gone out to go clubbing in Leeds. So it was a bit of a shock. She's alright-ish apparently, she's not in any danger, but she's lost all movement down one side of her body. My mum had explained that she couldn't go see her because it was my nephew's birthday, and we were planning on spending the day with him, but she's planning to go see her tomorrow. But it was still a shock, really.

So I got up, got ready and went with her to my sister's to get her and my nephew to go into town, except they weren't ready so we had to go into her house and wait for her. Then we went into town and to Morrisons for lunch, where, I think, my dad called my mum and said he'd been talking to his sister a bit that day, because my cousin went to my grandmother's to take her shopping as she usually does on Mondays, and when she went in she found her on the floor in the bathroom. She was alright apparently, my aunt had gone down and made sure she was okay, and then left her, but she wanted to try to get someone to go see her later on in the day, just to check on her. My mum explained again that she was spending the day with my sister, my nephew and me and we were going out for a meal later, so she couldn't really go now, but would try to go later. So we finished our lunch, went to pick up my youngest nephew from his playgroup, came back into town, and went round the shops letting my nephew pick out presents (mostly arts and crafts kits and paint), and buying his birthday cards. And I ran over to New Look to get a new pair of jeans, which don't have massive holes in and weren't on sale, but are actually quite lovely. Then we met back up, went back to the car via a supermarket to get my nephew a birthday cake, and drove back to my sister's house. When we got there, and were just trying to decide what to do about going out for a meal, since it was quite late and we weren't sure there was much point in driving home and then driving back for them - my dad called my mum again, to tell her that my grandmother's carers had gone to her house at their usual time, about 4:30, and found her on the kitchen floor, so they'd called an ambulance and she was being taken to Casualty. Again, she was apparently alright, but she had some pretty bad bruises, and since she'd fallen already that day, they decided they had to take her in.

So we decided what to do again, we didn't really want to let my nephew down and my grandma was apparently pretty much okay. So we decided to go out for the meal straight away, and then take my sister, her partner and their kids back home and go see my grandma in hospital afterwards, if we hadn't missed the visiting hours. So we ran around getting ready, I had to change into my lovely new jeans in my sister's kitchen, then my dad turned up and me and my nephew went with him, letting my mum come after us with my sister, her partner and my youngest nephew. We'd decided on Pizza Hut, since the kids probably wanted pizza and it was a bit more pizza and kid-oriented than our first thought, which was the nearby Frankie and Benny's. Or, as my mum calls it, Ben and Jerry's. Or, as my sister dubbed it today, Alfie and Fernando's. Anyway, so we went, then my mum and the others got there, it was actually all quite civilised for one of our family meals, the food was nice, my youngest nephew mostly wouldn't eat any, but what are you going to do. Our waitress brought out a birthday cake for my nephew with his name written on it, which I don't think he was expecting, so it was quite nice.

We managed to get out by about quarter past eight-ish, my dad and I went home, my mum went and dropped off my sister, her partner and the kids, met us back at the house, and we went to hospital to see my grandma. She actually seemed quite cheerful to be in the A&E, she said it was lovely there and there were a lot of nice girls around. She said she couldn't remember falling, and then later talked about falling, but couldn't believe that the bruise on her eye (which was slightly horrendous) had come from a fall. She thought someone must have hit her, but she couldn't think who would have done it or why, or why she wouldn't have hit them back for doing it. My grandmother has got dementia, so she spent a little while talking about the men living in her house who are always about in the night using the toilet and messing around, and how she has to move all her ornaments and things into her bedroom while she sleeps. But she generally seemed to be in quite good spirits. Then she got moved up to the ward, and got a little bit more ratty, but it was about quarter past nine by then, and she was settled and I think visiting hours were over anyway, so we had to go. Mum seemed to think she might be out of the hospital tomorrow, because someone had said she didn't have any broken bones or anything (although they did an X-ray while we were there, so how they could have decided that I don't know), but given that she's fallen twice today, they might also decide to keep her in, or do an evalution of how okay it is that she's living at home on her own. We'll have to see. Also, she's going to see my aunt tomorrow. Who hopefully is also okay, or as okay as she can be.

In between all of this, I picked up a jumper in New Look because it had no tag on it and I hoped it would be in the sale, then found out it wasn't in the sale but bought it anyway, without remembering it was an 18 and I'd only decided to try it on/possibly buy it because if it was in the sale it might be the only one left; my mum and I found out just how slightly rude and awful my two nephews could be when we were in the car with them and they decided to scream at the top of their voices while my mum was on the phone to my dad's sister about my ill grandmother, to the point where she had to get out of the car; and while we were in town my sister found a bottle of someone's prescription medicine on the ground, so I ended up going back from the supermarket to the pharmacy in the town centre to hand it in. So yes. A pretty full day, all in all.

Things I may not have mentioned from the weekend:

• My dad might be off to the Middle East!



• Ryan is now crawling and pulling himself up on furniture and quite happily walking around holding onto it. And opening and closing his fingers and saying "buh-buh" when you wave goodbye to him. I love him quite a bit.



• Jack says he wants to come with us next time we go to Cornwall and the Eden Project. Maybe in a few years. And speaking of the Eden Project: dude.

I wasn't expecting my stint of unemployment to be particularly productive, but getting up before the middle of the day might really help. To be fair, I did decide not to go out very much, so I wouldn't spend so much money. Aside from, y'know, buying watch parts. But that was a time-limited offer. And stuff.

In un-productive news:

• I watched Dr Horrible! After seeing some icons and thinking maybe it wasn't the type of show I was thinking of. I liked bits of it. Other bits I didn't like. But mostly I love this fic: Shrink Rays. ( Vague spoilers )



• I watched a fashion show the other day about "Loud and proud" fashion, from Teddy boys up to chavs. Now I'm imagining stories about Teddy Boy wizards. And Teddy Girl witches.



• Probably because I'm watching Strictly, I keep imagining dance numbers that could be put to every bit of music I hear. I still think you could do something spectacular with Sex on Fire. I have managed to resist the Kings of Leon for quite some time now, but that is just a bit brilliant. And I quite like the video too. For some perhaps obvious reasons.



• I didn't know that Erin Boag was from New Zealand! Suddenly my slightly random pairing of Erin/Hayley seems a bit less implausible!

I should do stuff tomorrow. Cleaning the flat probably ought to be a priority. And doing some washing. Hmm.

Hello. I went to my parents' house, and to Scarborough. Except that in the usual style, me and mum and dad set off a bit late to my sister's house, and she had only just got up when we got there, so we didn't actually set off until about 11:30 on the Saturday. I wasn't that bothered though, as I got to spend some time with my new nephew, who is adorable. But it took 2 hours to get to Scarborough, and then we wanted to eat before we got to the coast in case we had trouble parking, so we didn't actually get there till about 3 o'clock. And then we spent about half the time hiding in amusement arcades from the rain. I failed to win an Oscar the Grouch doll thing. Jack had his first go on the dodgems and won a couple of things in penny pushers, and later I had a knickerbocker glory, so it was all good. I do quite like Scarborough, and other slightly cheap seaside towns. We were going to go to the Sea Life Centre, but by the time the rain stopped enough to go find out where it was, it was pretty much the time it closed, or didn't let people in anymore or something, unfortunately. Mostly I noticed how many gollywogs there were for sale, which I thought was illegal now. And Jack went on some Iggle Piggle and Wild West Wagon rides. And then we pretty much came home. And that was our day in Scarborough.

I've been mostly in a John/Scorpius fugue of late. I can't believe no-one's written very much John/Scorpius. ( Spoilers )

It's been some weeks now, also, and people are still failing to write Obadiah Stane/Tony Stark fic. What's up with that?

I have to go to bed now for sleep, for work. Laters.