A Request To The Male Half Of The Species

• Chivalry is lovely, but please don't make us feel invalid and incapable.
• Telling tragic stories about your ex doesn't really work as far as romanticising goes, nor will it get much sympathy.
• Texting/phoning at 2am while in a drunken stupor to declare your undying love is not cool. I like sleep.
• Pretending to have a really quite serious disorder and creating an elaborate scenario around it takes the piss.
• Continually putting a stream of kisses at the end of texts is also not cool, especially when you don't get any back in the reply and you persist in doing so.
• Texting/MSNing/other messaging every day to ask when I'll go down the pub with you or out is also a pain, borderline harassment.
• Getting involved in situations that you have no clue as to what's going on at all in an attempt to be all manly is also pretty sucky. I am not incapable as to deal with my own problems and could really do without you weighing in at the 11th hour believing you fully comprehend the situation.
• Texting to declare me a "fucking whore" is also not really the best way to go about winning me over. This is also an impossible statement ;-)
• Asking if I'm gay and then revealing that you and your metalhead buddies had bets on me being so all of last year is, well, unique to know, but doesn't score anything when you ask me out after laughing about this.
• Using your friends to guilt-trip me is also no way to go.
• Asking why I won't go out with you after all of this endless pestering and childishness is another few points in the minus degrees.

The request? Those two lovely words, one being "off". You men are a wee bit clueless sometimes.

Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence - "Words like violence, break the silence and come crashing in, into my little world."

Feel Berlin

Friday was a good day, bar the problem of the lion (Latin word for lion, look it up).

The car journey down to So'ton was bad. The problemlion boasted/bragged pretty much all the way down, even my parent was quite disgusted. "I can do this... I can do that... my score on...". Over the years, Problemlion still has no idea that he is bitched about constantly and hated by quite plausibly everyone in the general Andover populace and beyond and has been for... years.

Me being me and being pretty gutless, an all out chicken and walk-overable, for some obsolete reason stuck with this self-absorbed, insensitive bastard for a few years.

My greatest mistake was trying to help him, one day in 2006 and if I could do anything to change that choice, I'd do it. It has to be understood here that I am not a person of hate, rage or anger. I am a pacifist, who until recent years have never truly 'hated' anyone. How could anyone be that self-obsessed, convinced that they know everything about a subject that they happen to waltz into, really hurt people, walk around with a holier-than-thou attitude, think that they have a host of talents without even trying, declare they have depression/MPD and seek attention in stupid ways and too much more to list without realising how hated they are?

I've done enough for the Problemlion, ruined a lot for the sake of his pettyness and stupidness, lost a lot for the sake of him and his little pop-punk/emo fag crusades.

The MPD incident was the last straw along with the constant bragging about his "relationship" with a friend.

How many people around him have apparently killed themselves or died tragically? Must be about 20 last count. That's either attention-seeking bollocks or he's driving them to it.

He keeps saying he's in a band, wants to start a band, gets frustrated when I won't join his band. This is because he can't play drums, he can't sing and has never really had any inclination to learn or recognise that learning and getting to gigging stage takes a long while, a lot of work, a lot of musicianship (which he has never shown any degree of - ever) and actually getting a job helps.
Live under your rich 'rents by all means, but understand that things aren't always going to be handed to you on a plate. Being on the reserved list for the trolley boy position at ASDA doesn't count as a job that pays money. Doing "roady duty" for a band - actually I rephrase that - it isn't roady duty, it's standing around doing little except ass-kissing the band - "Look at my new photoshop creation - it's got you in it!" or "My band could support yours when we get going" or some other stupid whiny thing I'd expect my 3 year old cousin to come up with in need of attention or recognition of a newly acquired skill - and that's an insult to my three year old cousin.

Another point with actual work is that you generally have to work, something you have no concept of whatsoever. Go cry because you're only allowed a Porsche and not a Ferrari or something. Go and scratch your arms to make it seem like you need help. You ruined one second too many on Friday, chuck.

The MPD incident conversation in full. Unedited with comments in red.
Problemlion: Bev, listen to me well and do -not- repeat ANY of this to anyone... okay?
My bullshit radar overloaded and broke.
Stitch: ok
Problemlion: I've got Mutliple Personality Disorder, and i'm fucking shitting myself
Stitch: definite?
Problemlion: GP comfirmed it this morning
Stitch: cripes
Stitch: they give you meds?
Problemlion: yeah, and a shrink
Problemlion: Parents ain't ever going to know, so if at any point they ask about something, i'm with you. Seriously Bev, i -need- your help
Stitch: what meds? things could depend on what tehy give you
Problemlion: I just take em
Stitch: which ones?
Problemlion: brb, gonna go get them
Problemlion: gave me anti-depressates
Problemlion: depressants*
Stitch: name?
Stitch: name on box?
Problemlion: lithium
Problemlion: That mean anything to ya bev? Cause it don't ta me
Already suspicious, the fact that he had MPD would mean that no matter what his age his parents would've been notified and the lack of interest in the medication you're placed on is slightly worrying.
Stitch: which company? some companies do things slightly different
Problemlion: Just says Lithium hun
Problemlion: Pills are White and Circlar if that helps
Stitch: you got a pic at all? im wondering what the mg is
The mg stats by law are always on the outside of the box and usually in big unmissable numbers.
Problemlion: Nah, i'm gonna put them away again Bev... Really worried parents are gonna walk in
Stitch: ok
Problemlion: Seriously Bev, i don't know wtf to do... my GP gave me this shit... i've take my dose for the day... yet... i'm just praying to god she got it wrong
Cry for attention, chuck.
Stitch: what's the mg on the box?
Problemlion: I've put it back now Bev
Stitch: k
Problemlion: Did you want to know the brand Bev?
Problemlion: Does Camcolit mean the brand?
Camcolit is an American brand of lithium, unavailable in this country.
Problemlion: Bev,... I'm gonna go.. I'm feeling a bit wierd right now
That probably meant, "gee, I'm going to leave this conversation because I haven't researched this big attention-digging lie enough and I'm gonna get caught."
Stitch: ok
Stitch: I think you're on the wrong meds though
Ooze the sarcasm.
Problemlion: I'll talk to my GP in the morning
Problemlion: Fuck.... i'm shaking
Stitch: Lithium isn't an anti-depressant, just anti-manic.
Stitch: Wrong meds completely.
Problemlion: :S
Problemlion: Fucking hope there isn't any side-effects is badly taken
Problemlion: okay....
Problemlion: see ya
Stitch: ciao

The next day
Problemlion: Y aget my message bev?
Stitch: nope?
Problemlion: Doc got it wrong!
Stitch: yeah?
Oh, yay. Yippee. Which medical centre/doctor did you say you were with?
Problemlion: Some-one reviewed my case and just thought it was stress
Problemlion: third doc gave an opinion and agreed with the second
There is no way in hell a diagnosis would've been reached that quick anyway, let alone being put on medication and to get a fully-surveyed second and third opinion... that's a couple of months, not 13 and a half hours.
Stitch: well that's cool
Stitch: relief hmm?
Problemlion: Not kidding!
Stitch: well, it's good to know you don't have it
Problemlion: Yeah, i feel a lot better
Stitch: I was surprised though...
Problemlion: at what?
Stitch: MPD's weird
Problemlion: Weird?
Stitch: yeah
Stitch: my friend who has it doesn't remember their alter egos or conversations their alter egos have.
A known fact with MPD. I have no friend with MPD and sincerely hope I never do.
Stitch: t'was frightening
Guilt-trip a little.

If you know who I'm on about, I am no longer talking to him. Tell him I have cast all ties etc, tell him I've done a runner with a Spanish lover - if it's creative, all the better, be my guest.

Orgy - Opticon - "Let's fake an answer for the curious, let's fake it all for the fame. They'll think delivering was easy, living the fairytales and the lies... guess what you're out of time."

Divenire

I felt alive tonight.

I went and saw a particular band down at the Joiners in Southampton. Put up with a lot, paid a lot to get there.

Arrived in Southampton around 5 and met up with a few people, drank with a few friends.

They played "Goodbye", a song I have waited years to hear live. And just before, someone amazing reached past the people in the row in front and grabbed my hand for a few seconds. Not the Problemlion's, despite all of the things he can do or all of his problems or that he was standing next to me. Not the hand of the other few hundred people there.

Quite possibly the best gig in a very long time, the best day in a very long time.

Plastic Toys - Goodbye - "I don't have to be afraid anymore."

Sirens + Wavelengths

Something of a long day. I don't know how I can clarify quite how I'm feeling. It's a mess, I'm worried and quite tired, and it's laced with a heavy anger.

- I am tired of a certain insensitive bastard who claims to have "Multiple Personality Disorder" only to have such a vast diagnosis, "reassessed" the next day and to be free of it, while pleading with me not to mention it to his parents that he is on some medication, though unable to tell me what the medication is called, what the brand is or how many mg he is on. I am tired of him criticising me and showing off like an 8 year old and also think he needs to wake up and realise that people don't like hearing about him, or how desperate he is to get laid and when he finally does, he says it "upsets" him, for the attention.

- I am waiting to hear from someone who I think the absolute world of, the only person on this planet that I trust and am on the same wavelength with. It's your choice. I am always around and always on your side and some days, there's nothing I wouldn't give to carry it for you. I wish you could see yourself how we see you, an absolute star, who I, and a lot of people need around, because there are not enough good people on this lonely planet.

- Every night I work the DIY store, it's so mind-numbingly boring that I must lose at least 10 IQ points. I lift heavy shit and open cardboard boxes with a plastic safety knife, I deal with smelly old people looking for gardening things and equally smelly fortysomething year old men in the trades. £4.40 an hour.

- I am living on excuses. I'm missing something important. Some kind of focus.

Every passing second seems to rip another little bit of me away, right from the heavydeadweight in my chest - apparently this is normal.

Dag Hammarskjold - "Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for."

Joy Division - In A Lonely Place - "Body that curls in and dies, and shares that awful daylight, warm like a dog round your feet, how I wish you were here with me now."

The Downward Spiral

I happened to be listening to Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral" today. The album itself is genius.

Quite genius, not really something I listen to in a bad mood too often, it has a way of getting inside your head. "Curse our chemical imbalances!" as one friend says.

Nine Inch Nails - Every Day Is Exactly The Same - "I can’t remember how this got started, but I can tell you exactly how it will end".