And he hungers in his secret dreams

Blah blah blah

2009-10-31T00:18:50Z

1000mg Codydramol four times a day.
400mg Ibuprofen 3 times a day.
200mg Sertraline Hydrochloride once a day.
2.5mg N-something sleeping tablet once a day.

Total: 14 tablets per day.

Guess who rattles when she walks =D

TL;DR: Falling down the stairs led to bruising the base of my spine, so I'm on a lot of painkillers and anti-inflammatories, and the N-somethings are to help me get to sleep on account of OWWIE OWW OWW OWW FUCK IT HURTS making it difficult to get to sleep.

All this, and I start work on monday.

And I've signed myself up for NaNo for the first time ever.

... I'm insane.

Things have happened, here and there, but nothing that I feel like discussing in my LJ. It all boils down to the same usual stuff. Mother's insane and crap with money, stepdad oscillates between being okay and being a complete twat, sibling needs slapping around the back of the head... Same old same old.

We have mice. Well, stepdad says they're mice. Presumably they are Sellafield¹ mice and are the Godzillas of the rodent kingdom. Either that or they're rats, like I said they are, but for now I shall call them Sellafield mice, out of deference to the insistence that they are not rats.

We may get a cat to fix the problem of the "mice". For now we have laid out traps.

NaNo has me a shade nervous, but it might be nice to be able to sit down and write again. I haven't done that in a long time.

I say that now. By the middle of next week I'll be crying and wondering what in hell I was thinking.

Anyone else doing NaNo?

¹ Sellafield is the nuclear power plant with a not entirely stellar safety record in the next county over. They have a visitor's tour. I've been on it. The regional joke is that anything that is considerably larger than it should be has come from Sellafield.

chlorhexidine @ 2009-10-21T22:46:00

2009-10-21T21:55:15Z

Everybody else is gleeing about the BBS trailer and how Even is FRIGGING ADORABLE and normal looking and oh god he sounds so cute do want and then there's Dilan and Aeleus in their darling little guard uniforms with the big red heart at the throat and the double breasted and ngh.... yes pls and so on and so forth.

My glee has just been encompassed in one run on sentence and I need say no more.

Totally unrelated news: I fell down a whole flight of stairs, laptop in hand, and am currently BRUISED TO BUGGERY and even sitting down hurts. I have a bruise on my thigh the size of the span of my hand, and the whole of the small of my back is purple with it. I may have also broken a toe.

Yay me!

Aaaaaaaaaah incompetence...

2009-10-14T23:02:48Z

Criminal Records Bureau check costs about £80.

The old folk's home pay for the one they did on me. I went in today to sign the forms for a second one because the old folk's home forgot to check that I'm, y'know, safe to work with old people.

Smrt.

So that's costing them another £80, but what ticks me off is that it means I get to sit and twiddle my thumbs for another month.

I have to be at the job centre again tomorrow for a one on one interview, on account of the fact that this will mark thirteen weeks I've been signing on. Three months. That is such a depressing thought.

Counselling seems not to be happening any more. I cancelled my appointment last week because earning money was slightly more important, and asked if they could call to schedule an appointment for this week. Counselling only runs on Thursdays. I ain't had a call.

Surely I'm not that boring?

Totally unrelated: I made cookies today, again. I made chocolate crinkles yesterday and they came out brilliantly but they're so rich that nobody can eat more than a couple at once. They're also a bugger to make and my palms are bruised from them. Today I made everything cookies, which are soft cookies with toasted pecans, raisins, rolled oats, and chocolate chips in.

Holy shit they are delicious. I think I found my favouritest cookie ever.

Days is going okay so far. Or it was until I hit the Olympus Coliseum, anyway. The big green dogs in Beast's Castle can suck their moms, but they're all right so long as you're not on a solo mission. Even if I did get Xaldin killed. The little ice cubes, however, and the big ones, can fuck right off.

They can fuck off about as hard as the giant armoured fat body thing I have to smange with lightning which is the next boss I have to beat.

Also, it never ever fails to crack me up that Saix's idea of a reward for all your hard work is yet another mission. And apparently Luxord is just as bad

I also really wish this game would stop making me like Axel. I don't want to like Axel. I didn't like him in KH2, I didn't like him in CoM. Don't make me like him now. Damn it game. =|

Also also I had an "OH GOD D=" moment when Axel explains to Roxas and Xion that so long as they remember each other, they'll always be together. Nomura might be terrible at sticking to his own continuity, but damn if he can't hit you with something subtle in just the right spot, sometimes.

Finally~

2009-10-11T23:17:16Z

Stepdad's still here. I knew he would be.

So, after badgering for my references to be sent, and then badgering the place that asked for them to move their butts, I finally get to call up tomorrow to discuss a start date for work. Awesome timing because holy shit is money getting uncomfortably tight. Mother wants me to get a loan so I can buy her a car, and stepdad's van's engine is on its last legs and is on its way to the repair shop tomorrow to see what can be done about it on a very tight budget.

I, meanwhile, splurged over the weekend and bought Unseen Academicals, Crisis Core, and 358/2. I haven't read much of the former yet, because I've been playing the latter. Crisis Core can wait until I've finished both of those since I've already played it most of the way through once already.

So far, I kind of adore 358/2. It has its issues. The panels are fine, even if being able to rearrange them in the middle of a mission would be appreciated, but having to use up panel slots for level ups is... not something I want to see done again, thanks. I also take minor umbrage with being assigned missions that can't be completed to 100% capacity until I get abilities which come much further down the line.

I wasn't expecting everyone in Castle Oblivion to die so soon into the game, either. I wanted more missions with Larxene. Vexen needs to spend less time giggling to himself in a corner, too.

I like Roxas. I didn't give a toss one way or the other about him in KH2, but I like him in this. I like Xion as well. The whole thing between Axel and Saix gives me glee, too, because they have such a dysfunctional, bitchy relationship, but up to a point it sort of works for them. Demyx is absolutely adorable, and Xigbar is quickly making his way into the upper echelons of my favourite characters list. I'd be tempted to take him to TST, if I went back, actually.

Gameplay wise there's the usual tediousness. I don't think they can make an iteration of a KH game that doesn't feature some part that makes you go AAAAUUUUGH and want to fling the console. So far, however, the fun outweighs the tedious.

I'm at day seventy something right now, and have just been lumbered with carrying Xion's dead weight around on missions because she can't use the keyblade. This bit, I'm not looking forward to. Something about being set missions twice as hard since there's two of us makes me lineface.

We shall see. The fact that I'm enjoying it enough to play it instead of reading my new Terry Pratchett book says a lot.

6.31 am and going to work...

2009-10-08T05:45:38Z

OH DEAR GOD WHAT IS THIS

IT'S STILL DARK OUTSIDE

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Oy redux

2009-10-05T09:51:00Z

Family drama seems never ending when the sibling's around. It's kinda like those brief times I came home from uni, except now it's all out of the blue. Back then I knew it was coming because I was coming home.

So, there's this drama about mother and the sibling and the sibling's girlfriend, and I generally don't get involved except to lament with the sibling how mother is kinda nuts and try to get mother to understand that an on-again-off-again-sorta-relationship between the sibling and this girl she hates isn't going to last for the long term unless she keeps acting nuts and pushes them closer together.

Last night the sibling takes on the task of driving seven hours home. Seven hours due to traffic. Usually it's four or five. Anyway... He sets off on this journey so he can pick up his laptop, which is here. He phones us at about five when he's stuck in traffic and coming off at a service station to get a really late lunch, and he should only be about three hours away.

Half past nine at night, there's still no sign of him. Mother's starting to get worried, and stepdad's starting to get annoyed because they both roll off to bed at about ten and at this rate they're going to be kept up by him.

So they phone him, and he answers...

...and he's at his girlfriend's. Hadn't thought to call, or to come and pick up his laptop first and then go and see his girlfriend.

Thoughtless, yes, and the kind of thing you smack him upside the head for at that hour of night, but because it's his girlfriend it gets blown way out of proportion.

Mother gets upset. Stepdad gets pissed. When the sibling then knocks on the door ten minutes later, stepdad proceeds to get up, and storm out of the living room, slamming doors on his way to bed. Sibling picks up a laptop and has to come back ten minutes later because it was the wrong one.

Meanwhile, mother and stepdad get into an argument where stepdad says that the sibling is not allowed in the house while he's here. Mother, contrary to her approach to the children vs. then-husband-in-potentia five years ago, thinks this is out of order, and will of course stand by her son no matter how much of a dickhead he is.

Five years ago she decided very much the opposite, incidentally, and four years ago she kicked me out and left me homeless for a while, which, oddly enough, I'm still kinda pissed off about even if it never comes up any more. Things like this are why the sibling refuses to get along with stepdad, and at times like this, I don't blame him.

Last night I could hear them talking, or arguing, anyway. Stepdad says he's leaving at the end of the week. Mother sent me a text message with that news half an hour ago and I'm just... sick of it, really. If he was actually leaving, he'd actually leave, not issue threats and ultimatums, and then give a timeline for his departure.

Oy...

2009-09-25T22:57:06Z

Been a while since the last update. A lot's happened, and at the same time, nothing much has happened.

I've been offered a job, but I'm sitting and twiddling my thumbs waiting for my Criminal Records check to come back and my references to come through before I can start. That would have taken a lot less time if the place offering me a job hadn't posted the requests for them in the midst of postal strikes. I'm on to my second week of thumb twiddling, now.

I started the therapy sessions. They're... yeah. Exhausting, mostly, and intensely awkward. Conversation keeps getting stuck on the university thing which is a bit frustrating. "Why didn't anyone at the university notice?" How am I supposed to answer that? Because the truth is that I was an asocial git that didn't speak to anyone or want anything to do with them anyway so there was no one to notice. The quiet one you've never spoken to face to face is not going to stand out in a class of two hundred, you know? I think this is all based on the idea that I'm halfway normal and actually know people irl who don't live a hundred miles away.

In an effort to give me something to do that isn't sitting around twiddling my thumbs and to stop me getting bored, my parents bought me a crapload of baking supplies. I've made a buttload of cookies so far, which have all been delicious, and two cakes. The chocolate cake was okay, but the sponge was a bit dry. I made a blueberry streusel cake today which was gorgeous, really light and moist with a crunchy topping over the blueberries. I have enough blueberries left to make another one, fortunately. The difference may lie in the fact that I bought a whisk for the blueberry cake whereas before I was just using a wooden spoon, which was really hard work.

I'm kind of enjoying it, as you might be able to tell. I get to indulge my sweet tooth and avoid watching the horrible soap operas my parents are obsessed with, so it's win-win.

On the lose-lose and FAIL ON ALL SIDES front, the sibling is back in England, and it's already causing drama. He hasn't even set foot through the door yet. He's been in Afghanistan for six months, and the poor bastard is going to come back to another warzone. It's one of those six of one, half a dozen of the other situations, though.

See, a while ago, he and his girlfriend split up. Messily. On facebook. And his girlfriend posted all sorts of things there about him, except the clever girl happens to have all his family friended on it, too. Including my mother, aunt, and grandmother. They act like family do and my grandmother has a go for her effing and jeffing which is desperately unladylike, and my mother, of course, white knights for her darling son who is off fighting for this country in a terrible war and how dare you say these things about one of our majesty's soldiers and blah blah my mother is a melodramatic nutter blah.

Naturally, the ex-girlfriend doesn't take kindly to having her ex's family rally around and have a go at her on facebook and it basically develops into a big wanky flamewar between them complete with defriendings, and it would be HILARIOUS if it wasn't for the fact that it is now all coming offline and into the living room.

You see, she had a go saying that my mother was never supportive of my brother (half true), that he isn't the angel she paints him as (entirely true), and that she was going to get her mother/friends to come round here and sort my mother out (lol).

The sibling has now got back with her. Family have made it perfectly clear that she is not welcome to darken their doorsteps. It would be a situation where everyone would get along fine if they just never mentioned each other and never saw each other again, which isn't that hard to affect, really.

But the sibling landed back in this country today, and he got turfed out of barracks at quarter to four this afternoon, and he'd promised he'd phone mother as soon as he was ready to come home, as soon as they let him go.

At quarter past nine tonight, after still no phone call, mother phones him to make sure he's okay.

It turns out, he was less than an hour away. He hadn't bothered to phone his mother, but he had phoned his girlfriend, and he was going to drop all his kit at our house and then go round to hers for the night.

Perhaps understandably this did not go over well. It was my turn to get a phone call then, and my mother was drunk, and rambling, and explained the story twice, and you could tell how cut up she was about it. On account of the fact that even though I'm the bugger on pills and in therapy I still feel like the only sane and rational one in this family, I then tried to get hold of my brother to warn him not to come home because the poor sod just got back from Afghanistan and what he does not need the moment he steps through the door is to get yelled at by mother and stepdad for calling his girlfriend instead of his mum.

I ended up having to send a text message and basically lined it out for him that mother'd been drinking and was upset, and if I were him, I'd either go to his girlfriend's or come here, but I wouldn't attempt both tonight.

Perhaps wisely, he seems to have opted to head to his girlfriend's. Unfortunately, this has resulted in mother's mood getting worse, but it would have got worse anyway if he'd come here because even if he hadn't gone on to his girlfriend's afterwards he'd have still ended up with a guilt trip and an earful, and probably storming out feeling unwelcome in his own home.

It's self inflicted, because he could have saved himself all of it with one phone call. But at the same time, the fact of mother exacerbates the situation because she can never ever calm down and act rationally. If he came home she wouldn't smile and hug him, and thank him for not being a dickweed and then talk it through in the morning after everyone's slept, instead she'd take the huff with him, have a go, have a temper tantrum, and have stepdad backing her up the whole way. He made a mistake, through sheer thoughtlessness - or more specifically, thinking with his cock instead of his brain - but mother is the type who can't accept trying to fix it after the fact.

And I can understand, I really can. You worry about your son for six months knowing he's being shot at, and out scouting for explosives planted by people that are trying to kill him, and when he lands back on home soil he doesn't even bother to give you a phone call? It's pretty fucking low, man. But if the issue wasn't him getting back with his girlfriend and the fact that mother is competing with her for his affections, and that's something she's brought on herself because of the way she reacted to a bitter teenage just-broke-up rant on a social networking site, then I doubt she'd have taken it quite this badly.

So like I said, six of one and half a dozen of the other. And I get to be stuck in the middle. JOY.

On an unrelated note, my computer is a bum and keeps farting its innards out. Twice this week it's gone kaput for no apparent reason. Once my wireless aerial turned itself off and wouldn't turn on again, and once half of my antivirus software got disabled and wouldn't enable. I had to uninstall-reinstall my antivirus, but for the wireless I had to restore my computer to a previous setting. It was like it just... didn't exist. The manual on/off button didn't work, and there was no trace whatsoever of there ever having been a wireless connection on this computer.

But I can't find any viruses on it. The error message it comes up with when it farts so spectacularly is the same as the one I was getting way back in November last year when the computer just went kaput completely.

I'm kinda worried.

Long entry is long. Sorry flist. P.S. You all just lost the game.

Memes

2009-08-12T16:50:51Z

Write 10 confessions that you want to make to 10 people, but won't. Then tag 10 people (except not because lol).

1. It's hard to believe you're that young. I wish we talked more, and a lot of it is because I don't start talking to you. My bad. I think you worry too much, you're smart, and funny, and interesting, and so mature for your age. I just wish I could keep the promises I made.

2. I like you, but you can really annoy the shit out of me without ever trying. I never call you on it, I know it's not deliberate, we just don't gel as well as it seems. I wonder if that's all one sided and you ever realise.

3. We have a lot of our ups and downs, and we don't always see eye to eye on a lot of things, but in the end that never seems to matter because we remain friends. I'm glad of that. I know I can be a complete dick, and you can be the same, but I think I'd be completely insane by now if I didn't have you around.

4. You're a two-faced, passive aggressive whore and your problems are self inflicted. I want nothing to do with you ever again.

5. We don't talk as much any more. I suppose it's only to be expected. You feel more and more like a stranger. At least we still have some contact.

6. Even when we're just sitting online sending the odd little emoticon, I'm happy. You don't have to keep me entertained all the time to keep me sticking around. We've fought, and I've usually hurt you more than you've hurt me, and I'm always sorry. Just don't forget that you matter to me.

7. You're amazing, and fun to know. I always wished you'd be around more, but you have commitments. Since everything changed, it's talking to you, and playing with you for hours on end that I miss the most.

8. You're adorable. Dumb as a box of rocks, but adorable. I wish you'd come and talk to me, or anyone, when you're having problems. I hope everything goes all right for you and whatever's wrong doesn't last.

9. We don't talk much, but I always have fun when we do. Even if just the thought of you makes me lose the game.

10. I'm wary of you. I like you, but I don't trust you. It's not often that I can't get a decent handle on someone's personality, and behaviour, and intentions, but you give me mixed messages. You seem nice enough, but there is real potential there for you to turn out to be a complete wanker.

Five Things Meme:

1. Give me a character, a pairing, fandom, or 'canon' (if applicable-- like RP, or ficverse). If all you want is originals, just say so too.
2. Give me a prompt in the form of a title to a list of five things, such as 'Five Things that Vexen Will Never Admit Turn Him On,' 'Five Things that Larsa Ferrinas Solidor Pretends Never Happened,' or even more generic like 'Five Fantasy Novels You've Always Wanted to Write But Never Will.'

Adventures in cleaning....

2009-08-11T13:11:55Z

When I woke up this morning the world was white. The fog was so thick that walking out in it made you damp, even though it wasn't technically drizzling. It lifted after a couple of hours, but that was weird. I live up in the hills, but usually a little too low for low cloud to be an issue.

Good things arrived in the post today, too. For one thing, I have an interview on the 18th, and for another thing, Kytha's package finally arrived.

I've spent most of today attacking the kitchen. Mother wanted me to rearrange it, because spacial awareness is something she and stepdad fail at and they have the most retarded storage system EVER with the dishes, pots, food, and so on. It's all over the place. She has bowls stacked next to mugs, on the opposite side of the kitchen to the glasses which share a cupboard with cakes and biscuits and medical stuff, which is again on the opposite side of the kitchen to the plates, which are currently stacked in order of size under a couple of fruit bowls. Just getting everything together to make dinner is an exercise regime with the walking and stretching and lifting.

So she asked me to rearrange it all, and to clear out the fridge because they keep buying shit, and not eating it, and stepdad won't eat as much as a slice of bread that's two minutes past the date on the packaging, and then they don't throw it away.

But I'm having to defrost the freezer as well because in parts the ice in that is three inches thick and it's hit the point where I can't actually get in to any of the drawers without a fight and a hammer. There's more ice in my freezer than there is at the South Pole.

Which means that the kitchen is currently under a centimetre of water as that melts away. I've got everything out and safely stored, and bowls of boiling water in place to help it all melt faster. But it's going to be slow going because, like I said, three inches thick ice. I'm going to be attacking it with a hammer and scraper again in a bit.

Blaaaaaaah

2009-08-03T21:58:28Z

Interesting few days.

First of all, Scamp's body has been dug up and probably eaten. The place they buried her is apparently on the doorstep of a fox, and they knew this in advance, and now where Scamp had been buried there's a foot deep hole in the ground that looks like it's been there a few weeks but definitely wasn't there when I first got back home and went to see where she'd been buried, so....

Circle of life and all that stuff, but seriously now, who buries their pet where they know there are scavengers?

Although I suppose my doubts about them having actually buried her were wrong.

Mother and stepdad go away tomorrow in the early morning. I'm being woken up to wave them off, so I won't be around for long after posting this, but they're off for two weeks on a very expensive holiday they can't afford.

Mother's talking about borrowing money off me and the sibling when he gets back from Afghanistan to buy a car for herself, because she now can't afford one. But she can afford a two thousand pound holiday to the Dominican Republic to play golf. Yeah...

I now have three relatives down with swine flu, too. Best excuse EVER not to go visiting that lot for the next couple of weeks.

Deadline for university appeal is this friday.

Thursday I should get a call scheduling my first counselling session.

Also: Words Meme. Ask, and I'll give you five I associate with you.

Words obtained from carnifex_atrox

Freckles: I have them? Actually, I have a brand new one on my toe that I found today. How I got a freckle there I do not know; my feet never ever see sunlight. They're also kind of adorable on just the right geek. Pale skin and freckly cheeks are the sort of thing every evil mastermind should have, because girls like me will be too busy going "D'awwwwwwwwww but he's so adorable!" to believe they're evil.

Puppy: ... Saix reference. That's probably enough said. These days, it doesn't only apply to Saix, though. The version of him I play with carnifex_atrox has Galian Beast as his Limit Break, and as such, will forever be a puppy, but these days it also applies to any brown nosing bootlicks. Such as Ulquiorra, who despite being a batty, is a puppy. It helps that you can almost see their tails wagging when their respective high-throned bosses praise them. I have a weird attraction to that kind of character, especially when their loyalty might not be as clear cut as it appears.

Farts: I am a classy, classy lady. I fart while I sleep, I also fart late in the evening and early in the morning, and aside from the kind that can rip through the mattress, I can also do the quiet kind that you don't realise have happened until someone gags. I still say the best ever was when I was staying over at Jim's place and was sleeping on the floor. Jim was in the bunk above, and the smell rose. I almost killed my best mate that night.

I still laugh about it now. I am twenty four, terribly British, and female, but farts are still funny. Some parts of me will be twelve forever.

Food Poisoning: Three times in one year I gave it to myself. I have this chronic problem where cooking is concerned that in the attempt to not burn things to a crisp, I jump the gun a little with taking them out, which then makes me ill. It's now got so bad that I'm basically barred from cooking for more people than myself because other people will get ill where I won't because I'm used to it. That said, when I get things right, I'm not actually bad. I just don't get them right all that often.

Apachehairz: Blunt cut, very straight, nothing fancy, easy to handle, somewhere between neck and shoulders. When my hair isn't making for my waist with alarming speed, that's generally the length and style I keep it. I like my hair low maintenance and out of the way, and have had it cut like that on and off since I was nine. This also happens to be the preferred style of Apache from Bleach, the only difference is that I no longer dye my hair black, and don't keep a fringe.

Memes

2009-07-27T00:29:37Z

• Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.
• NO CAPTIONS!!! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.
• They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.
• You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

Ask any of my characters a question, and they will be forced to answer truthfully.

It can be anything awkward, obvious, personal, something you've always been curious about.

Feel free to ask any character past or present.

Money management skills are not inherited

2009-07-23T22:34:55Z

I don't think I've stopped moving for the last two days. I'm knackered.

Bought a few odds and ends today, like new pyjamas since my thin ones have got some permanent stains on them, now. And a laundry basket for a quid since the alternative was getting yelled at for leaving my dirty clothes on the floor.

Mother, on the other hand, has bought a holiday to the Dominican Republic, and a new car.

She has companies getting on at her nigh constantly saying that they need the money she owes them but two grand on a holiday is far more important.

I was going to have to suffer my grandmother's company tomorrow, but that has fortunately now been called off. Because my aunt has swine flu, so all sections of the family with asthma, or in Granddad's case, one working lung AND asthma, have agreed to steer clear of each other for a while.

Suits me.

In completely unrelated news, my wisdom teeth are coming through again at the top, so all my back teeth feel loose. I realise that as far as wisdom teeth problems go, I am unbelievably lucky, but chewing food like this really hurts.

chlorhexidine @ 2009-07-21T22:42:00

2009-07-21T21:53:52Z

The How's My Driving? Meme

I have things I could say, but no get up and go to say them. I've just had to tell my mother to knock it off with sending me question after question after question so I can text her back the answers so she can cheat on the pub quiz. It's extremely annoying, and sort of stressful, to have questions coming in faster than you can type out the answers. Especially when it's three questions at once.

There's other stuff but I'm knackered.

Doctor's visit result...

2009-07-20T15:54:20Z

Sertraline Hydrochloride.

Better known as Zoloft.

I go back in two weeks to decide if counselling will be of benefit, too.

LOL

2009-07-17T14:03:28Z

My mother has some seriously unrealistic expectations.

I'm looking for a job, and it's not easy because there are like, NO jobs in this area. Seriously, almost every job I could do have the addendum "Must have use of own car and full driving licence". This is because most of them are door to door canvassing or catalogue delivery.

So, mother comes home with a big catalogue of Manchester City Council jobs, which she gets because she works in a school, and they advertise the school jobs in there as well. And she's marked out a couple for me to apply for.

I own no car. I cannot drive. I used to have a motorbike, but I sold it, and my licence has expired now anyway, so I am permanently on public transport. The job centre say I have to be prepared to travel for an hour by bus to a job, but anything outside of that, especially full time hours, inevitably makes travel difficult, especially with early morning starts.

So, mother comes home with this catalogue, and the jobs circled are in Blackley Village, and I'm going "Where the eff is that?" Because I've never been there before, or, in fact, heard of it.

So I look it up on google maps.

Here's the town where I live, circled in red.

Here's where the job is.

Okay, it's not looking that far, as the crow flies. Only a few miles.

Except for a couple of things.

My actual address is off the top of the map there. I couldn't fit it and Manchester in to the same shot without losing the detail to show where I was going.
I'm stuck on public transport, and the busses from here all go this way.

That journey alone takes just over an hour. Whenever I have to be in Manchester for a certain time, I have to give it an hour and a half. Simply into Oldham from here is a ten to fifteen minute journey, or forty minutes in rush hour. And that's once you actually get on the bus. Busses here are expensive, and the claim of "one every ten minutes" is more like "You'll see one every ten minutes but it won't necessarily be yours, or going in the right direction."

Working in Manchester isn't that unreasonable. But that's not where this job is...

I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'D GO FROM THERE.

This, before we get to the whole bit where mother expects me to be able to get a flat of my own, on my own, IN MANCHESTER, BIGGEST CITY IN THE NORTH, WITH PRICES TO REFLECT IT, on a <£15k salary per year.

Because OF COURSE I want to stay living up here, despite the eleven million times I've told her otherwise. =|

To go to that job, I'd HAVE to move to a flat near it. The best bit?

THAT'S FUCKING CRUMPSALL. IT'S A SHITHOLE.

I mean, I grew up in a shithole. You see Moston marked on those maps? That's where I grew up. I'd like not to live in one again, thanks.

I've now got to decide whether it's worth applying for it at all, just to shut mother up. Because she will whine and bitch if I don't, even though she's asking me to go above and beyond what the government considers to be the call of duty on this one. Not to mention what I consider to be beyond my own breaking point, because I've travelled those distances to a job before and I lasted THREE DAYS.

The start date on this one isn't even until the middle of October. Someone's optimistic about my odds of getting back into Uni, huh?

EDIT:

OH. OH. IT GETS BETTER.

I pointed out the travel issue to mother and she goes and inputs the journey into a route finder from the bus company. She sets it so I have forty five minute walks on both ends of the journey, and then goes "Look, see, it's only an hour and a half, and it's just two busses."

STEPDAD goes one better and says "No, just get the bus into Manchester and then a tram to the hospital, and walk the rest of the way." Which would take even longer. And then he says I have to use the money I'm putting away to MOVE THE FUCK AWAY FROM HERE for driving lessons.

Which still wouldn't solve the problem of my NOT HAVING A FUCKING CAR.

Now the school year has ended, so mother's not working any more. It'll get worse from here on out.

Stuff

2009-07-15T21:42:38Z

After witnessing the way my mother pulled the martyr card on my brother's behalf on his ex-girlfriend's facebook, I find myself glad that she isn't aware of fandom. I'm not sure I'd want to be related to a fandom wank all star.

ANYWAY.

I applied for two jobs today only to get back the immediate response that applications are now closed due to the volume received. The unemployment rate in the country just hit 2.4 million people, out of the 37 million of working age (approximately, going by the figures of the last census). I'm starting to wonder if half of those live locally. =|

Yeah, yeah, I know. I've only been looking for just over a week, but still... There is nothing. And my mother's started the usual bitching about how I need a full time job, not part time, so that I can pay her fifty a week in rent. She wants half my jobseekers every week off me as it is.

The shop I told to sod off last time got back on to me again, this time offering to let me restock their shelves for ten hours a week at the local branch, at a fiver an hour. Funnily enough, I said no.

I spent most of today rifling through my neatly packed crap for the disc with the drivers for my printer so I could print off application forms, only to find, after three hours and a totally trashed room, that the ink in the printer was dead anyway. The really funny bit came when I looked online for the price of ink cartridges to find that they'd cost more than buying a new printer and cartridges of another make. Since my printer is a cheap piece of shit that my grandmother picked up for a tenner, and which my computer insists doesn't actually exist half the time, just getting a new one is a tempting option.

I still need to make that doctor's appointment.

That said, fangirling now ensues.

Okay, so, first the nitpicks:

Pls to be drawing his scar straight
His ears are pointed
And they're pierced

You sort of missed.

Really.

On the other hand, Saix having a bad day due to failing technology (they have a tracking device on Axel. SOMEHOW. I don't know.), running into a gobshite like Seifer, and the result being this:

Okay, fine. That's funny.

And sometimes he's dreadfully pretty. As he should be, because... Saix is pretty.

...

I NEED AN ICON OF THAT LIKE BURNING. HOLY SHIT HIS BERSERK FACE IS AWESOME.

... He even has fangs...

Axel gets the shit kicked out of him, which makes me happy because I'm mean. It also kind of fills in that gap of "And how did Saix get Kairi off Axel?" It didn't involve Axel running like a pussy, put it that way. And this happens before Saix meets Sora in Hollow Bastion. Not long before, either. Somebody recovers fast.

Also, this cracked me up:

Oh hi there creepy anorexic stalker Vexen!clone number I-Don't-Know. Why are you following Saix?

The other clone was so much prettier.

Forgive the image dumping; I had to share my glee. It's not the same without context. Just picture me with my hands to my mouth and big shoujo eyes at the above and you've about got it.

HOLY SHIT

2009-07-14T14:36:12Z

Aaaaaaaaargh, internet...

Okay, take it from the top.

Saturday, I leave university, I get home, aaaand the parents have had the internet cut off for non-payment of bills. Being the addict I am, I said "How much is it?" and it's about seventy quid, so we got the phone and I handed over my card, and paid the bill for them.

It's at this point that I feel like pointing out that when a man is paying for something over the phone with a debit card in the name of a "Miss [entirely different surname]", you'd THINK it would be standard procedure to, I dunno... ask if the card holder is present and can come to the phone to confirm that it's them? Just, you know... something that's giving a vague nod towards security.

They didn't. They still didn't the second time, either, when, with the TV back on, we phoned up to ask why the internet wasn't, and it was because the contract had been cancelled since they, you know, hadn't paid the bill. So it was a thirty quid reconnection fee, too.

So then we got to sit in for the ten day wait to be reconnected.

Sunday has The Laying Of The Ground Rules. These include "No laptops in any room stepdad is watching TV in", "you will consider 8 am a lie in from now on", "we expect you to hoover, sweep, and dust the house in your spare time", and my personal favourite, "get a job, I don't care that your stepdad is turning jobs away because he doesn't like them, you won't."

And the unspoken rule, "Expect to have me get on at you to join the army about three times a week." More on THAT later.

Monday comes, I go to the job centre and sign on. Bus fare for the ten minute journey into the town centre? £4 a day. Every day. Tuesday I get away with it, Wednesday I have another appointment re: signing on, Thursday, same again. Friday comes and I get a call from mother.

She asks me if I fancy working in a school uniform shop, just over the summer, for £200 a week, cash in hand. Since I'm neither stupid nor insane, I say "Hell yes." The offer is forty hours a week, Sundays and Wednesdays off, so it works out at less than minimum wage, but it's still good money. I go down to have a sort of informal interview, and get told to start Saturday.

Saturday comes. I work eight hours. It isn't a hard job, but I don't know the stock. It's been eight years since I went to school, and three since I really lived in the area. There are forty different uniforms to learn.

End of the day I get paid... £35. Which is short on what I should have been paid for two hundred over five days, but whatever. They want me doing three days the next week, but they don't know which days, so they'll ring me.

Sunday, no call, but there is Grandmother's visit where it's revealed that I'm now going back to University to study history, AND joining the army, AND solving world hunger all at the same time. It's amazingly difficult to reply to "Weren't you thinking of joining the army?" with "No, my mother thinks that one child with PTSD and getting shot at in a foreign country isn't enough; she wants a second one." Or to be much more truthful, "The army has never been my idea and I don't want it." Especially when my mother's sitting there.

I had to point out the fatal flaw of this whole going back to University to do a different course, though. No University is going to take me for a different course after just failing one. Certainly not without re-doing A-Levels. Short of appealing to Lancaster and winning, University is now Categorically Not An Option, okay?

I'm not sure my mother quite understands that, though.

Monday, I'm running errands to post the sibling's birthday packages to him and stop in the shop asking if they know when I'm working next. I'm assured I will be called. I go to the job centre again to tell them I have work but it's currently patchy and unpredictable, and it's only temporary.

About ten minutes after I'd visited the shop, I get a call from my mother. They had phoned her to say they didn't want me working in that shop but, I could travel twenty miles to this other shop they have, and earn less than minimum wage for sixteen hours a week, to 'train in retail' and then I wouldn't be sure of a job with them at the end of it.

So I pretty much told them to stuff it, or at least, told my mother to tell them to stuff it.

I am twenty four years old, man, I ain't working for some twat that phones my mum to make my working arrangements, especially when he's just seen me face to face. That's before we get to all the other issues, such as the fact that I have years of retail experience already.

I get home after all of this has gone down, jobless again after the week had been looking quite bright, and find a letter from Lancaster University for me.

It summed up as "Since you're not being awarded a degree, we're not giving you your results." I have until the seventh of August to put in to appeal, and I'm currently... dithering. There are things I want to consider.

Monday evening comes along and we make a visit to the supermarket for a few odds and ends. On the way back, the Army comes up again. Mother still think it's the best thing for me. Now, at some point earlier in the week, I had The Conversation with mother regarding the army as an option, and about details like the number of female recruits who get raped by their own comrades, the institutionalised violence, and mental abuse, that kind of thing. So, this coming up again was a bit... "What?"

What do I have to say to get her to drop the idea, you know?

But it's okay, because according to my mother, all those women in the army who get raped must have been cockteases, or drunk. They probably went out drinking and screwing around, and that's why the conviction rates are so low. Because if you've slept with someone consensually, recently, it makes rape hard to prove, so stay a virgin and you're safe. I'll be fine because I dress conservatively, don't drink, and happen to, yes, be a virgin.

I called her on victim blaming, and she said "I'm not saying it's right, but that's how people think about it." Especially the army, man's world that it is.

I'm sure the world at large is happy to know that my mother has solved an age old problem and can definitively say that rape, especially in the Armed Forces, is about sex, and not that thing we've all thought it was about, which is power. Especially in the Armed Forces where recruits have no power, and in the mindset where Violence Is A-Okay that the army goes out of its way to instil, it leaves soldiers capable of things like, you know... TORTURE AND THE SYSTEMATIC RAPE OF CAPTIVES and far, far too often, the women on their own side, too.

But, you know, my mother has a Bachelor's in Sociology, so She's Right.

It kind of hit the point where I just ended up staring and mother got defensive and then there was that "I cannot believe I just heard you say that" awkward silence afterwards until we got home.

Today, I have been to the job centre again, and now THE INTERNET IS BACK. Awesome. I have catching up to do and then I'll be fangirling like crazy at some things, so expect that post soon.

chlorhexidine @ 2009-06-25T23:12:00

2009-06-25T22:15:27Z

Dear god, I think the internet exploded.

Apparently Michael Jackson is dead AND EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD IS TRYING TO FIND OUT IF IT'S TRUE OR NOT.

Cardiac arrest. The BBC and most news sources say they don't know if he's dead. TMZ, whatever the hell that is, says he is. The reuters article, once it loads, is just saying TMZ say he is.

LJ KEEPS BEING A SOD AND GOING DOWN FOR ME.

Edit: Now everyone's picking up on the "He's dead", so... he's probably dead.

Put it this way, if he's not, there's a lot of egg on a hell of a lot of faces.

chlorhexidine @ 2009-06-21T23:32:00

2009-06-21T22:55:17Z

The How's My Driving? Meme

Why do they always make the font for those things obnoxiously huge?

Still not sure where I'm standing with Larxene at TST. Actually, that's mostly a lie. Mostly, I'm not sure where I'm standing with TST in general. Larxene... I'm going to finish this one log, and then see, but in all likelihood, I'm going to drop her. She's turning out to be the kind of character I don't really enjoy in a public setting.

On the whole, TST hasn't turned out to be as interesting as it looks on the outside, either. Maybe I'm just really not suited to log based LJ games. I generally don't like moving on to the next thing until I know how something else ended, and TST, is log based, but real time, which leads to weeks of inaction and plots dragging on long enough for me to get thoroughly bored of them.

It's a shame, because most of the people there are really nice, and I enjoy playing with them, but... I think I'd have a better attention span with mostly journals and the odd log than I do with this at the moment. =/

Memes

2009-06-15T21:36:17Z

Okay, so... Scamp aside, today hasn't been too bad. My late rent payment has gone through, finally, which means I'm living back in my overdraft again at the moment. I wouldn't be if my mother didn't owe me £500, but you know... It's how it goes.

I'm cacking myself about a TST app. Again. I half wonder if I should not write about apping characters to TST here, on account of the fact that last time went almost hilariously with the waiting. It's Saix, again, and I've asked for him on a ship where he might be turned away by the Captain and I know I'm running that risk, but I really want him on that one, if possible. It makes more plotty sense for him to be on that one.

I also still find making him a yennork amusing as hell, even though I was never one for the werewolf!Saix thing.

The people in the room directly above me are having very bouncy, noisy sex.

On to the memes.

If you're on my F-list, even if I never clicked with you, or if we never speak or if I already know everything about you, fill this out. If you wanna. I won't hate you if you don't. B]

1. Your Name:
2. Age:
3. Single or Taken:
4. Favourite Film:
5. Favourite Song or Album:
6. Favourite Band/Artist:
7. Dirty or Clean:
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:
9. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
10. What's your philosophy on life?
11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty?
12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?
13. What is your favourite memory of us?
14. What is your favourite guilty pleasure?
15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
16. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the 'world peace etc' malarkey) - what are they?
17. Can we get together and make a cake?
18. Which country is your spiritual home?
19. What is your big weakness?
20. Do you think I'm a good person?
21. What was your best/favourite subject at school?
22. Describe your accent:
23. If you could change anything about me, would you?
24. What do you wear to sleep?
25. Trousers or skirts?
26. Cigarettes or alcohol?
27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? (If you have no idea, just say something crazy, it'll entertain me!)
28. Will you repost this so I can fill it out for you?

MUSIC MANIA MEME
1. Put your music player (iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc etc etc) on shuffle.
2. For the first twenty-five songs that come up- and no cheating!- post the first line of the song.
3. If the title of the song comes up in the line, you have two options: you may replace the title with (song title here) or, if that would make it too obvious, you may skip the song. This is the only time you should skip a song! Skipping embarrassing 90s pop songs takes the fun out of it, guys.
4. Let your friends guess who sang which song - not the title! When it's guessed, cross it out and credit if you like.

(First three attempts: Two instrumentals, one audio book, and if media player got its way, ALL OF THIS EVER WOULD HAVE BEEN LACUNA COIL, jesus christ. I took liberties to start skipping those. =| This went well.)

1. I don't know if I can yell any louder, how many times have I kicked you out of here? Pink - carnifex_atrox
2. Dirty little secret, dirty little lies.
3. This is for the people they want you. Marilyn Manson - carnifex_atrox
4. Today I'm dirty, I want to be pretty. Marilyn Manson - carnifex_atrox
5. Something about you that makes me feel bad.
6. We are damned, we are dead. Marilyn Manson - carnifex_atrox
7. I lay, looking in my hands, searching in these lines.
8. What? Damn, you're right; dare is about obsession.
9. Got a crush on a pretty pistol Marilyn Manson - carnifex_atrox
10. Close your eyes, don't you feel the rejection baby?
11. I got a key to open all the gates I see
12. Paranoia, in which I think that I'm not confident
13. I try to make it through my life, in my way, there's you. Apocalyptica - carnifex_atrox
14. I like your pants around your feet, I like the dirt that's on your knees Nickelback - carnifex_atrox
15. Maybe it's intuition, some things you just don't question Savage Garden - carnifex_atrox & malemiko
16. We're on a bullet and we're headed straight into God Marilyn Manson - carnifex_atrox
17. The more things change, the more things change Dope - carnifex_atrox
18. Sometimes you don't understand, sometimes I am what I am Dope - carnifex_atrox
19. Where have you gone, my love, my friend Vast - kytha
20. The surface is so cold and worthless, all the things that I have still come from there American Headcharge - carnifex_atrox
21. (O fortuna, deus luna) Turn around, and smell what you don't see
22. (Song title) for me to step into your mind
23. For the pain and the sorrow caused by my mistakes Within Temptation - carnifex_atrox
24. Look into the other's eyes, many frustrations
25. Help, I have done it again

chlorhexidine @ 2009-06-15T16:53:00

2009-06-15T15:54:05Z

Scamp died today.

chlorhexidine @ 2009-06-09T21:28:00

2009-06-09T20:42:13Z

Sunday night... crud sleep.

Monday... I made the mistake of reading in bed and fell asleep for nine pm. One am, I woke up, and was still tired enough to not want to get out of bed, so I didn't, and waited to fall back asleep. This happens sometimes.

Three hours later, drunk bitches wander home and one of them decides to stand outside my door yelling my name. You know when you're just settling down enough to start dozing off again and then suddenly there's a buttload of noise and you just can't settle down again?

That was me.

I got back to sleep sometime around half six, and woke up at ten because one of the porters was spot checking the vacated rooms in the flat and his radio was babbling.

._.

But it's okay, because one of the porters has said I can buy a klaxon and use it at seven am if it happens again. =D

All of that aside, sunday I managed to get out of grandmother's birthday party on a canal boat by dint of the fact that getting a train from here to there would involve sleeping rough in a train station overnight. "I don't want to" sounds so much better when you have something like that to back it up.

I'm going to sleep early tonight, and then maybe get up at a human time without being forced into it for tomorrow.

Gay Marriage... and the loony arguments against it.

2009-06-07T16:51:41Z

I don't typically do this, but some of this utter nonsense is worth sharing. Cut because omfg long.

How Gay Marriage Hurts Heterosexuals

"Amid news that gay marriage law is leading to the shutdown of church adoption services, a new gay sex curriculum in elementary schools, and same-sex marriages in New Hampshire, it’s time to offer up our newest Weekend Marriage Debate."

Whoa, whoa, whoa.... back up. Right there. Have you actually seen those articles? The one about church adoption services is a not exactly new story from this country, and it's not gay marriage that got them in trouble, it was breaking the discrimination laws that did it. Their long held stance of not giving babies to gay couples was what got them in trouble; their own prejudice was what got them in trouble, and sharing those prejudices does not change that.

The "gay sex curriculum" would be more accurately called "an anti-bullying class".

Same-sex marriage in New Hampshire is yet more progress.

So, let's get the quality of the sources out of the way before we go any further. These things they're complaining about aren't so much heralding harm to straight couples and promoting the gay agenda as they are news that England thinks discrimination is wrong, a school is trying to stop their gay pupils being bullied by educating its kids (shocker!), and we can now chalk up yet another place in the More Progressive Than California list.

Right.

On we go.

"1. Same-sex marriage law doesn’t stipulate or insinuate that adult partners are agreeing to raise children together and therefore robs married heterosexual women and their children of crucial economic protections against spousal abandonment."

No,wait, we have to stop again. I think you missed part of that sentence out. Look, "Same-sex marriage law doesn’t stipulate or insinuate that adult partners are agreeing to raise children together" in no way relates to "and therefore robs married heterosexual women and their children of crucial economic protections against spousal abandonment." What has what the gay guys and girls do got to do with protecting straight married women from having their husbands walk off on them? How does gay people being biologically unable to have children in any way affect straight people who do have them?

And I really want to know what part of "We don't have kids" effects somebody else's wallet if their husband does walk off.

This isn't even reducto ad absurdium because the argument is absurd to start with.

"2. Same-sex marriage law doesn’t stipulate that adult partners must stay together for any duration of time and therefore places spouses and children at grave economic risk of destitution should one partner grow bored and seek to exit the agreement."

You're looking at this from entirely the wrong perspective. See, same-sex marriage law is pretty much marriage law, it's just that it's being defined as between people instead of between a man and woman. Same sex marriage law isn't going to overwrite current marriage law, it's going to be exactly the same thing but for more people. That's going to include the impression that you're going to, you know, stay with the person you marry, even if you are of the same sex.

This point also seems to be under the impression that opposite sex partners currently don't get bored and wander off from marriages, abandoning spouses and children, and leaving them financially wrecked, which is a fallacious argument to begin with.

"3. Same-sex marriage law doesn’t severely penalize a spouse who tries to exit the contract and thus offers no dependable legal recourse or protections for the spouse and children now struggling to survive without the committed help of the departing spouse."

Call me crazy, but I get the distinct impression that once gay marriage is allowed, gay divorce is going to be pretty much exactly the same as straight divorce. This isn't an article about divorce, so I'm not going to spend a long time going into the problems with that institution, nor pointing out that penalising the one that files for it could often be unfair.

I still want to know how this, pertaining to gay people and their potential spouses and children, in any way affects straight people. You have problems with the institution of divorce? I don't blame you. But they're not problems caused by gay people wanting to marry.

"4. Same sex marriage law is fundamentally unequal, unfair, and unjust, for homosexuals receive equal perks from the state though they do not provide the state with an equal number citizens and related 24-7 childcare services."

So you're in favour of gay adoption. Glad we got that figured out. After all, it's not like straight couples can remain childless, or infertile women exist, is it?

"5. Same sex marriage law creates injustice in adoption services, for it institutionalizes gender discrimination and deprives children of their natural expected right have both a mother and a father."

I'm not sure where the gender discrimination comes in here. Are you suggesting that a lot of gay couples might want to adopt whereas straight couples are more likely to just stick tab A in Slot B, thus giving a whole new batch of otherwise unwanted, unloved children loving homes?

Well... yeah. And? Oh, wait, with no mother around, this is all terribly bad for them, isn't it? Except it's not. Two loving parents of any gender can give the same time, care, affection, and education, regardless of whether they're both female, both male, or one of each. Unless your issue is the lack of propagation of clearly defined gender roles, in which case you're living about thirty years in the past and need to get with it, I really don't see how this is a problem. The reason there is a "problem" with single parents is that keeping a family in order, giving time to the child, and making enough money to feed and clothe the whole family and keep a roof over their heads is something that generally requires more hours than there are in a day. It's tough work. It isn't because all children need a father and a mother, fulfilling the roles pure biology set down for them, forever, but because everyone trying to do all that on their own deserves a hand and most people are, y'know... straight.

And I still really don't see how this affects heterosexual couples.

"6. Same sex marriage law leads to gay sex indoctrination of young children in taxpayer funded public schools."

I went over this one already. It's an anti-bullying program. The school isn't allowing an opt out because it's an anti-bullying program. It doesn't matter what your views are on gay people, little Timmy is not within his rights to punch little Johnny in the face just for liking little Sammy instead of Susie. That's all the school is trying to get into their heads. Okay?

"7. Same sex marriage law marginalizes and stigmatizes religious groups and removes the right of religious charities to deliver the services required by their faith communities."

The British Catholic Adoption Scheme again. Here's the bit you might struggle to understand: The law didn't remove the right for them to serve their faith community, it told them that discrimination is in fact illegal. Refusing to allow gay married couples to adopt on account of the fact that they are gay is bad. Far be it for the English legal system to tell a church about tolerance and understanding, I know. This was more the result of people being douches, and this being a largely secular country, so that whole "but it's against our religion!" thing doesn't fly. The laws covering adoption services in this country cover them wholesale, and this group broke them, and got yelled at for it.

They marginalised and stigmatised themselves for doing it to another group of people. It does not affect all religious charities, just the ones that break actual laws. If you don't think there's something fundamentally fucked up in refusing to give a child a home because that home will have two dads, you probably shouldn't be running adoption schemes.

"8. Same sex marriage law permits self-interested spouses to leave the contract for any reason, typically at great economic harm to the faithful, socially responsible spouse."

This sounds familiar. It's that pesky divorce thing again, isn't it? I repeat: Straight people getting divorced is not the fault of gay people who want to marry. It's not. Really it's not.

"9. Once we call gay love “marriage,” we destroy marriage as a cultural ideal, rip down the staus [sic] of child bearing, and thwart the development of the culture of marriage which takes an effort to maintain."

I'm going to have to take this point in parts.

destroy marriage as a cultural ideal

Why? Because more people want to do it? Because letting all human beings commit themselves to someone they love is a bad thing? Divorce rates, unwed mothers and fathers, and the number of people who quite simply don't want to get married would probably argue against marriage being an ideal anyway. Letting more people do something isn't going to destroy its sanctity unless you view marriage as a privilege and not a right.

rip down the staus [sic] of child bearing

Status, right? See, here's the thing, two guys that get together can't bear children without some outside help. Likewise, two gals that get together can't bear children without some outside help. Gay people being able to confess their love doesn't do squat to the institution that some people have developed around that super sacred ability to have kids. That's something that still takes a man and a woman, somewhere along the line. Guys still need eggs and an incubator, and girls still need sperm from somewhere.

and thwart the development of the culture of marriage

I think you meant "take the culture of marriage in a new direction and injecting new life into a culture that has already been frittered away and de-sacralised by divorce and secularism."

Because seriously, if you're going to argue that gay people marrying is against God, you should also be arguing that straight atheists marrying is against God, too. If you argue that gay marriage will destabilise relationships because of the ease with which people can walk away, you should be looking not to prevent gay marriage but to eradicate divorce.

And see how seriously people will take you then.

"10. Same sex marriage law legally and logically opens the door for polygamy, polyandry, and any group of cohabiting individuals that requests “marriage” legal status and benefits."

I got one word for you people: Mormons. It already kinda happens, even if it's not technically legal.

That said, as far as I'm aware marriage is currently defined as being between two people and gay marriage isn't about to change that. In this country, we have cohabitation laws that would cover the rest. Wanting legal protection in the event of the dissolution of any long term relationship where financial boundaries are not clearly defined is pretty normal and sensible. If you don't want those people to marry out of convenience, then you should try and make shit more convenient for them and give them legal protection as they already stand.

And before you start, no, this would not be a viable alternative to gay marriage, because gay people aren't asking to marry out of convenience. Anything where you have to march in the streets, protest government buildings, and fight tooth and nail to get it would, by definition, be inconvenient.

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with polygamy if all involved parties are aware and agree to it, but when we're still arguing about letting two human beings who love each other get married, that's an argument that's way, way in the future.

And finally, one from the comments:

To grant homosexuals the “right” to marry, is no different than allowing misantrophic [sic] anthropomorphic bestial marriage.

You just compared human beings who do not share your sexual orientation to animals. Your opinion is invalid. If you don't see why that is, and why you are fundamentally wrong in saying that allowing two self aware, fully consenting individuals to marry is the same as allowing the sexual abuse of animals, then we can help you no further.

Drama

2009-06-06T17:52:09Z

There're things I want to say here, but I don't know how to say them. Words come all too easily when I have opinions and when I'm annoyed. It's not that ranting makes me feel better, it's that if I don't say those things somewhere, I'll have them circling around in my head for hours.

I've tended to make people cry a lot with it, lately. I don't swallow it any more, which is probably the problem. I don't want to be angry for days over something I'll be over in a few hours if I say my piece. I'd rather not resent people and things for the stupid shit they do. It's more productive to call them on it.

I'm not a nice person. I make people that I care about cry because when something matters to me, I'm both blunt and forceful, and nobody likes getting smacked in the face with a sledgehammer. It's at the point now where some topics just can't be broached without it happening. I'm not sure that taking a step away from those topics would stop the arguments.

Some things, lately, have left me feeling used and unappreciated. It's a sentiment that's been compounded more and more. The more some topics come up, the worse it gets, the blunter I am, the more I make people cry. So I withdraw further and further, to give myself less things to get angry about, so I don't hurt the people I care about so much, and it doesn't work.

I don't know what to do any more, but saying sorry is out of the question.

chlorhexidine @ 2009-05-31T23:29:00

2009-05-31T22:33:43Z

Re: 358/2 Spoilers

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I love how the reality is crackier than the fan theories.

On the plus side, BOOYAH, my Saix is still good, at least so far. That's a big relief.

I have nothing of value to say.

EDIT: Minor spoilers now in comments, read at your own risk.