Wherein I throw my toys out of the pram with such force my boss spins around and around and around and around and around.

Yesterday I did the previously unthinkable and I said no to my boss, this has come at no small personal cost to my dignity as despite mentally chanting “be professional, be professional, be professional”, all sense of pride left me and I cried down the phone like a child. To which he said this;

“…………………………….riiiiiiiiiight…………….. I’ll call you back”.

And then he didn’t call me back for another seven hours, he emailed me back and basically said no was not an option, so I called someone else and, despite mentally chanting “pull yourself together, pull yourself together, pull yourself together”, I managed to cry again.

Oh dignity, you have left me, I have now lost the label of Hannah who will go anywhere and do anything and must now live with being Hannah who will go most places and do certain things but not others and will cry if you try and make her.

Wow, I didn’t know I was capable of such wanton career sabotage, turns out, I totally am.

In actualy truth, I'm really not ready but I think it's something in my genes.....

So this person called Kate at work brings her two year old in first thing before the college nursery opens, and every morning this little girl (Maisie) scowls at me, and every day I say hello, and she scowls and ocassionally cries at the very sight of me, then this morning, she looked me up and down, then opened her arms and said "hug!", and I said "really?" and she said "hug!", so we had a cuddle, and then as I pulled away she pursed her little lips and stuck her face towards me and I said "kiss?", and she nodded, so I had a little kiss and MY OVARIES EXPLODED, ohmygod I think I'm going to have to have a baby or I might shrivel up and die.

That is all.

Number 6

I love you, and that's rare and beautiful.

When cool people lose cool points, oh dear.....

So this itunes thing is probably boring you now, but I am going through the painstaking process of sorting through exactly what's in the bloody thing before I import stuff onto my brand new, shiny and beautiful Ipod and accidently fill it with crap. My love of the shuffle function is well documented and it spoils it when you listen to a good 20 odd awesome tunes, and suddenly something from Queen comes on because your boyfriend insisted and you're driving so you can't concentrate of SKIPPING IT and have to listen to 'the show must go on' while navigating your way through the M6 carpark....

Anyway the point is, now Lof's music and my music is on the same PC, I have to sort through 6080 songs and try to eliminate the previously mentioned duplicates and also, which of Lof's tracks do I want on my bright and shiny pod and which do I forget about in the hope he was smoking crack when he selected them...?

I mean really, the Top Gun soundtrack? Mr Woodward how could you?!

Hours and hours and hours later.....

All the many duplicates stopped being a kind of sweet reminder of my friends and started being the kind of teeth grinding annoyance that makes you stop, sit in the black leather office chair and spin around and around and around and around and around................

He is a giant, in so many ways......

LOF's music and my music is now sharing the same Itunes, I don't know if Moch's music is on there aswell but after importing all my music onto their old hard drive I did a little experiment... when selecting 'show all duplicates' there are 1187 tracks, that's 3.5 days worth of music.

Something in common.

Re: G'day Sheila!

Funny story; When we left you at the airport I was determined not to cry, I thought 'this is stupid, it's not like she's going away forever, and you can go and see her, you're not that poor and besides, it's christmas, there's all those crap presents from your mum to look forward to!', and then I got in the car, Glenn watching me out of the corner of his eye for signs of tears, still I did not cry, and then we turned the radio on and Take That was the first song on, and that was it, to the constipated strains of Gary Brlow wishing for some Pay-Shonce, I bawled my eyes out, and once I started I couldn't stop, I cried as I dropped Glenn off for Rugby, I cried as I filled the car with petrol, I cried when I paid for said petrol, I cried all the way to the hairdressers and all the way through my haircut (looks fab though), the bawling got me a cup of tea but not a discount (tight cow), I think I cried for about four hours. This was good though, because I haven't cried nearly enough over the last few months about everything so it was very cathartic, I even went to my mum's house and managed not to cry un ti she asked me how you got on at the airport and then I started again, so she's really pleased she's finally seen some emotion from me!

Anyway, we never got to Time (which is apparently now 'fuse') because Glenn was poorly on christmas eve (it's called imissmattitis and he is suffering poor boy...) and my sister had a date! We were all very excited about the date, he is 29 and has no wife or kids, which is quite something for Redditch people, I think he might be developmentally challenged, until she rang me from the toilets to tell me that he had finished dinner with the words "have to be off then, got to see the wife and kids", so not developmentally challenged, just an arsehole.

Christmas presents included an Ipod, which I was very shocked and thrilled about, I have lovely friends and a lovely chap who will look after me when I need propping up and give me a metaphorical slap when I need one (and a real slap if I ask nicely) and stop me buying shoes when I say "please don't let me buy the shoes, I have to see the parrots that live in the trees!", and then they will ask me if I need some therapy because they think I'm the only person who can see parrots in the trees....

Mum and Dad bought me some Eyepod speakers, and some perfume, some Le Creuset (fancy dishes), and some make up specially formulated for people with acne, 80 cotton wool pads, some make up remover, some pyjama's, lovingly handed to me with the words "these are for the hospital, you can't wear them now" and I had asked for some GHD straighteners, so Mum bought me SHE straighteners, haven't tried them out yet.....

I have decorated the bedroom! Chris came for lunch so I carried on the tradition of not letting the guest eat until he had done some DIY and we ripped off all the wallpaper, and despite the fact that Glenn was at work (and for 'at work', read 'stopping off at the office en route to the pub for 3 days straight'), I filled and sanded and painted the walls, and bought new curtains and bedding and it looks really pretty. not as exciting as water parks and orange parrots I know but I felt very proud of me!

New Years Eve was messy, Liz and Gareth came for lunch and I was already pretty wasted by the time we finished eating at 2.30, by 11pm I was telling everyone about Glenn's pubes, I don't know why, he has forgiven me though because as I write this I have a quite horrible hangover and that is punishment enough.

I'm so glad you arrived there safely and it sounds like it's everything you hoped it would be, enjoy yourself my lovely, and if you think about it from an astronomers point of you, we're really not that far apart.

Keep safe, both of you!!
All the love in the world.
Hxxx

Facts, that's all for now.

In October I had a second laparoscopy, and on Friday I went to see my consultant about what he found and what would happen next, so here it is.

(Warning: on Saturday night, when talking to Tina about this, her husband Matt sort of gagged a little bit and walked off and I realised that not everyone is comfortable with this, so if you're a bit like him, just skip this post and wait for the next one, which I'm sure will involve me drinking too much and falling over, and may or may not involve a wedding dress and people who live in the carpet.)

I have several patches of endometriosis all through my pelvis, and a golf ball sized nodule in my small bowel (apparently there are two bowels, large and small, I don't just have one that's small, just to clarify... ahem... moving on...) this explains why I don't poo! And you always thought I was joking......

I'm having an operation that has two parts, the first part is led by my gynaecologist and involves keyhole surgery to remove the patches, the second is led by a general surgeon who will make an incision either across my abdomin or down the centre of my torso, then open the small bowel and remove the golf ball sized nodule.

The complications are that they don't know until they open the bowel how this nodule is attached, if it's easy to remove they just take it out, stitch up the bowel, stitch up me, job done, if it's not so easy and they have to make a larger incision then we're into slightly grey territory involving the dreaded temporary colostomy bag because the bowel will need longer to heal. They do some funky thing and raise it up to the surface of your body to 'rest' it.

Estimated time in hospital - 1 week.

Estimated recovery period - 6 to 8 weeks.

When can they do the operation - hopefully March but probably May because the two surgeons have to co-ordinate their diaries, and they both have huge waiting lists.

Chance of the disease recurring - 20-30% after 4 years, which I think is pretty good!

So there we go, it turns out that it's a much bigger procedure than I thought it was, I'll be in theatre for about 4 hours, it takes two surgeons, it's pretty much 50/50 whether or not I have to have the temporary colostomy (in fact, I think it's actually called an illeostomy but what the difference is I don't know) and it means I'll be pretty poorly for up to two months. That's kind of why this post is called 'Facts, that's all for now', because I've been processing this for the last couple of days and have ultimately decided that I prefer denial, denial works for me, so I'm going back there, ignorance is bliss and all that, frankly I just can't be bothered with all the shaking and spontaneous wailing that comes with facing the truth, you never get anything done!

I know that I had some pretty big things planned for 2007 that may not happen now, and I may have to let some people down, I can't say anything about this except I'm sorry, I'll do my best and I absolutely promise to fulfill my obligations to the best of my ability.

Ta da! That's it, could be worse, could be soooo much worse, just got to remember that.

STOP THE INSANITY!

Oh my god! Enough! Yes, I bought a vibrator, and I talked about it, and it pissed some people off and it made others curious and maybe it was inappropriate for me to talk about it and maybe some people thought it was entertaining up to a point and others just thought that I should have kept to it all to myself but stop! let's not have a row about it!

Ok, here it is, I bought it, I have tried it out, it was... different, because I'm not used to it and haven't quite got the hang of it just yet. I am hoping that this is enough detail to satisfy the curious ones but not so much that Chris vomits over his keyboard.

Now please, please, let's just let it go......

Instead we can talk about how someone smashed what looks like a brick onto the bonnet of my new car and scratched a sizeable amount of paint off, and how this made me push my face into my bed and scream for two hours on Sunday afternoon, because that's twice this year that some stranger has broken the law, invaded my life and cost me a not insignificant amount of money.

Let's talk about that! Because so far , Roger has brought happiness with an equal measure of confusion and should not be the cause of any bickering, where as the drunkern arsehole who tainted my car on Saturday night and then ran away deserves to have his balls ripped out of his body, and his penis put through a paper shredder.

If anyone could find it.

The longest comment ever

Chris,

I can only apologise, I'm very sorry you feel so violated, but I do recommend you remove the buttplug, they're not supposed to be premanent.

Span.

Say hello to my little friend….

Just under two weeks ago I bought a new car and it’s really great and very silver and blah blah etc, THIS week however, I bought something which is threatening my change my life forever, I may never leave the house again, I bought the all new, 2006, rabbit, I bought the ‘Thruster’ and it does, it really does…

Now I am back in Northumberland, me and my new friend, (we’ll call him Roger, because that’s childishly funny on several levels) and last night I decided to try him out. I drank two glasses of wine to try and lose the inhibitions that I strangely developed when the woman behind the counter at Ann Summers asked me if I wanted a box of ‘Buzzy Fresh Wipes’ and thought right then, this is a bit intimidating and kind of hard to wield on your own but YOU CAN DO THIS.

It does not come with an instruction manual, I mean you assume that you wouldn’t need one right? Because although it has a few speeds and two basic functions how difficult can it be? Turns out, it can be very difficult, the first time I tentatively tried it my legs shot out from under me at a 45 degree angle from my body and I couldn’t bend them for a full three minutes, this is not a toy to be taken lightly, you could probably do some serious nerve damage if you’re not careful.

This is all because I am trying to feel a bit sexy again, medical procedures and pain management aside, I think some of the problems I am having stem from just a deep rooted feeling that my body is no longer for sexual things, it’s damaged and diseased and if it all ever gets fixed then it’ll be fixed so it can have babies and I think it’s important for my head to get back to basics. I am 25 years old and absolutely not ready to throw in the towel in that department just yet, so! I bought a vibrator and a box of buzzy fresh wipes and set to work! If I re-condition my head to think of my body as a sexual thing, then I will be able to relax a little more with my unfortunate and woefully neglected other half.

So while you’re watching Eastenders tonight, there I’ll be, legs quite literally akimbo, attempting to steer what looks a lot like a glittery blue balloon animal and possibly needing medical assistance.

But what you should really do, is not watch Eastenders, you should go and watch Casino Royale, because it’s ace and Daniel Craig is hotter that a really hot, hot thing

Wherein I address the lyrics Moch posted on her blog and demonstrate just how different our taste in music really is.

How could that happen?
How could that happen again?
Where the fuck was I looking
When all his horses came in?
And he built a whole army
Of kamikaze

10,000 willing
Pilots flying
Interfacing
Space and beyond
Built an army
To come and find me

Beyond all reason
Beyond all my hopes
The call of duty
Another war zone (Makes me moan)

Kamikaze - you can't touch me,
kamikaze

Eight miles high
He walks his path
And I follow mine
One tooth for one eye
He's come to find me

10,000 willing
Pilots flying
Interfacing
Space and beyond
Here is his army
Interspace here we come

Kamikaze - you don't touch me

Space here we come

PJ Harvey 'Kamikaze'

Email

You know when we start our own business and take over the world?

Do we have to employ other people? Because I really think I hate other people, I like the people I like and I hate everybody else, most especially I hate people called Stuart and Sue, but I think I can extend it out to other people and say quite confidently, that I hate people I don't like. I feel that I can categorise the people I like as people I will send Christmas cards to, thus neatly boxing up all the people I like and leaving everyone else out in the cold to get frostbite on their delicates.

I think also, that I'm going to be quite selective with who I send Christmas cards to, only those who meet very exacting criteria will get one.

Hx

And I though South Shields was bad, I had no idea....

This week I have been in Northumberland, that's somewhere near Lapland for you geographically challenged folks. Wow, I'm sure the countryside is pretty and the villages are sweet etc etc blah blah blah but where I am? Words fail me...

But clearly words don't fail me that much because I'm still typing, so to describe... The college is slap bang in the middle of an enormous housing estate, the kind where every third house is boarded up, and every fifth car is a burnt out shell that sits on the front garden. The college itself is a sixties built, six floor building in dire need of refurbishment, but I only know that from what I've been told, because I haven't actually been inside the main building... You see, the office where I'm working used to be a house, there is a row of terraced houses next to the college that have been converted into offices to save space, when I arrived I was told the department manager's office was the front bedroom, I could work in the box room and the bathroom was across the hall, however, the next day I was going up in the world and could work in the living room, ooooh....

So yesterday I stopped on the landing when I saw a boy of about 11 collapse in the street outside, two men from the mechanics department came running towards him and I got the health and safety woman from the second office/house down to go and see what the matter was and if she could help, an ambulance was called and they attended to him. All the time I'm thinking, why isn't he in school? He's not even wearing a uniform.... the health and safety lady returns to tell me that the 11 year old has smoked so much dope that he's passed out.

Later that day and there are police outside the front of the main college building wrestling an old man to the ground, the snr cons returns from a meeting with the principal and I say "so why were the police arresting some old man then?", turns out, this old man had been driving around to the front of the college, getting out of his car, flashing towards the CCTV camera's, then getting back in his car, driving round the block, coming back to the college, flashing at the CCTV, and he continued this for about 6 or 7 round trips until the police arrived to TAKE HIM AWAY.

The hotel I'm staying in seems to have no central heating, just a large, obnoxious heater in the corner of the room which sounds like a 747, so either I don't sleep because I'm cold, or I turn the heater on and I don't sleep because I can't sleep inside the engine of large aircraft.

They send me to the most glamorous places.... Have to sign off now, I think I just saw Father Christmas trying to steal my car.

Conversations that made my eyes open up really wide.

1.

Me: Hi, I’m interested in the Renault Megane but I see that on the forecourt it’s priced at £7,495 whereas on your website it’s on for £6,995…

Car Salesman: That’s for the Pakis.

Me: looking at Glenn for help, he’s looking at me for help Sorry, what?

Car Salesman: We put an extra £500 on for the Pakis.

Me: I’m sorry, I don’t understand, how much is the car?

Car Salesman: For you love it’s £6,995. You see they’re always in here, the Pakis, asking, “What’s your final price?! What’s your final price?!” So we always put an extra £500 on the showroom price so we can take it off when they as.

Me: I see….

Car Salesman: Not that we discriminate against Pakis.

Me: Oh good Lord no

Car Salesman: It’s just that they like to barter, so we let them.

Me: How kind of you.

2.

At my father’s birthday dinner.

Mum: So, why don’t you have a boyfriend?

My Sister: 10 past six Mum, you did well, that was a whole hour you went without asking that!

Mum: But why don’t you love?

Sister: Leaning in to my mum’s ear really close, I’M GAY.

Mum: Oh don’t be silly dear.

Sister: I’m not being silly, I’m gay, I like to kiss girls.

Dad: chews silently

Sister: Dad? You’re not saying much about me coming out of the closet.

Dad: It’s not like we haven’t had our suspicions.

Sister: EXCUSE ME?!

Dad: If you repent then the Lord will forgive.

Me: Choking.

3.

Me: Hi, I’m ringing about the Dalek cufflinks I’ve seen in your catalogue.

Assistant who answered the phone to the Next customer service line: Mmm Hmm

Me: Can you tell me if you have any in stock at your Bull Ring store?

Her: Hang on.

Me: la la la la la

Her: Sorry, Garlic cufflinks?

Me: No, Dalek, as in Dr Who?

Her: Hang on.

Me: la la la la

Her: We have some in stock at the Bull Ring yes.

Me: Oh thank you so much I was wondering if

Her: What you will have to do now is you will have to go into the store and buy them.

Me: Uh, What?

Her: YOU, have to go INTO the store and BUY them.

Me: Right, right, yes, thanks, I’ll get on that right away.

Her: Goodbye.

Beautiful enough that it made me cry

Lying alone, in bed on a Friday morning, I should be in work but I have to see the consultant so I have the day off, I am cold, so I snuggle under the duvet, I notice the deep red curtains are glowing with the early morning light behind them so I reach out of bed and pull the closest one to me wide open, I lie in bed, alone on a Friday morning, it feels like the rest of the world is running to work, and I bathe in the beautiful light of the sun, as it shines upon my face.

Just when you thought it was safe to feel good about your job.

They send you to Northumberland, for 6 bloody days.

When the senior bod rang to ask me to go I asked him if he could see glaciers from where he was stood but he declined to laugh, I told him I wasn't joking, he however is equally unhappy at being there so we both just wallowed for a bit in self-pity and bitterness.

I know, this is my job, and I really had no business getting comfortable at a site where I get to go home every day. Things are stirring again, the re-structure which will eventually replace me is starting to kick into gear and I know it's a matter of time before I am back on the road. I just shouldn't have got comfy.

On the upside, I get to meet a whole lot of new hopelessly incompetant people! Each of whom will annoy me slightly more than the last. Today, one of the temps, we'll call him Stuart, because that is his name, starting mindlessly tapping his foot against the desk, what with there being only so long I can stand to hear aimless tapping I eventually snapped:

Me: "Stuart!

Stuart: "What?"

Me: "That's annoying"

The tapping stopped.

The, five minutes later it started again.

Me: "Stuart!"

Suart; "What?"

Me: "It's still annoying"

Stuart: "Yeah, but you didn't say it was my foot so how am I supposed to know what's annoying?"

Me: "Because you just told me it was your foot, so you know that I meant your foot, so stop doing it."

Stuart: "Oh yeah".

Do you think there's even the slightest chance people in Northumberland will be less, oh how do I put this? THICK?

I fear not.

This right here, is why I cannot possibly be properly depressed.

My hatred of everything about Friends Reunited was documented a while back, but, because I like to mentally torture myself I thought I'd have another look.

Lo! I am cheered!

For while I thought I was one more toilet cubical located cry away from medication, and the words 'happy pills' seemed more and more appealing, it has been proven that I AM NOT THERE YET.

This person might be though:

For those of you that actually care (I imagine this amounts to very few, if any of you) my life seems little more than a grotesque waking nightmare these days. I won't go into the thoroughly tragic details of why this is, but my days seems to largely consist of prolonged boughts of depression, followed by a near unresistable urge to take my own life. Needless to say I'm not doing terribly well presently, and I see little chance of positive change in the near, or indeed distant future. So, if you happen to see my name appear in the local obituaries any time soon, don't be surprised. It's only a matter of time. In all honestly it's probably what I deserve for a life seemingly devoted to self-pity, cowardice and unremitting failure.

YES! I mean sure, it's a shame his life is so shitty, and I do hope he doesn't take his own life as he seems so inclined to, but YES! I am SO MUCH HAPPIER THAN HE IS.

Now, I am going to get some ice cream.

The horror

1. Of realising that you are stood in the shower, hair and body dripping wet, and you have left your towel in the bedroom...

2. ...As it slowly dawns on you that you are in someone else's house.

I'm not being a crazy liberal, but...

I just want to put this out there, I just want to write it down and then send it out into the world, you may not agree with me, you may be made completely furious by this but I had the most alarming conversation this week, a conversation which rapidly deteriorated into a lecture, wherein I sat, speechless, unable to breathe, because if I did let my breath out I would not have been able to stop myself from screaming, screaming that no, you are not right, you are very wrong, and yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but frankly you are not entitled to that opinion.

FIRSTLY, the phrase "I'm not being racist but..." is usually, I have noticed, only used when the person saying it is about to be INCREDIBLY RACIST, really, you're not going to say "I'm not being racist but I believe all people are equal regardless of colour", but you might say "I'm not being racist but I think they should all be sent back".

SECONDLY, who are 'they', and WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO SEND THEM? Because if they were born in Birmingham, and you're going to 'send them back', the maternity ward at the Queen Elizabeth is going to get staggeringly full all of a sudden.

THIRDLY, I DO NOT AGREE, that while Hitler was admittedly 'one sandwich short', he may have had the right idea with 'that whole Jewish death camp thing', NO, I do NOT think, that if we send 'them', all to camps and 'finish them off for good', we wouldn't have to worry about 'this terrorism crap anymore'.

OH MY GOD.

Just... I mean... head... exploding... what the... FUCK.

We've been worrying about terrorism since 1916, if it's not one group it's another and, rather like how Hitler was a murderous, genocidal lunatic for trying to exterminate the Jews, we should probably try and think of a better solution than shipping every single asian off to another country, because I'm telling you now, I would worry far more about someone trying to kill me because they've suddenly have to live in a country they've never been to before, than someone sat in their living room watching Coronation Street with a cup of tea who just happens to be wearing a burka. Likewise, I think it might be a tad excessive to kill 'them' all off, where would you draw the line? Really, if this is your position, how would you go about deciding who lives and who dies? YOU CRAZY BONKERS LOON.

FOURTHLY, and I have listened to lots of arguments about this, and have spent a lot of time figuring out my position... I think that women who come to this country should be allowed to wear whatever headdress they feel appropriate, and if that means covering their entire body in swathes of balck fabric, leaving only a small tube for breathing purposes then so be it. No, we wouldn't be allowed to wander around Pakistan or Afghanistan in a bikini, they'd probably stone us to death, but THAT is exactly why these women have come to Britain, because we are liberal, and free thinking and believe that everyone has a right to practise whatever religion they want, in whatever way they want (within reason), and the very second we ban burka's, we become as oppressive and dictatorial as the regime these people have come to this country to escape. All right, if someone can't understand a teacher because she's wearing one then fair enough, she might have to take it off, everything in it's place, but wandering round the shops on a Saturday? let her wear what she wants! Isn't that what living in the west is all about?

Done, thanks.