To go or not to go

That is the question.

You know at work (or in school) you get groups of people.  You get the popular group, the swotty group, the nerd group, the always out group etc etc.

See how it sounds like school but it still happens when you are the far side of mid 30s and supposedly professional.

Well tonight is a leaving do for one of the popular kids.  I'm not one of them.  Apparently I can be difficult to get along with.  This is a fair point, I have mood swings, I'm unstable and can be a very different person depending on which side of the pole my moods are on any given day.  Thing is I'm not horrible, I always try to be nice to people and largely try not to bitch (hard thought this can be), I can be funny and entertaining, I can be depressed or hyperactive irritating.  Hey hoo that's the breaks.

I'm lucky in that I have great friends who I love to teeny tiny bits.  I have some good friends at work too but at work there are people who don't really seem to like me much.  It doesn't really bother me, except for the paranoia debate.  Am I just paranoid or do they really not like me?  Who cares?

As my therapist says "What people think of you is none of your business."  I like me, I'm happy to be me. 

But back to the leaving do.  Today there is only about 50% of the department in, they have all gone to the pub for lunch but didn't ask me.  They are not particularly my friends, not that I don't like them or anything we are just part of different groups.  But if one of them was in on their own and I had lunch plans I would have invited them.  It's the polite, friendly thing to do.

So tonight the leaving do will be largely these people and my paranoia is creeping in telling me not to go, they don't like me.

I'm driving Mr Midnite later tonight and then we are thinking of going for a dance but I had planned to go to the leaving do first.  Now I just don't feel welcome.  Can't decide if this is paranoia or just intuition, can anyone spot the difference?

Ghostly Goings On Part II

A spooky experience I had in the early 90s when I was about 16.  I had a good friend at the time called Jill, she was really into rock music and had embraced the whole Goth life style.   I liked some of the same music but not everything she liked, we both loved a good vampire story but she could get a bit macabre.

She wanted to go to a spiritualist church so asked me to go along with her. I hadn't been anywhere like that before and didn't really know what to expect but thought it might be a laugh.  So off we went on a Monday night.  The church was a corrugated iron hall at one side of a big field in the centre of town.  We got there to find that the majority of the congregation were pensioners.  There were 3 or 4 people sitting at the front and then a few rows of mismatched chairs in a semi circle.  We took some seats in the second row just off to one side.

The meeting / service whatever you would call it started with a prayer and then the people at the front started giving people messages "from the other side".  I wasn't really very comfortable in the meeting because I was freezing, I had goose-bumps and was close to shivering.  During the break I spoke to the ladies we were sitting next too and one of them said something strange. 
"If you feel you have something to say you should just speak out." 
I just said "OK, I will." 
Later in the break Jill said she heard the woman say, "she definitely has a message but doesn't want to share."

Jill asked me if I had a message.  No, I told her that I had a song stuck in my head, I thought I must have heard it before I left the house.  This was the song:



Towards the end an old man focused on me and said "you have a strong spirit guide with you, she is protecting you from harm."

I was a bit shocked to be picked out but probably just gave a nervous smile. He went on to say that The guide wasn't a relative but an oriental girl who had drowned.  He said that I had a experience where I could have drowned (which I did) and that this spirit had protected me.  He said that I should listen to my guide.

Not long after that a lady stood up and said she had a message but wasn't sure who it was for, she said she had a young woman from the spirit world who had taken her own life. She mentioned that there was a strong Scottish influence.  Someone said that might be for them.  She went on to say that the girl had a difficult life and couldn't see any way out but to take her own life.  She wanted to apologise for all the pain she had caused but that she needed to end the abuse.  The lady said that she thought this was her niece and that she had shot herself.  None of the family understood why she had done it, they knew she was unhappy but thought it was just teenage moods. 

If you know the Aerosmith song story (or just watched the video) you might see some similarities between that and what was said about this woman.  By this point I was shivering, it was absolutely freezing.  I had an urge to say something but I never did, I don't think it would have been right.

When we stood up to leave I noticed that there was a gas heater just behind where we were sitting, Jill had felt warm through the whole meeting.  This freaked me out so much that I never went back.  No amount of begging from Jill would make me, she persuaded some other friends to go instead.

Bad Hair Year!

Hands up how many people have gone and had a perm at some stage in their lives?

Somewhere around the age of 13 I decided this was a great idea.  Lots of girls at school were turning up with sophisticated looking spirally waves of hair and I thought that this was the solution to my boring, dull brown, perfectly straight and fine head of hair.  A perm will add body I thought, it is the answer to all my hair trauma.  So the idea was suggested to my mum who I'm sorry to say did nothing to prevent it.

Around that time one of the major stars in the soap Eastenders was:

Roly the dog.



Can you see where this is going?  Yes, not for me the glamorous spiralling waves of hair, no my hair went with the tight curl, frizzy poodle look.  Many of the cruel children at school, more often referred to as friends, noted the similarity between myself and Roly.  Oh how we laughed. 

They were in fact wrong, Roly is clearly a blond, I'm a brunette.  My hair looked more like this:

So I tried the obvious and attempted to brush it out, leading to this look:

Yeah I rocked that look!  My next attempt at disguising the Roly hair and avoiding the ridicule of my peers was to scrape the curls into a pony tail.  Although in fairness I think that in my case it should be renamed the poodle tail:

For weeks I went to school with my head looking surprisingly like a Poodle's butt.  Finally in desperation I bought a home perm and slapped all the solution on my hair.  I combed it through onto a piece of clingfilm and then wrapped more cling film round my head trying to keep it as straight as possible.  30 minutes later straight but slightly frizzy hair was returned. 

Never again will I be tempted by the sophisticated looking curls, I have learned my lesson.


One of those days?

Tuesday was a fun day, well not for me but hopefully you will find it slightly amusing.

I woke up feeling a bit dodgy but struggled off to Asbo rehabilitation and trudged around the field trying to get the furry ones to cooperate. Driving home I felt really awful and decided not to go to work. So I headed back to my bed and shivered with my head under the pillow for a few hours.

About 2 in the afternoon the dogs indicated they would like to go out. I got out of bed and changed out of my jammies into baggy, saggy leggings and a scruffy t-shirt. Not my best look. Put little ballet pump slipper things on my feet and took the girls down to the garden. A couple of minutes later we headed back up the stairs to my flat.

I got to the door, turned the handle and nothing. I stared blankly at the door wondering why it wasn't opening. Keys! I looked in a puzzled way at my hands which were holding nothing. Ooops. "We're locked out girls".

I went back down to the garden and sat on the path to contemplate my situation. I am outside wearing scruffy clothes, inappropriate shoes, no underwear and have with me two dogs. I look up at my windows and realise they are closed and even if they weren't the only option I could come up with would have been to throw Star up and hope she could climb through and them go and open the door. Lassie she isn't.

So I started thinking about spare keys.

• My parents took the liberty of getting themselves a set cut but they are a 3 hour drive away. I don't think they would appreciate a 6 hour trip just to open my door.
• Mr Midnite has keys but I have not yet managed to memorise his mobile number and my phone was locked in the flat.
• My best friends have an emergency spare set of keys but they were at work. Without my mobile I couldn't phone them, no chance of remembering their mobile numbers anyway. I thought about walking round to their house and waiting on the doorstep until they arrived home. Two problems: shoes that are more slippers and a lack of support around the chest area. Slightly lesser issue: publicly looking like a tramp. I decided I would rather stay outside.

Finally my brain starts to work and I have an idea. I can phone someone at work and get a message to my best friends. They can then go and get my keys and bring them round. So I knocked on my neighbours door and asked if I could use their phone, I got through to work and left the message. It was then just a case of waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Fortunately it was a sunny day so me and the furry ones sat in the sun. I started thinking that the message hadn't got through. Perhaps terrorists had intercepted my brave messenger. I was thinking that I would have to do the unsupported walk.

And then through the setting sun I see my knight in shining Nissan arriving to save me! Boy best friend pulls up and laughingly hands over my keys as I exclaim "I love you". He had finished work, gone to pick up the boys and then my keys. Four hours I was sat outside.

An interesting way to spend the afternoon, the moral of the story is not to leave home without a bra!

Scrappy style list

I haven't been in bloggy world much over the last week.  That's just because I've been a bit busy.  Part of the busy was beyond my control with some work stuff but the rest was self inflicted.  I've been feeling pretty low so I decided that I would get out and about a bit more than normal and try to shake it off.  This in itself shows that my tablets are working because without them I wouldn't have been able to push myself to do things.

Anyway I don't want to bore you all with lots of boo hoo my life is crappy post although it may happen occasionally.  So instead I decided to do a positive, happy blog!

A bloggy friend of mine has a passion for lists so to take a page out of her scrap book here is a list of reasons why my life is great:

1) The furry girls
How many people are lucky enough to come home to two happy bundles of love even if they only went out to the bin.  Star and Sasha are the best!  Love them, love them, love them and they love me even when I'm a miserable cow.  Unconditional love, can't beat it!

2) My best friends
I have the greatest best friends in the world.  If you want to know more check out my letter post

3) Mr Midnite
Well if I didn't put him in the list he might be upset :0).  He is a very positive person with a strange view of the world which makes for some interesting discussions.  He has a great way of making me see things differently when I'm stuck on a negative though train.  Funnily enough it is a CBT technique but he just does it naturally.  He is great fun most of the time and makes me laugh a lot.  Plus he's hot.  It would be wrong to ruin his bad boy image by telling you the sweet things he sometimes does so I'll stop now :0)

4) My ladies what lunch friends
The department that I work in isn't big but we have formed some little groups, it's not an exclusive thing you can be part of more than one group or change groups.  Some of it is kind of office or past time based.  The group I'm closest too is a group of girls who all have the hobbies of shopping, eating out and drinking cocktails.  Linked to the shopping to some extent is an appreciation of handbags, shoes and expensive cosmetics.  For blog purposes I'm going to call the core ladies Glam, Mummy and Skinny.  We have some great days out shopping and nights out eating good food and drinking cocktails, we always have a good laugh.  On top of that we do try to support each other at work.

5) My Geordie Girls
Some friends I stole!  I met them when one of my cousins got married and we got on great straight away.  Lou is from Newcastle but lives up in Glasgow so we see each other occasionally for a night with wine.  Lisa is still down in Geordie land but we catch up for a day/night out a few times a year.  I haven't known them for long but we just have such a good time together,  Thinking its the Geordie connection.    

6) My ladies what drink
More girls from work, ave to be careful with these ones.  They are non-stop party girls and a few boys.  Always out on the town, I can't keep up with them drinking but they are great fun as long as I pace myself!

7) My family
Yeah they do my head in but I love them.  I get on with my little brother better and better as we get older and that's just great.  My parents, well I've got some daddy issues but who hasn't and they are always there when I need therm.  Not always help but there. I do have a pretty big extended family and they all seem to stay near where I was born.  Guess I was one of the few the rebels who moved away.

8) My Flat
Yeah strange one to explain exactly but I love my flat, it's mine and hopefully there won't be any circumstances where I come home and get told I have to leave.  Finally have my remortgage arranged so it will actually be slightly cheaper which can only add to my love.  I guess when you have moved as many times as I have you really appreciate having your own place.  It's not a show home and there is some work needs doing but I've painted it to my taste with no one interfering and I love it!

9) Scotland and Edinburgh
Flash back, I've written about this before, check it out if you're interested

10) Cymbalta
Drugs, yes please if they make me feel calm and happy without feeling like a zombie with a vomiting bug.  I'd love to be able to think happy positive thoughts and get through life without them but I couldn't and now I'm not going to risk stopping taking them just to see what happens.

11) My job (kind of)
I like my job, most days I am pretty happy there, sometimes I hate it.  The things that make it a good job include the money they pay me, it's not loads but it's not bad.  The people there are mostly great and make the days easier to deal with, some of my clients fall in here too.  Finally I suppose I do something that can help people and occasionally I hear from clients of someone who has been helped by something we were part of, makes you feel good.

12) The strange world of the Internet
Love it, how you can now reach out to anyone anywhere in the world from your desktop.  I have friends I've never met online.  I've got back in touch with school friends and been able to stay in touch with other friends.  Its a whole new realm of socialising and I like it.

13) Handbags
They make me happy!

14) Books
Allowing me to experience so many things from the comfort of my own home!

15) Music
Self explanatory really

16) Food
Chocolate, strawberries, tea and toast, eating out at nice restaurants.  Yum!

17) Health and fitness
I'm reasonably fit and mostly healthy give or take some crazy. I can pretty much do what I want although I'm unlikely to get to figure skate in the winter Olympics.  Just the head trash to deal with!

That was quite therapeutic really, I thought I would struggle to get 10 but the more I think the more there is.  See my depression when it hits seems to be a chemical thing not event related.  I've not really got anything to be miserable about and that in itself makes me very lucky.

Letter 1 - My best friends

Dear Mrs and Mr Best Friend

I have known you both longer than you have known each other.  I never realised you hadn't met until after you had met and got together.  Now look at you both, married with two little boys.

I met you both at university, this gives me the opportunity to joke that I lived with you, boy best friend because of the giant house we shared for a year.  This was when you were with the wrong girl, maybe that makes you appreciate the right one so much more.  I didn't know you so well girl best friend, just enough to chat with you outside lectures.

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