I Predict...

Okay, so this is a resolutions post, but not quite.

I have a few predictions about 2010, relating to myself. (Calling them predictions instead of resolutions is a bit of a dirty trick on the mind, I'm not going to explain here and now though.)

The first prediction I have is that I'm going to take the year at my own pace. I've been out of full time work since April 2008, I've spent the majority of that sitting around feeling unable to do anything, and I still have a fair amount of that going on. I've already come a long way, in that I've managed to keep up with NoddSoc and the Tuesday night D&D game, as well as do a little bit of work too, and my prediction is that I'm going to carry on taking things at my own pace, because it's working well for me.

My second prediction relates to my writing career. I've been threatening to write professionally for a while now, it's been the only thing that I've brought to the table regarding what I want to do with the rest of my life. I've got ideas for short stories and self promotion. The writing prediction is that 2010 will be the year I start to take progressing my writing career seriously, or decide that I don't want to write professionally at all.

My health is the concern of my third prediction. The year will be the year of doing more to look after my body. This involves finding professionals to check up the overall physical state of me, as well as working my way through the mental health care system. My prediction is that I will be more pushy to get the help I need from the NHS, and find independent help where necessary to maintain a healthier body and mindset. This does include doing more to encourage the professionals and specialists to catch up with me in regards to my transition. It also includes a little something about eating more, as I have a tendency to not really eat much, and then eat lots when people are about, and I don't really hang out with others that much.

Fourth up on the list of things that will happen in 2010 is all about my social life, and edging my way ever closer to coming across romantic interests (I can not think of a better way to word it). I won't directly predict that I will find my true love over the coming year, but I will predict that I'm going to do more to put myself in places where I am likely to meet new people that I can be friends with. I'm predicting that I will try new things romantically speaking with the hope of working out what it is I want to find in a partner.

Money has been an issue, over the last year I've successfully cleared away a debt I had thanks to falling out of work, but I'm having other money related problems. My prediction is that I will spend less on clothes and shoes and find a way to deal with the underlying problem (I don't feel like I look good, and I want to look good, so I need that new outfit/pair of shoes). As well as this, I predict I will spend more on my gaming and other interests, including the building of a desktop computer (something I have been trying to do for a while, but have never succeeded at). Finally under the section of cash flow, I am predicting I will put together a plan to overall spend less in order to have more money for important things, such as healthcare and home responsibilities.

My final prediction is this: In 2010 I will not murder anyone. (Since returning from my parents house my sense of humour has been a little dark.) In the same spirit of previous years resolutions to stay away from Mars, if all of these predictions prove to be false, this one will prove true...

2009 has been fun, stressful, depressing, but most of all it's been tremendous; I've met a load of cool people, and done things I've been wanting to do for years. I'm looking forward to the unexpected things in 2010, as I'm sure I'll have a bit of the unexpected on top of all the things I am expecting. Thank you to everyone who's done so much as talk to me in 2009, it wouldn't have been the same without you! xx

The Gang

From left to right:

Nessie, Rover, Sparky, Bernie, Seris and Suzie.

They're finally all together. Nessie and Rover were stuck back at my parents, Sparky has always been with me, Bernie was from my Mum when she came to visit me a few months back, and Seris and Suzie came from down south, and joined the party there.

Posted because I'm feeling hazy and lethargic following my return, and felt like sharing some cute.

Snow-people

I built a snowboy and snowgirl with my sister, here are pictures.

From 200912

From 200912

From 200912

From 200912

Back home?

I made it back all right, eventually.

Begin: as earlier posted, stressed. Also aggravated by pointless annoyances on another website, and that an eBay seller has completely ignored my “I'm not at home until x, don't post my item out until then,” and posted the damn thing anyway. I don't think it'll arrive until after I get back anyway, so no worries there I think.

Lift into town, thankfully, a little stressful in timing but less in appearances worry.

Wander through, get present for Dad, get new handbag from charity shop. Wander down to train station, get food, catch train.

All good.

I play some Castlevania: Circle of the Moon on the train. There's now 2 Levels left 'til I hit 99, and I get to move onto the next game.

Arrive in Leeds, and there's one lady I want to go up to and ask “is something wrong with how I look? You keep staring at me.”

So I hop on a train to Bradford and it sets off... in the wrong frigging direction. Turns out the guy I asked on the platform misheard my question asking if the train was going to Bradford. Hop off at first stop, hop back on train going in opposite direction, walking down the most treacherous path to get to the platform...

Back in Leeds, take two: get on right train. Success, basically hide away from group of kids on the train because really I just can't cope with any attention at this point, and I can tell just from the conversation their having that I would get attention. I bury myself in a Metro.

Arrive in Bradford, at the second station, walk down the platform and find my Mum. Dad is not with her, and we're getting a taxi. She tries to reassure me, but really, she's not given me any other stories than the ones in which my Dad is not coping.

We get back, after gossiping in the Taxi, and I don't have time for a nervous stop outside the door to steel myself. I dump the majority of my bags in the hallway and wander into the front room. Knowing full well that this is the first my Dad has seen of me. I kinda wave and say hi, like I do, provoke a pause while he looks me over, and then nothing at all. I wander off to sit in my brothers room like I usually do when I'm here, plug in and switch off.

Mum cooked for us, which is unusual as to be suspicious, she usually doesn't. She wants this to be a normal Christmas, where everything goes perfectly despite everything being different this year. Family members are dead and I'm a woman and it's all going to come crashing down on her if it doesn't go just right. I think she's trying hard to make sure I don't feel ostracised by the family, and so far, I don't.

More difficult will be managing the inevitable and more numerous than usual 'he's and for a change of pace wrong name usage.

I am glad I got back okay though, the whole trip worried me a lot more than actually being here. Bradford is every bit as backwards as I remember it to be (I find Leeds to be not much better, in honesty). I'll be trying to find an alternative to coming up for next year.

The adventure continues...

Red Alert! *sirens*

All hands on deck! Battle stations! Battle Stations!

ETA parental home: 5 hours.

Last minute jitters in full swing!

Dad is picking me up from the station with Mum, he actually can't do it alone because he doesn't know what I even look like, seeing as he refused to look at the pictures I sent up. I've picked a respectable and feminine outfit, to try and get that first impression of: “human being”. Will he accept my change of name? Will he accept the change of gender? Will he, even if he can't accept them, at least refer to me as 'she' and 'Lil'?

Too many questions. Worst of all is what do I get him for Christmas? I ran out of time yesterday and ended up not being able to get a present, (I got everyone else in the family one, it's now going to look worse if I don't get him something.) This year I've spent more on presents than I ever have.

I've been overdoing eBay as well, stuff may be arriving while I'm not here, which is annoying because I specifically asked for stuff to be held until after I get back before sending.

I'll be back in Sheffield sometime after the 26th, depending on how well things go once I get back. I live far enough away that I need to plan trips back, but close enough that I don't need to book trains to get back. Useful.

One thing will be nice about being back. I remember distinctly that Christmas day itself is a day full of heat. Hot hot heat, as family blows hot air all over the place, turkey cooks, and the heating is left on all the time. Warmth, if I could bag it and bring it home with me I would.

I'm looking forward to new years, I have an outfit picked out and I just need to get the details of what's going on exactly.

I think I've packed everything I'll need, (including space for stuff I'm bringing back with me,) it'll all be fine.

Stupid Thing...

...that I realised, whilst thinking about something entirely different.

My 4th ed. character is called Hahanr, which, if you start to substitute certain letters for other ones, say, r for h, a for i, n for t and h for l, then it spells out the name of someone who had nothing better to do post about silly stuff that she did accidentally, that doesn't really class as cool or noteworthy, just one of those little coincidences which has no bearing on anything at all.

I might adopt it as a naming convention for future characters.

Also, I got a 4th Ed PHB2 for myself.

New Year. Is it too early to think about resolutions?

Yeah, I'm not going to roll a list out yet. I'm just thinking about them.

I'm not entirely enamoured with the idea of making resolutions on the new year, I mean, if you really want to do something, you resolve yourself to get things done straight away. I guess there's something about the new year to give you that little push, “this year will be different” we tell ourselves, and somehow, for some, it works. I'm not going to argue against that, if it works, it works.

There's the problem that sometimes we make the resolutions without really meaning it. It's the new year, we can probably expect to be asked by someone what our resolutions are, so we have to come up with something. Generally I always have a stupid resolution, that I have no chance of failing (“Don't go to Mars” is a favourite. I'll have to dump it when it looks like I might end up going to Mars, and also because I now have to come up with something original for this year.)

But that only works with some people though, they'll laugh off the obvious deflection, and ask what my real ones are, and then I'll go um and ah, and try to decide which of my more serious ones to share.

So what will I make resolutions about? I'll probably have a writing resolution, and one related to my mental state, and getting my life somewhere that when people ask me what I'm getting up to these days, or what I do, I can actually say something, instead of saying nothing and then feeling like a complete bum.

One definite will probably be related to my games, and restoring save files from all the games I lost in the great cataclysm of '09.

Anyway... I don't have anything really interesting to say. Just writing some randomness because I've not got anything better to do today.

Order! Order!

Just as I was thinking up the title, a bus drove by, with an advert to the next Alvin and the Chipmunks film, and I quote: “It's the squeakuel.” It stopped me a little dead in my tracks for a moment. It hurts.

This is likely to be one of those brain sharting posts, there be dragons here and whatnot.

Firstly, I have a very generous admirer. +100 dice, of various denominations, and two presents arrived by post Saturday morning. I now need a bigger bag for my dice that looks pretty. I had been using old trouser pockets, that I'd cut from old clothes, but one of them split under the sheer number of d6's I tried to cram into it. So I retired the three bags, and have put all my dice in a rather plain looking cardboard box. There's some tiny tiny tiny d6's in there, less than 5mm across. They're so cute!

The reason this is going to be fairly random is that I've been playing Order of Ecclesia on the DS, or as it's proving itself to be: Order of Grinding, with a side order of grinding, with grinding for dessert... It's a little tough, although, I think that might be down to me trying to brute force my way through it, which is actually not the way to play it. You're not supposed to try and take what the bosses throw at you, you're supposed to avoid it... Suddenly, one boss that was kicking my arse from here to next game, was taken down with ease, and gave me a little bit more satisfaction.

I read through the Order of the Stick archives (again) this week. I might have to reread some of the other comics I follow archives, although it'll be hard to choose from the 20+ I do follow. Schlock Mercenary has been good this week. It's a Hyperspace Death Ray!!!

I'm following some boots on Ebay that I want (really really want), but I'm going to have to stretch myself financially to be able to get them. I miss not having work, but I've long since come to terms with what seems to be the fact of my life, that I can't maintain any sort of working schedule at all. It's a little on the depressing side. If not because I can't have the things I want, then because I'm feeling like my attitude is wholly materialistic and that I'm a selfish cow, or that I'm pretty much useless to society and if there was a carpet bombing of places full of useless people I'd well deserve to get caught in it. Not happy thoughts...

I usually adopt a fairly quiet position on some things, mostly in order to not appear like an idiot. I hate being made to feel stupid, or inadequate because I don't have particular pieces of information lodged in my brain somewhere. I prefer to keep my knowledge appropriate to my own current affairs. That said, I feel like I don't know enough about certain things that keep coming up in conversation. Feminism anyone? I haven't much of a clue, and I feel like I'm letting the side down a little because of it. While I'd like to say something to get people to explain things as the conversation goes on, it seems more beneficial to not interrupt the flow and try and decipher the details later on.

I'm getting annoyed at the area I live in again. It seems it's one of those places that is the epitome of everything I hate about the world. I have a loose thought that it may be a case of self-fulfilling prophesy, I don't know yet. Fact of the matter is that it's costing me a ton to get back here after Wednesday night, and if my house-mate decides she can't be bothered or has somewhere else to be, those costs double, because I'd have to pay out again for Tuesday night. Not to mention that it drives up the cost of doing anything else on any evening any other time of the week. Nobody I've met since moving here even lives loosely out in this direction. So I feel trapped on that level yet again.

I just feel like giving up sometimes, all the hassle and effort I have to put in just to live even a semblance of a normal life is more than I have to give. I don't know why I'm putting myself through all this. I hate that I feel like I have to live a normal life. It's so messed up. Nobody's normal are they? Why is it that people can't live and let live? It's infuriating and paralysing, and then, out of a sense of etiquette and not wanting people to see me as an angsty drama llama I put it all in that little dark place, covering up my problems with a layer of seeming calmness and capability. Playing games helps.

My sleep is doing weird things to me this week too. I don't think I've stayed up past 10pm the last few days, and I've been waking up before sunrise most days. I still haven't managed to work out quite what to do with myself at stupid o'clock in the morning. I have to be quiet, and nothing online is worth doing until people are awake and likely to be doing stuff online too. Maybe I'll start working on a new flag for Wednesday night, I just need to work out what to make and how to make it. What I did make pushed the limits of my needlework skills.

Christmas is here! Run for your lives!!! While this is not a problem for me really, I need to work out what exactly I am going to do, otherwise I'm going to end up spending it doing exactly what I end up doing roughly every other day of the year. I think I'm going home for a visit, but not over Christmas day itself. While I feel happy to deal with immediate family, beyond my granddad, I don't really feel like I can cope with extended family. (Example, my cousin writes stuff like this on facebook: “Is on it tnyt with ma sexi mofo whoop whoop nw the party dont start till Loob n jeb walk in Haha sick :-D”). *break* One facebook chat conversation later. I'm sucking it up and going back.

Blogger is being a bugger (alliteration +100 blog points) the login screen is cycling through an endless stream of login screens with no actual logging in taking place. Firefox works though, irritatingly. I like Opera, I dislike having to have more than one browser on the computer.

I think that's it. My mind has petered out and I've got nothing much left to say.

Ka-thump! I just remembered, I finally wrote some Starstorm fiction. It is just my characters profile, but it's a start at least. I just need to get to a place (physical or mental) where I don't have no shit to worry about and I'll write some more.

Facebook is beginning to become the tool which is outing me to everybody I used to know. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but for the most part I can't do anything about it, I just hope the snowball doesn't get too big. (I'm beyond the point of wishing I'd never set it going...)

I think that's it, really I do this time, no more, no witticism, great message, or anything like that, nothing at all, really, nothing more to see here, have a nice day.

I thought I had something there, turns out I didn't. See you all later.

I has d12's

A fact that has been true a few days. I'd have posted this earlier, but I've been a little out of sorts because my feelings have been playing havoc with me (and still are) lately, a fact I may attribute to playing far too much FF12, but it's not an idea I'd put much stock in.

But anyway, I had d4's, 6's, 10's, 20's and even a lesser spotted d5, but I hadn't got my hands on a d12 until Wednesday. (The picture is for the sake of it, I want one!)

Which was a very good day (there were a couple of minor things up with it, but I survived,) which threw me a little.

I got out of the house and was ecstatic as for the first time I caught a bus without having to put up with some jerkwad making a side-show out of me or making a comment. I easily found the shop I sought, and aquired my new dice; a fair number of them too, as well as d12's I made the ranks of my other dice swell some as well. I also decided to aquire a figure for my DnD game, the hectapus I'm using is cute and all, but I want to use something appropriate looking. Some of the others are using d12's as their character's markers, so I guess one of them can use it now.

Wednesday evening was a lot of fun as well. A Starstorm Dev meeting, followed by the game itself. This week was boss fight week (it seems to be boss fight week in general, our DnD game seemed to be a boss fight too.) Once we actually stepped up to the challenge, we totally kicked his ass, but it did sort of bring something out about our party; We don't have a clear leader yet, and for the most part, we do a lot of running away. My character is supposed to be a cheery and encouraging sort, so she might start fights calling out encouraging slogans and cheery platitudes as she rains watery death on her foes.

A bizarre thing happened on my way home in the taxi, as the driver asked me a few personal questions, while I sat there thinking “is he coming onto me?” continuing to the point of “I think he's coming onto me” and then to the “oh my god he's coming onto me”... After I paid my fare and got my change he asked me if I wanted some fun. “Oh fuck.” I think to myself, before shutting him down and getting the hell out. It reminds me of my inexperience, in that I'm not used to being seen as attractive (the circles I used to run in had no one who would be interested in me, so I never really got used to it, and the attraction I'm getting isn't the sort I'm prepared for.) and also, that the people I see as attractive now generally don't see me as attractive at all. Can I just leave it at: I'm having personal issues with attraction, sexuality, and relationships? That's probably what's screwing with my feelings at the moment.

At the moment I'm mostly happy, or switched off, one of the two. I need a solid meal though, something I've just not got the wherewithal to make, knowledge enough to know how to use the food in the house to make it with, or the money to eat out at decent places. Don't get me wrong, I'm still eating enough, but it feels like I just feed on whatever scraps I have the motivation to throw together.

On another note; I have a therapy session on Monday. I wish it was tied into the GIC and things like, but alas, it's just a general depression thing. Here's hoping it wont be all stuff I've heard before, or stuff I think is wildly inappropriate and unrelated.

Also to add, is that I'm probably not going to return home for Christmas. While I know I've spent more this year on Christmas presents than ever before, I don't feel like I'm going to be able to cope with the foreseen problems. While I can really commend how well my brother and sister have taken it, as well as my mum, who is coping well, I know that other family members, my dad and cousin in particular, who are just going to sour the whole experience, albeit in very different ways; I'm not sure it's fair for me to say exactly what they will be like though, so I'll leave it at un-acceptance and ignorance, respectively. There's also feelings of worry at going back through my old hometown; a mix of what if someone recognises me and what if it really lives up to the backwards-ness I've come to expect from the place.

I'll leave it at this for now...