Bleeding!

So, some of my Facebook friends have developed a curious corollary to follow the "I went to the shops" type status. Something along the lines of "I'm having a period and I don't like ittttttt."

What am I supposed to say in response to that?

"Ibuprofen, you dolt."
"Wait a few days, then you'll be fine."
"Cut your womb out. It'll hurt less... oh wait."

I'm not ashamed of my body, and its willingness to provide me with varying amounts of icky and pain. I don't like it, but, it's my lot, and I accept it. I don't feel the need to tell everyone about the state of my ladyplaces. Frankly, I don't think anyone particularly wants to know.

On top of that, telling everyone on Facebook you're on the rag and as such will be irritable is like saying "I'm in a bad mood, and I refuse to do anything to make it easier for people. I'm a bit of an ass."

Lots of women suffer much so much more than you. For example, I read once that when women undergo female genital mutilation of the most "complete" kind, the whole area is basically sewn up bar the tiniest little hole. So, there's all the usual womby contractions, then on top of that, there's the risk of infection, and the pain of that little hole. There's also endometriosis (Noelle from Cycle 3 of ANTM has it), which does generally suck pretty bad, and gives you a good chance of infertility too.

Healthy Western women are so lucky. We can basically ignore everything going on apart from approximately half an hour each day, when you pop a paracetamol or go to the bathroom. Just stop whining, take a painkiller and go for a walk.

TL;DR - Man the fuck up.

Swimming in a sea of idiocy.

Politicians are really annoying, what with their soundbite politics and airbrushed posters, but they're not quite as bad as the electorate. (Or the press, but they're just awful scaremongering profiteers sometimes... Maybe I'll rant about them some other time.)

First of all, this rubbish about how Gordon Brown was this "unelected prime minister", which somehow makes him illegitimate. Newsflash: EVERY PRIME MINISTER IS UNELECTED. They're not presidents. We can't tick "Gordon Brown" on our ballot papers (unless we're in his constituency, at which point he is elected to be MP, not PM.) We didn't ever tick "Tony Blair for PM" in 1997; Gordon and Tony were just as legitimate as each other. Here's how it works: the country picks a party, in the form of giving them the most seats. The party selects a leader. So, since we, the people, chose the party, we have indirectly chosen the leader. Within the system we work in, that's where the legitimacy comes from.

So, really, it's not that big a problem that we haven't elected Cameron, Clegg, Brown, etc. Personality politics seem like a bad idea to me anyway. We shouldn't pick our favourite person, we should pick the party with the most competence and best ideas. I guess there is a case to be made that we shouldn't pick someone highly uncharismatic (PMs have to do speeches and diplomatic whatsits sometimes), but I doubt you can get to being a party leader without being at least competent in public speaking.

There seems to be a confusion in the electorate. Well, given half of them are below average intelligence, this isn't entirely surprising, but you would hope that voters are educated enough to realise certain things.

Like, tactical voting. If you really don't want the Tories to get in, for example, it's not good enough to just vote Labour blindly. Have a look at your constituency. If it's a Lib Dem seat, with potential for Tory swing, then vote Lib Dem if you want to vote "not Tory". A lot of Lib Dem seats might have been lost through people saying "Well, Lib Dems aren't going to win, let me pick Labour to ensure the Tories stay out", not realising that the way our system works means that your tactical vote has to be dependent on where you live.

Secondly, all of the big parties are hogging the centre ground. You really need to look quite hard to work out who's actually doing what these days. So, no wonder the electorate doesn't quite know who to choose. The only obvious differences between parties occur at the fringes.

Well, anyway.

Cameron's said to Clegg, "Choose." And Gordon's walked. So, I guess something might happen. Or it might not. I'd rather things took time than were rushed for the sake of an electorate with 5-second attention spans.

Where is my mind?

Woke up again for the second time by my alarm clock. Normally I wake up a few minutes before it, but I didn't today, and I didn't yesterday. Took me half an hour to get out of bed. I'll wake up eventually, but currently, I'm quite tired.

Living here drains me. My sugar moves, I can't use the kitchen without impeccable timing or stubborn determination, I have to consider the cost-benefit analysis of having a conversation in the house. I can't invite anyone over without pissing him off. I've only got a calendar month left here, but there's enough stress to be dealing with already without not having a home to chill out in.

I'm cold. I have to wear two pairs of everything and a dressing gown to stop shivering. It's May. That doesn't seem right.

I listened to my massive amount of Beatles last night. Played "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" quite a lot.

I've been talking a lot to A. Ever since first year, I've always wondered whether it was healthy to have such a firm foot in my past, specifically a part of my past that hasn't always been good. But, we're talking a lot right now and I think that the more I worry about Something happening, the more likely it is that something will. But, I'm pretty sure that I can just about handle hanging out with him and not having sex. I'm kinda excited about having a proper friendship with him - we never really had one first time round.

I have to shop today. I've run out of basics, but I've also run out of money. All I have to do is buy enough to survive until Thursday morning.

The sky is blue, with a few puffy clouds. One looks like a unicorn goring a badger. Another one looks like a pregnant goat.

I should get dressed and start my day properly. Gotta stay upbeat, nothing else to do... ^^

F*ck this.

I hate feeling this way. I'm at home, so that's throwing up a whole lot of feelings. I've failed to mention any of the big things I wanted to this holiday (mostly David)... I know that Mom talking about wheatgrass paint and church-related drama isn't the most thrilling thing to sit through, but it's a conversation about something. She decided to tell me the stories, so that's something at least.

I feel so insecure. I know I am probably alright on my own. Like, I can be okay. I don't *require* people to support me. But it's difficult. I just feel pretty worthless to be honest.

I mean, logically, I can say quite confidently I'm not ugly, I'm kinda interesting (I knit, I like strange music, and I can get drunk off nothing but a good atmosphere), and I shouldn't feel so down about myself. I'm me! It's not that bad, really.

I feel like, once again, I've screwed it up. I didn't do it the way you're supposed to.

I really really want this to work out. And, part of it is so that I don't have to be alone, I'll admit that. But, there's more to it than that. I like him. I like him more than I like people I've known for years. It doesn't make sense, but there you go. I get excited at the idea of drinking coffee with him, for fuck's sake. I like watching TV type stuff with him, chilled out in his room. There's so many little things I like about him, things he does, things he says.

I'm scared he'll leave me. It's always seems to be the way it goes when I find someone; either I leave, or they do. Nobody ever stays. I found an email the other day, when Laney left me. Summary: "You're nice, but I don't really like you all that much and I'll probably just cheat on you when I get to uni, so, yeah. Sorry." I remember being really sad when she said that. She'd really grown on me by that point. I remember I had made her this thing out of Celebrations and Quality Street wrappers, it was really bright and colourful, and it had "Penny Laney" on it, cos that's what I called her. I think I threw it away when I read the email, but it stayed on my bedside table for quite a while before I did. For some reason, I just wanted to torture myself, a reminder of how undesirable I was.

I hate feeling this way. Powerless. I guess that's why I hate the idea of love so much. It seems to be okay if both people feel equally powerless, and they're happy with that, but I like to be in control. I like to know where things are going, what's going to happen. I only like surprises if I know they're going to be good. Then again, I hate things being boring, and it is kinda boring being in control all the time. I can't win this way. Something's gotta change (and it's probably me).

When I was younger, 14 or so, I wished that I'd fall asleep one day and wake up as someone that wouldn't fuck things up all the time. Reading through my emails the other day made me realise how little I'm actually changed in 7 years. Still selfish, still cruel, still thoughtless. I'm less like that than I was, though. I do care about people who aren't me. I found an email I'd sent to my first ex, basically acknowledging I was deliberately messing with his mind because it was fun. I don't think I'm that girl any more. I'm still capable, I'd just feel too bad about doing it.

I'm trying to be better. I am. I want to be good for him, and anybody else that might come along later. I want to be good for myself.

Stupid fucking emotions. Getting in the way of my studies. It's the human condition, I guess.

(I'll get out of feeling this way some time in the next few days, and I'll look back at this post and just think "I'm such a whiny kid. Man up!" But, you know, this is how I feel right now. :/)

That's not what the NHS is for!

You see quite a lot of these stories in the news, especially on slow news days. They are invariably of the sort:

"Little Jack needs 3 million dollars for high-tech brain surgery that will give him four extra years of life. Oh, why won't the NHS fund this? Jimmy is a human being, and therefore deserves all the life that we can give him."

The NHS works like this, as far as I can tell:

Once upon a time, things were a lot like the US, in terms of health care. If you were reasonably okay for money and you got sick, you could easily be bankrupted. If you were poor, you couldn't afford treatment, unless you were very lucky, and able to find treatment in one of the few establishments helping people with no money. If you were rich, life was as good as can be. At some point, the UK thought, "This isn't really quite right," and decided that everyone deserves a free minimum standard of health care for two reasons - one, because it makes us productive and generates wealth, creates equality of value of life, rich or poor, etc, and two, because it's a Nice Thing to do.

The key word here is "minimum standard". The reason for this is that the NHS has finite resources and oh-so-finite money supplies. If they could give absolutely everyone who needed it a liver and a bed, they would. But they can't.

A key example of people forgetting the NHS's purpose is that liver drug. You know, the one that gives advanced liver cancer patients an extra 12 months or so.

First of all, how much good is this to the patient? 12 months of lying in bed, too weak to do much more than that. I may be exaggerating, I may not be, but quality of life is an important factor in these sorts of life-prolonging-not-actually-curing sorts of drugs.

To be heartless for a second, if their quality of life is poor, then they can't exactly come back to join society, work, pay taxes and contribute back to the State that has given them the money to get better. However, the State isn't always heartless. It recognises that it's okay to let people not of immediate utility to use resources. Still, it's something to think of.

More pressing is the amount of money this treatment costs. How many organ transplants, hip replacements, open heart surgeries, stitches and eye drops can we fund with the amount we'd spend on one person having an extra 12 months of (not necessarily quality) life? I don't know the answer to this question. The question is merely here to highlight that there is SO MUCH that the NHS has decided is part of a minimum standard of care. With all these things that are deemed to be essential, we don't have a great deal of money left over for things which are borderline.

By having a "minimum standard" existing, it means that certain treatments are not considered essential enough for the State to fund. That's why you can't get your boobs Jordanized for free. However, life is pretty precious. It's so precious that something about "right to life" is one of those human rights thingies. That's what makes this so hard to judge. Is prolonging life worth any cost? Some may say yes. (These people clearly have never been Chancellor of the Exchequer, balancing the books of the whole nation, not just the ill bit.)

I've not ever had a relative denied treatment on the NHS because they deemed it to be too dear, or too risky, or too *something*, so, I guess I'd be far more emotional and irrational talking about this if I was invested.

Still, I feel that no matter where you draw the line with free healthcare, someone will always be on the wrong side of that line, and they will always be upset. And that is how the world works, kids.

So, when you are on the wrong side of the line, go ahead and raise money, ask politicians nicely, get funding from some creepy rich business tycoon, but don't go to the Daily Mail and say "The NHS should fund this all for me because, because, because!" That's not what's it's there for. Sorry.

Work-related moanery...

I moaned that I didn't want to go to work yesterday. My father got very upset.

I didn't really mean it like that I was ungrateful, but work is a bit of a drag, I'll admit. I have my first long shift today - 6 hours, with a 20 minute break. It's pretty annoying that the 17 year old kids I work with get more breaks and do somewhat less work than me.

Onward retail soldiers, marching as to sell!

(At least I've moved on from Bad Debating Jokes to Old Hymn Butchering.)

What I would like to say to my landlord.

I owe you five days' rent. That's fine. I'm surprised you didn't bring it up earlier, actually. And, you don't KNOW if one of the tenants paid it? You're trusting him to say "Well, actually, instead of keeping my £40, I'll just give it to you, even though I might have done it before, because you're not sure"? Protip: check who owes what before sending these sorts of emails.

Paraphrased from you: "Carpet was dirty; fridge needed cleaning. Would you want to live in a place like this?"

Answer: No.

Circumstances that were out of our control caused the state of the carpet and fridge.

When two new tenants decided to move in a day before we're out, we were a bit pissed. We're all trying to pack, we need all the space to be able to sort stuff, then they just take half of a lounge they're not entitled to yet. Then, it was raining. They weren't wiping their feet when they were coming in and out every so often, but even if they had, rainwater is dirty. The carpet will get dirty. Have you ever tried to move out, then have to clean up after other people who have no right to be in the house yet?

And, also, that carpet is IMPOSSIBLE to clean. You hoover and hoover, and it's still got bits on it. We had to spend £80 to buy a decent hoover to get the carpet clean.

And the fridge. Oh, that fridge. It's been leaking for MONTHS. We've told you repeatedly, and your response? "Try fixing it yourself." Yes, because since we are the landlords, we have the responsibility to provide ourselves with a working fridge. We did clean the fridge, top to bottom. We washed and dried every shelf and compartment a week before we moved out, but it just got dirty again because of the water. Please fix our fucking fridge.

I notice that you didn't mention how clean the kitchen was, in contrast to the thin layer of sticky in the kitchen that we moved into. Also, a lack of mention of the hard effort put into cleaning the bath, so that it looks white, and presentable.

And, the damp in my room. I think it's damp, but I'm not sure. I'm just fairly certain wallpaper shouldn't be bubbling like that. And, oh, the leaks I get in the corner of the room in winter.

But yes. Thank you for a great year of letting. We hope to have this much fun with your next year.

Why?

The BBC's news feed is useful. Click a button, choose your story. Simple, quick, targeted. Unfortunately, the feed headlines aren't always descriptive, and some are just plain deceptive.

Take, for example, this headline: Billionaire Stanford 'not guilty'. He only got arrested a week ago! How could he be judged not guilty already! Except, the article is about how he is pleading not guilty. Is it too much to add one word? It changes the entire sense of the phrase by removing "pleading".

Also, on the feed, there tends to be five or so comment/analysis type pages for each day. Those headlines are the worst. Honestly, Feature One Through Five is more descriptive. Here are some of today's - "Final Moments", "In crisis". Final moments of what? What's in crisis?

Grr.