Playing games.

David and I have been dancing. Around each other, as opposed to with each other. Complicated, convoluted paths spiralling around the house. Patterns to follow.

In a way, I'm almost enjoying it. There's only one real way of dealing with him. Play his game.

He won't leave his room if he knows I'm on the landing. He'll move his food preparations in the kitchen so he's as far away from me as possible. He'll leave any communal area I enter.

So, I play. I spend slightly more time walking up the stairs if I know he's waiting in his room for me to leave. I'll deliberately find myself requiring all the areas of the kitchen when preparing something, just to see if he will move every single time I do.

I know it's a little childish, playing the game because he's childish enough to start it. But I just want him to punch me in the face. This situation where we can't clear the air seems really unhealthy. But, I suppose if we were never able to be honest when we were in a relationship, it seems even less likely we'd be able to communicate after it fell apart.

There was one time, a couple days ago, when I was entering the kitchen, and he instinctively began to greet me, but swallowed it, and just made a small "Oh" noise; a mix of disgust and disappointment that I wasn't Matt or Gary (how you can confuse a short black female-type for tall white men, I honestly don't know.) I'd like to think that this whole not-talking, not-seeing, not-interacting thing is just him being incredibly stubborn, as opposed to him genuinely not wanting to talk to me.

But, it's almost impossible to say. I don't know who he is. I never really did.

(I should really start writing some songs/poetry about this.)

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.

Stop.

At about 8:20pm on Friday night, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn't okay. Things had got out of hand, and my head was a mess. I couldn't cope any more.

I thought of 13 Going On 30, kinda stupid movie, but I like it anyway. Jenna, 13, with the help of nondescript movie magic, becomes Jenna, 30. After a whole bunch of grown-up things are thrown at her, she feels overwhelmed and goes home to her parents, who make her pancakes and make her feel better.

So, I went home. I made the pancakes though.

I'm going back tomorrow morning. I'm behind on work; I doubt I'll catch up the time I've had to take out. Still, I think I needed it. I don't think I'd have done much better there.

I feel kinda weak, a bit ashamed. I let the situation get to me, I let it break me. But, I know that everyone has limits, and I reached mine and I should just accept it, recover and come back stronger.

I'm not sure where I'm going to go now. I guess I should just take care of myself. I'm clearly more delicate than I think I am. So, reducing stress, trying to focus on the maths ahead of me. I can do it. (Of course I can.)

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... ^^

Mail!

I get really excited about mail. I'll sit in my room just waiting for noon-ish to arrive, and then sooner or later, I'll hear the gentle yet noticeable *thud* downstairs and I'll run as fast as I can down the stairs and jump around, all hyped about the mail.

I even get excited if it's not for me.

Today is Friday. I usually get the Weekly Letter from my father. It's a short note from him with £20 taped to it. So, Friday mail is even more exciting than any other.

This Friday, there were two pieces of mail. Ex's postal vote, and a Big Letter from home.

Inside the Big Letter, was the Weekly Letter, complete with £20, and a letter from Student Loans, to get my money sorted AND AND AND AND Transatlantic tickets! Prog times are soon to be mine!

Best mail I've had in a while, really. :D

West Coast Smoker

I've always wanted to visit West Coast America. California, Oregon, Washington. In fact, I just want to do all fifty states at some point. There's probably something cool to see in all of them, not necessarily all as sparkly and mental as Las Vegas or New York, but still, something quirky and interesting. Like, Connecticut has Yale, that might be cool to visit. California has California girls, so DEFINITELY worth a look there!

My parents always like to take us on holiday to the same places every time. New York, Florida, Caribbean. New York and Caribbean aren't for the touristy thing though, we go for family. So, that hardly counts as a holiday - you get to spend a couple of weeks in other people's living rooms instead of your own, except they don't get the BBC and all their TV is interrupted every five minutes by adverts of erectile dysfunction and weight loss pills if you're Stateside, or every ten minutes by soft drink and carnival ads in the Caribbean. Redeeming feature: the carnival ads have pretty girls wearing next to nothing dancing. (Apparently it's okay to say that cos I'm not a guy.)

Anyway, the point is, they go to the same places every time. It's nice, and I quite like it, but I get bored. But, I guess they like that we go to the same places every time. Like, you know what you'll get, if you just go to I-Drive every other year and go to the same Disney/Universal theme parks.

I remember last time though, things had changed a bit. The first time I went, I was about 8 or 9 when I went the first time, so it was like a fucking paradise. Last time I went was the summer before university so, I was 18 and a half. I guess I just saw everything as an exercise in using pester power to line the pockets of some CEO somewhere.

I can see why they'd choose to the same places every time though. You don't have to worry about the culture being too removed, you don't have to bring phrasebooks, you can recognise the letters and the signposts. It's just like being at home, except people say "candy" and "elevator" and the bacon is too crispy and inedible.

You do miss out on exciting stuff, though. Trying new foods, learning a language on the fly, adjusting to unusual social customs; there's the chance of learning lots and gaining funny tales to tell later when you get home (even if they're anything but funny at the time!)

So, you have a choice. Safety and the potential for mind-numbing boredom, or mild terror and the reward of finding out something new you actually quite like.

I'll take mild terror for $200, Alex.

Tiffany Blews

I have no idea what this song is about really. The band Yes have songs where the lyrics are nothing more than a collection of words that sound gorgeous together; they mean nothing, they are nonsensical. If you listened, it becomes very clear it's not supposed to make sense. Fall Out Boy tricked me into thinking this song made sense, and then you read the lyrics, and really, it's no better than Yes, except Yes were never setting out to make sense.

I find myself at a loss for words, at the moment. There are a hundred thousand words, battling for attention in my head, but they seem to refuse to co-operate and line themselves up in an orderly fashion, so I can tell you, my literate audience, what's going on. Maybe bullet points will help.

• I'm seeing someone new.
• He is my best friend. (was, is? I'm not sure.)
• My most recent ex lives in his house.
• My second most recent ex lives in my house.
• Consequently, we both live in our own versions of An Awkward House.
  
• We have a Guitar Hero band. It's called Unicorn Parade.

That's basically the gist of it. Bullet points did help. First time La Roux did the song "Bulletproof", it was actually about how she uses bullet points to help her write, except her agent didn't think it would work as well in clubs if it was about bullet points, cos they're not sexy. THEY WERE WRONG! Bullet points are beautiful.

I have exams starting today. I'm most confident about the ones coming first, so I can just get through them, do my best, and cram like a loon for the hard ones.

Everything I've learnt this year is being put to the test. And, I hate it when people say, "Good luck," because, if you prepared well, learned from what you did wrong before, if you understand where your gaps in knowledge lie, then you don't need to be lucky. You can just go and do a good job Avoid the bits you can't do, make up for it by doing a kick-ass job in the places you know you can. Luck is for the ill-prepared, it seems.

(Wish me luck for my algebra modules.)