BrainVomit - The Date Arrives, Dropouts and Dropins.

Well last night signified the final night in the pub before the big trip today. The big trip though has turned in to now just 6 of us going to the beach. Zac is back in after unsurprisingly being pissed off with the others who were trying to get lifts from him, I think they're now being driven to Swanage by Jamesy who told me yesterday he couldn't afford to come with us. It's bullshit but I'll let it slide, I'm getting fast used to being lied to and backstabbed at every turn. This is why I avoided big social groups, it always gets complicated somehow.

I had hoped for 30+ people today, everyone I know and care about coming to one place as a belated birthday celbration, but as I've said before it's all fallen through. It's now going to be me, Dan, Zac, Iain, Holly and Martyn who may well leave early to go home and look after the wife. Understandable, and I'm grateful he's even coming at all considering she's 5weeks until due with their firstborn. Wishing the best of luck to them both, I know that kid will have a great start in life. I'm so disappointed so many dropped out that I feel quite down about the whole thing, and to be honest if people weren't travelling so far and hadn't already made the plans then I'd call the whole thing off and stay home alone with a few pints to drown my sorrow....but that's not me any more so I'm going to have as much fun as I can with the few that are coming, it'll be nice I'm sure everyone will get along and we can all have some BBQ's and some drinks and a good time all round.

Last night at least was nice at the pub. Charlie and Emma were there again, and as it's a Friday Louise came up as well. She'd bought me a late birthday present, bless her, which cheered me up immensely - she got me the lightsaber umbrella I'd seen in OPM and mentioned on facebook that I really wanted. She is already going to a birthday thing tonight so I don't mind at all about her not being there. I'm disappointed Charlie and Emma dropped out, as did Sue and co, I guess I'm not as well liked as I had hoped. Maybe I'm just being paranoid but it really doesn't help anything with the recent happenings. Ho hum. Nothing I can do to change things, I'm already starting to get annoyed with the intricacies of this large social group anyway, breakups, breakdowns, too many things going on that I don't entirely understand because I don't know everyone and it's too hard to piece together all the little bits...*sigh* I'm not used to all this. Maybe someday I will be but that day isn't today unfortunately. Still, it was alright last night, and it was nice talking to the people I'm closer to. I care about them greatly.

Well I guess it's time to sign out and start getting more positive. Little tidy up before Martyn gets here and I'll probably do us lunch or something while we wait for Iain and Holly to arrive then possibly meet up with Allan for a while in town before Zac and Dan turn up to go on the ferry to Studland.

~~~~~~~ Thought of the Day ~~~~~~~

Sometimes we just have to accept there may be no reason why we are not liked, and not worry about pleasing everyone all the time because that is an impossible feat. We should focus instead on just being the best we can be, and where we are not we should seek to improve. The ones who are worth it will follow us soon enough.

Jenivere Out.

BrainVomit - My Dark Night with my Dark Knight, and Even the Best Laid Plans...

Tuesday night came in fast, and the plan was to go to the pub for a bit then head on to Dan's after he'd had a bath and stuff after work at around 10pm. Well on the way to the pub as I left so late I saw Dan walking home and pulled over for a hug. I was in a top mood and happy, looking forward to the weekend and a day to spend with Dan on Wednesday. We spoke for a minute and agreed I'd meet him at his place at 10 or he'd text me when he was out of the bath. He later didn't remember me saying 10pm but that's a story I'll get to in a minute.

So I got to the pub, and everyone was outside on one bench. Nobody made a hint of an effort at making room so I stood at the end of the table. Barely as I'd got there a couple of people made some comments about Dan I wasn't happy with, and my mood slipped. It was brought crashing to the ground when the subject of the weekend came up. April made a snide comment about how the message I'd sent on Facebook with all the details on was too long and "could have been submitted to English as a fucking essay, nobody's going to bother to read it". Well, if you're going to get bitchy about it then fine, you're obviously don't have the inteligence to skimread or the attention span to give a damn what anyone else thinks but yourself. Maybe it was too long but you didn't have to read it to get the gist. Don't worry though I'll rewrite a new one later in length and language you might be able to cope with. I don't mean to sound spiteful but there was acid in her words and voice that I find hard to ignore.

Anyway, back to the point, it then came out that some people were offended at not getting said message and the invites, but to be fair I'd completely forgotten, I'd only just added them on facebook and hadn't invited them to the group trip event that I'd been planning since about April/May, long before I even met them! So they got uppity about that one too. Then I asked Zac if he was still cool with the plan at which point the same people again interjected that he was in fact now going with them to Swanage, and tried to make out that Dan and I were just using him for the lift in his car. We enjoy his company, Dan considers him a good close friend, and I know for a fact that since I invited him to this trip he has been asking me about details practically ever time we meet. We'd been looking forward to this, and the plan was Zac would take Dan after work and meet us in Poole and we'd all go over together, but now things were said like "oh he wants to do his own thing, you're just using him for the car because Dan can't get there otherwise" and all that crap. Bullshit! Plus after talking to Dan yesterday the same people saying all that are using Zac for a lift to Swanage.

Two faced bitching and purposeful ruining of other peoples plans is going on here and I don't like it one bit. They tried to do it last time when we were saying it would be cool if Zac came with us to Sound Circus for the night, but they had plans for Swanage. Well, in the end they left him behind because they obviously had enough cars for themselves and we were both saying it was a shame he wasn't with us, he could have come on the bus and been able to drink and enjoy himself, not having to drive anyone anywhere.

I mentioned again about Saturday that I thought Jamesy (who I'd spoken to the day before about it) was coming along to Studland, but they instantly said no he's with us. So it felt at this point with everyone else I'd invited dropping out one by one that the whole thing was just going to shit. Thankfully Sue who had been staying out of it said she'd like to come, and bring along her boyfriend and maybe a couple of other friends too. We swapped numbers and I thanked her for being nice when everyone else has obviously decided they don't like me now. It was only 9:25pm though and I was fed up of standing and feeling completely shunned by everyone, so I said bye to Sue and went to find something to do until 10pm.

My first call was to park up behind Morrisons and sit on the bench under the trees for a while and try to get rid of the upset that was threatening to overtake me, but within a few minutes a car full of chavs pulled up and I made a hasty decision to leave immediately. I headed around to Tesco, knowing they were open late, and went in to mill about and pass the time. I'd sent Dan a message before leaving asking if it was ok if I turned up early because I didn't want to stay any longer but had no reply so I thought it best to wait until 10. I got wispas, cookies and galaxy hot chocolate to make myself feel better, and some microwave paninis for the morning. The last 15 minutes I spent sat in the carpark next to my bike, texting Marcus to see how he is settling in to his new flat. After being kicked out of his house (he's only 16) he had spent a week in a tent in the woods before they gave him somewhere to live. Thankfully it sounds as if he's settled in well, if a little lonely now being so far away from everyone he knows.

10pm rolled in, and still feeling not much happier I drove over the road to Dan's. His mum let me in and I went upstairs to wait as he wasn't out of the bath yet, so I sat on his bed and read a few more pages of book. I was instantly cheered up by the look on his face and the cry of shock he let out when he saw me there, he was at the doorway without even a towel on to cover his modesty! It's not like I haven't seen anything before but he was surprised and said he hoped he had time to sort himself out before I came over. Still in fits of giggles I laid back and looked at the ceiling while he got some clothes on.

Once he was presentable (vaguely) he checked his phone and got my message. He asked why I'd wanted to leave early so I explained while trying not to get upset about it. It's awkward because I feel more upset when I'm angry because I quite simply hate being angry but that's how I felt towards some of them and the way they'd been speaking to me and so inconsiderate that evening. Well, Dan caught on and told me he didn't want me to be sad especially not with him, and that he'd hug and kiss me until I was happy again. It didn't take long, there's something about him that just makes me want to smile, he knows exactly how to make me giggle and forget stresses.

After that we went downstairs to make hot chocolate, we added coffee in for a bit more energy as we'd decided to watch The Dark Knight together. It was late but the day after was his day off so we settled down with mocha, cookies and cuddles to watch it. I absolutely loved the film, as I hadn't seen it before - it was awesome in many ways. By the time we'd got to the end though it was almost 3am! We decided to stay up longer and watch tv as we were so comfy laying on the sofa together. We ended up falling asleep there to be woken at 7am by his mum coming down and demanding we get up. Woops.

We went upstairs and dozed off for another few hours before getting up for coffee and breakfast. We quickly dropped the plan of going to Poole for the day, because time had gone on a bit and Dan needed to go to the doctor in the afternoon about his leg. He'd broken it a couple of years ago and had some pain in there which was now getting worse so it was definately time to get it checked up. We spent the morning relaxing and watching music channels, which was welcome because I've now got whatever it is that Dan had. Headaches and a painful chesty cough, total feeling of being run down by a bus, not good!

We eventually left when it was time to get him to the doc, and after the appointment we slowly wandered back through town. We stopped in the book shop, where he found some comics for his collection and I found a book called "Psychology and Psychiatry for Nurses" - it was 75p and though written in the 60's I thought it'd be good background reading for some more info. Dan bought it for me and I got us each ice cream from the shop nearby. We wandered back slowly because I was feeling the heat, despite it being cloudy and Dan assuring me it was slightly chilly.

When we got back I laid back and relaxed as I was feeling a bit rough for gaming and watched Dan playing MGS3. He'd just completed it so was running around on a second playthrough in a tuxedo with the Patriot gun not taking it all too seriously like his first time through. It was funny watching him run and gun through the forest, and talking to Sigint on the codec about the patriot was even more giggles!

His mum made us some hotdogs with onions for dinner, bless her, and afterwards we headed up to the pub. After the night before a big part of me didn't want to go and I felt awkward about it to be honest, bad vibes and all that. Still, we met his ex Emma on the way up and convinced her to come along with Charlie when she'd got changed from work.

We arrived and everyone was again sat on one bench but there was just enough room to squeeze a seat on one end each. There was a little grey cat, fairly young and fluffy, wandering around everyone so we picked it up for a cuddle, and when Dan went for drinks I sat down with it and it settled happily on my lap purring and clawing at my knee. Bless. I chatted a bit to Sue who was next to me but it seemed like when Dan came back too our end of the table was being kept a bit seperate to their conversations. When Emma and Charlie turned up, I suggested we move on to the benches behind us which were pushed together into a long table so we could all sit down. Well, Dan, Sue and myself moved over and the others stayed put. Chrispy ended up sat on the table down from us mostly talking to another Emma about things so we mostly left them to it. I'm just guessing it's about Emma's now fiance who is still in hospital, and Chrispy saw him when he went there about his eyes earlier in the day. We're all hoping he comes out soon, he's been in over 2months but hopefully he's making more progress to recovery now.

So anyway, after Sue left fairly early, the rest of the eve was mainly spent with me and Dan talking to Emma and Charlie. We had a good laugh, and I finally relaxed a bit although there were outbursts of laughter from the other table and I did hear us being mentioned at times. At one point, Dan went to talk to Zac privately about the weekend, so I spent some time convincing the other 2 to join us. I really hope they do, the more the merrier, and I'm sure they'll get on with people. It would be good to actually have someone turn up. I understand some people have dropped out with good reason, I have nothing against them at all, but it's the ones that won't even tell me if they want to go or not or the whole fiasco about conflicting plans...they're basically just copying us anyway, we started the trend for overnight beaching and they were jealous because they weren't having as much fun, obviously, so now they feel the need to ruin our plans by making someone feel that we are using them when in fact it's the other way around!

Back on track though, we left about 11:30pm ish and walked back with Emma and Charlie having a laugh all the way, we parted halfway through town and said farewell. There's not much I'll say about the night after that point but it was a good one and I fell asleep very happy knowing I have the best boyfriend around.

This morning I woke up tired and run down, couldn't face a coffee so just had water before leaving at quarter to 9 and drove straight home. I'm now trying to chill and get some energy back before my sister gets here at 2pm. She's been promised I'll be more awake than I was this morning but I feel really rough, cant seem to clear my head unfortunately but at least writing about the first half of this cleared a little stress and the rest made me smile to remember.

~~~~~~~ Though of the Day ~~~~~~~

Maybe this is what he meant when he said I couldn't trust anyone, perhaps I should have been more cautious. I feel betrayed by people I barely know and ask myself why their knives would bury themselves in my spine when I wish them no harm?

Jenivere Out.

BrainVomit - Part 2 of the Party Weekend, Big Busloads of Fun and Finding Bliss

I'll start this one with a little hiccup I forgot to mention about the other night. It just makes me giggle despite the loss of dignity! When we were leaving Bryanston after Wombat and Amy's party, a few of us were saying goodbye inside. Chrispy decided to go around and hug everyone, picking them up as he went. He got to me last and rather than picking my up by the waist/arse like he did the guys he decided to grab my legs just above the knee. All very well while everyone's laughing while I'm stuck midair but when he tried putting me down he forgot the problem with drunkenness, high heels, and bent knees and we collapsed on the floor. Right after I got up Dan was laughing and reciting that stupid primary school rhyme "I see London I see France I can see your underpants!" If I wasn't giggling too I could've nutted him for that one!

Anyway, I'm now back home again and it's time to recount the second night of the weekend, and then a little bit more, to get up to date.

~~~~~~~ Saturday Night - Buses of Blandfordians for Bournemouth ~~~~~~~

Saturday night...where do I begin? Well I got to Dan's only a little late after a complete indecision on outfit arose. Oh dear...I'm turning more female by the day dear reader, it's all this actually caring about what people, or rather one person thinks though it's completely silly because looks are but superficial. Our physical forms are just vessels for the more important internal self...but it does feel good when you feel that you look good, no?

So Wombat had been organising the trip for a while, getting a bus to take everyone up to the club to celebrate her birthday so the people who usually drive didn't have to and could have a few pints too. Unfortunately, with people not paying and dropping out last minute, it was a bit worrying until we had confirmation they had allowed the size to drop from 24 seats to 16. We only had to pay an extra £2.50 each as all the spaces were then filled, and Louise had printed out the flyers for us to get in free saving the £3 entry fee - perfect!

We hopped on the bus outside Wombat's about 8.20pm in plenty of time to get to the club. The mood was quiet, partly because we were all blind stinking sober and partly because it's hard for us at the front to turn to those at the back. We took a few photos, some film, and everyone was talking but it wasn't until we started getting closer that the mood rose. We got out in the cold and queued up outside the club. It's advertised opening is 9pm and we were 5mins early but we were still there before the DJ! I guess they opened about 5-10mins late but we were the only ones there. We all went straight to the bar and got our first drinks in and stood by the bar talking more as a few people arrived, some we knew some we didn't.

A couple of us got in the mood to request some songs, and 3 of the guys got up to rock out on the empty dancefloor. I joined them as soon as I heard Metallica's "I Disappear" not long after I requested it and stayed a couple more songs before finding the rest again. I needed a few pennies for the night so I told Dan I'd pop over the shop, but instead he said he'd come with me after his pint so we mingled a bit before we went. It was nice to have him come with, I mean the whole night it was pretty much like we weren't joined at the hip but at the same time we spent time together and apart. If I wasn't with him I generally knew where he'd be if I wanted to and vice versa. It makes such a big change from being with someone who would be constantly watching or needing to be with me the whole time, or guilt tripping me if I went away. I can't get over how good it all is sometimes.

I got some good photos, and so did Dan the times when I handed him the camera and said just take a few pics of whatever and look after this for me. There were other times when I was sat and looked after his glasses and shirt in return when tunes he liked but I'm not so keen on were playing. Some songs we were both up and enjoying the music and rocking out together with the rest of the group in a big circle, and a random dude joined in the middle sometimes which was hilarious! Bless, he was wasted but having a lot of fun. Anyway, enough talk I'll let the pictures say sometime now!

Bus Ride

Louise and Me
Nick and Lay
Wombat and Chrispy, BEFORE they were drunk!
Dan and James

Wombat, Anna and Marie chilling on one of the leather sofas
Claire and Tristan
Lay and Wez
Luke and Dan
Tristan and Dan
Chrissy T and Chrispy - Fabulous, boys!
I did a great job looking after Dan's glasses ;)
I like to surprise Wombat....Wahey!
Carrie, on the left, Dan's more recent ex. I wonder why he took a photo of her but I don't particularly care, he didn't give a damn when she dumped him and he's an honest guy - I trust him completely.
Haze looking cute on the side of the dancefloor
Chrissy T Raving it up!
Lucy and girlfriend
Anna letting her hair down on her 2nd trip out to SC
Bev the Dancing Bunnygirl
Claire and Tristan in a bit of a classic moment, so glad I had the camera out!
Colleen....words can't describe this photo!
Haze and Luke - Ok, so I am a tiny bit jealous of her incredible hair...
Dan with one of his best mates Steph and the random drunk guy who was dancing in the middle of our circle
Dan and Steph, apparently she's just like me - in his words "you're both crazy!"
Dan, the Emo Pimp...Oh dear...we have to do something with that hair! To be fair though it was being blown by the fan there.
This one was taken by the owner, from left to right, Me, Claire, Colleen, Rich, and Chrissy T draped over us, bless!
Chrispy and I did a really REALLY good job looking after Dan's glasses...well he never said not to wear them!
It was giggles, Louise thought so too because she was taking these on her camera.
I almost look intelligent, scary!
Steph took this when we were sat in the hallway by the giant fan. "Look windswept" - I think we did ok on that one!

Well that covers the photos, or thereabouts. Some of Dan's favourite songs had him running over and draggin me to the dancefloor with him a couple of times which was just amazing fun. When I'm drunk I don't mind headbanging to D&B. So anyways, by the end of the night Chrispy had pulled (as usual, but a few of us thought he had a girlfriend? We were mistaken, she's just another that likes him so it seems) but we weren't too sure on his choice of lady. He said he was invited back to hers but didn't because he had to be on the bus with us. I don't know, dear reader, judge for yourself.


Wombat pulled as well, same guy for the second week in a row. Bless, I think she really quite likes him. Unfortunately though nobody caught him on camera, at least not that I've found yet! I do hope she'll be alright, she could do with a nice guy to take care of her.

The end of the night saw me on the dancefloor rocking out to Bon Jovi's Livin' On a Prayer, for once I hadn't requested any cheesy 80's stuff but everyone loved it and was singing along, then the last track for the night was......Europe's Final Countdown! I was absolutely loving it when some arms slipped around my waist from behind. For half a second I did wonder what the hell was going on but leaned my head back to see Dan grinning at me! We danced out the rest of that tune together, almost having our own little slow dance to the solo - epic and indeed win! That really was the high point and I felt absolutely amazing and so glad to share such an incredible moment with him.

We took a while leaving when it came to 2am kickout time, mainly because Wombat was rather attached to Scott and didn't want to leave. Good job we'd booked the bus for 2:15, it wasn't waiting for long. Most of us got on and waited, and while we were waiting a random dude got in and asked where it was going! Private minibus, we were all a bit confused at his appearance at first but when we told him it was going back to Blandford he departed with the line "Blandford? Why would anyone want to go there?!" We all laughed and eventually everyone was on board.

We got dropped off next to Dan's as it was on the way, so thankfully didn't have to walk back through town. We were both drunk and hungry so Dan picked some snacks and we sat down to some tv to munch. A couple of cereal bar, crisps and some uncooked poptarts later I felt much better but absolutely shattered. We went upstairs and as it was somewhere between 3 and 4 in the morning by this point we went to bed and weren't awake more than a few minutes before being fast asleep.

As usual come morning I was awake first, and after an hour of reading decided to get up and fetch snacks and energy drink from Tesco. Predictably he woke up just as I was getting dressed, so we agreed I'd hop off but make him a coffee first and leave it downstairs so he could wake up slowly. I came back with quiche, sushi and a couple of microwavable paninis. Cheese and bacon, lovely job! I had the sushi then shared the quiche with Dan, saving the paninis for later.

The morning and early afternoon were spent easily, Dan played more of Prototype, I watched a bit but spent some time improving the quality of the night's photos as well. Zac got in contact and there was talk of going out shopping somewhere, but it was a hot day and I didn't feel like it too much. We were talking of maybe just doing Wimborne market, but when Zac arrived we sat in the garden with the paninis and ended up looking at photos and videos instead. Much preferable, as it was a bit late when he arrived to do anything like shopping anyway. It was a hot day, and Zac only stayed a short while before going on.

We went upstairs to play Star Wars Battlefront 2 together. Mos Eisley's Assault level provided us the brilliant chance to play as heroes vs villains, Jedi and Sith, all of the major characters, great fun! Dan started off playing as the evil side while I used the forces of good to crush him. I was just on the brink of winning when we were called down for the first roast meal I'd had in ages. We returned afterwards and I dealt a swift killing blow to secure my victory. The second round we switched sides, and after a close fought battle Dan maintained his lead throughout and won bringing us even. The third match and we both chose to play dark side together and crush the Jedi heroes. It was brilliant teamwork that defeated the surprisingly adaptive foes. In all matches I topped my team's leaderboard with over 60 kills, Dan however was halfway down with 30 or less but to be fair he was using some of the characters like Jango and Han who only have blasters and he got a good number of headshots.

When we were done with that, I coached him through finally completing Metal Gear Solid 2. He only had the last boss fight with Solidus to go, but when you're out of practice and indeed stuck on that bit it's hardly a walk in the park. He then started on the Tanker section, which he hadn't done yet. Apparently if you select not having played MGS1 at the start you go straight on to the Plant part of the game, madness! It's like starting over from nothing. After the fight with Olga it was getting late, so I turned off the laptop (I'd been half editing more photos while he was playing) and ended up reading as he went through OPM cover to cover. He started on the Batman review but got in to some of the other reviews and articles. He skimmed a few but went all the way to the end and back through to Batman again!

Sleep again, and an early start on Monday saw me making the coffee at 6:20am as usual and getting ready to go. Today I had the ominous interview at the Jobcentre to look forward to. I was a bit apprehensive, not having had one before. Turns out it was more just a review of the agreement, and he printed out a couple of job opportunities and changed a few things on the system. All over and done with. Phew.

So that takes us up to now. I'm staying in tonight, gaming night, and besides Dad's away with Kaitlin seeing some family in Dover and the cat needs half a pill twice a day for diabetes so if I went to Dan's this evening I wouldn't be able to stay. They're back tomorrow though so I'll see if any plans are happening. Would be good to sleep in tomorrow morning though, little bit run down at the moment. So I bid thee farewell, dear reader, until next time I have something interesting to catalogue here!

~~~~~~~ Thought of the Day ~~~~~~~

The slower the descent, the deeper the fall.

Jenivere Out.