As I was putting eyeliner on this morning it occurred to me for the first time in my life that I look better without it. Am I getting old?

she was a danger to herself

I am now officially sick of work. I was attacked by a seven foot long Berkshire pig today. It was one of the most terrifying things I have ever experienced. Ironically Berkshire pigs are described by the Rare Breeds Society as 'vulnerable'. He savagely sunk his teeth into my leg. I now have a massive purple bruise.

I miss weekends so much. Seven day shifts are fucking cruel. I miss holidays and lie-ins and friends and feeling young and not having to wear filthy shapeless clothing. Obviously this job pays incredibly well and there are numerous advantages and high points, but today was a horrible, depressing, emotional day. Afterwards I wanted to forget about everything so I went shopping and spent too much money (well actually I only spent £25, but I feel disproportionately guilty any time I spend any money at all these days. It's probably because I'm feeling so old and withered and sensible.) The cherry on the cake was getting lost in the dark on a bike on the way home and practically ending up in Dagenham. I was cycling along one of those badly-lit alleyways next to a motorway junction, exactly the sort of place people get raped and murdered. Why am I such a depressive nervous wreck at the moment?

In The Observer on Sunday there was a long article about the shambolic disastrous state of the juvenile courts at the moment. I hate it all; not just the ASBO-powered, agism-fuelled governmental attack on young people but also the calculating, repressive way that people are being criminalised for legal, legitimate behaviour. ASBOs are a devious, incongruous way of repressing groups of society that have the potential to influence our thoughts: namely young people and political or non-political protesters. And our government is prepared to use social stereotypes and outright prejudice in order to portray innocent, and often vulnerable members of society as some kind of threat. In exactly the same way British Muslims are also being targetted through Jack Straw's intrusive, ludicrous comments about women who wear veils. The government's campaign against Muslims in this country is no more than racist scapegoating, and again a method of depicting legal, normal behaviour as somehow dangerous and destructive. As printed in a SSAW email recently "Do you think Straw would ask a nun to remove her habit? Do you think Straw would ask a punk to remove the safety pin from his/her nose? Would he ask a Rastafarian man to shave off his dreadlocks? No, because the government along with the mass media is peddling the disgusting idea that Islamophobia is the only respectable form of bigotry. "

It shocks me that the government now find it acceptable to comment on what people should and shouldn't wear, let alone arrest someone for not keeping to a curfew or protesting peacefully in the street without prior permission. According to the report, off the 3,135 ASBOs that have been handed out to young people since 1999, 1,100 of them were to children with a diagnosed mental disorder or accepted learning difficulty. This what our government perceives as a threat: not Israeli tanks in Lebanon, not cluster bombs, not Drax Power Station, not illegal occupation, but disillusioned, disadvantaged children, Brian Haw and women who wear veils.

3 days 'til the weekend.
23 days 'til Edinburgh.
17 working days 'til Edinburgh.
61 days 'til my lonely, empty Christmas.
In 9 months and 7 days I'm going to quit my job.

Put like that, everything's almost bearable. +_+
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A little crushed around the edges.

It's daft to think about Christmas when it's mid-October, but I've realised this year it's going to be surreal. My parents are going on some beserk holiday to Morocco, in a typical "we're aging hippies trying to reinvent ourselves now our children have finally left" statement of defiance. My siblings are scattered across various unreachable parts of London, and as well as that I am meant to be working on the 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th and 29th of December as well as New Year's Day. I could:
a) purchase an M&S Christmas Dinner ready meal and celebrate Christmas alone
b) gatecrash someone else's family celebration
c) get involved in a ludicrous plan of cycling to South London for some company, or
d) boycott Christmas: pretend it's all not happening and do something better.
To be honest, Christmas is an overwhelmingly stressful period and avoiding all the hustle and bustle could be quite a relief. I'm not complaining, I'm getting triple pay anyway.

At German today my teacher started a discussion about what we thought of the politics of Angela Merkel. Three weeks of basic German and we're meant to start a complex debate about politics! This is terrifying! Somehow I managed to say something about G8 using my patchy vocabulary. Afterwards I wasn't going to get the bus, I was going to walk to the station, but it arrived just as I got outside and I foolishly couldn't resist. Tragic decision; a pregnant lady got into a bitch fight with an elderly man over who should offer a seat to whom. The usual stoned crowd intervened. The lights flickered, the bus lurched, there were no seats. I really should learn my lesson about The Bus Of Death.

In other news, my boss phoned the Anti Social Behaviour Hotline today when some eight year old boys waved a toy light sabre near some mildly hysterical sheep. This proved to be both unnecessary and ineffective. The boys eventually got bored and left. Neither the ASBO Police nor the Parks Constabulary made an appearance. Surprise, surprise.

One of the geese laid an egg today but it wasn't golden.
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The top ten most popular searches on myspace are:

1. HTML
2. Videos
3. My Chemical Romance
4. Downloads
5. Coldplay
6. Ringtones
7. Dates
8. Music
9. Photos
10. Friends

This basically sums up why a) it's a bit shit, and b) people who use it like to think they're incredibly alternative when they're actually tragically mainstream.

And it's owned by Rupert Murdoch. I rest my case.

Payday

I now have £1975.11 in my account! I am rich! Rich! I have absolutely no idea why I was paid nearly two grand for a month's work when my annual salary is just over £16k... oh well +_+

Money! Yay!

*with a second hand dress and lips of a temptress*

Some painting by David Hockney, blah blah blah...

Emerged from Ben's this morning broke and bleary-eyed. Spent the day doing homework and other more pointless things. I have 25 free songs on iTunes, but in truth I'm so used to illegal downloading that it really doesn't bother me. It's a little lonely here, but relaxing. Drank chunky soup for lunch. Eventually fell asleep on my bed at 2.30pm and woke up with a start almost late for class. Dragged myself to the bus and revised German verbs on the bus. Was just outside the centre when I remembered the class was cancelled this week. Fucking shattered and distressed by this point. Spent an hour in the library reading about collage and outsider art and then traipsed home with a heavy heart and an even heavier bag of hard-back art books. The bus home was some kind of ordeal. The stoned yet hyperactive person next to me spent 20 minutes graphically explaining why he believed Luigi from Supermario to be a woman (amongst other reasons "because she can do some nang acrobatics, you get me?"). At Mile End the bus stopped inexplicably for ten minutes, after which the bus driver announced people had been throwing rocks onto the bus from the bridge, and bizarrely asked "is everyone alright?". Just after Stratford the lights cut out and someone seized the opportunity of darkness and confusion to light a joint. That bus will be the death of me yet. Next time I'm getting the train, even if it costs me £4.30.

Thoroughly annoyed now because:
1) I wasted my entire evening going to Whitechapel on the bus for no reason.
2) Consequently I didn't spend it tidying up my room and doing my homework, boring tasks which I am now going to have to do tomorrow.
3) I missed the Holloways live on Zane Lowe.
4) I have to go to Bexleyheath tomorrow.
5) I have to go to work on Thursday.
6) I am bored of my job already after less than a month and I have to stick it out for another 11.

The only times I feel at ease at the moment are: when I'm drinking Coca-Cola, the rare occasions when I get a lie-in, and the even rarer ones when I manage to achieve a state of total detachment and escapism.

There's a long long list in my head of things I need/want to do once I finally get paid. The most interesting ones are: go and see Rodin, get tickets for John Hegley at UCL and book my ticket for Edinburgh. The more boring ones are: purchase socks, go to the optician and pay back the money I owe to various people. I now owe my parents £210. I hate this.

Pete Doherty has become a laughing stock on the Guardian letters page +_+
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