I remembered my login details!

That's really all I wanted to share.

Oh, and I'm going back to Uni tomorrow, yay!

And they've remade V and put it on channel one so if I don't get tv signal this year I'm gonna be majorly pissed off.

More blogs coming soon xxx

So according to dating websites there's no such thing as bisexuality!?

Now I've never suffered discrimination due to my sexuality (I'm bi) except for when I was first outed at school a few weeks before we left for good and a girl came up to me and said, in that attitude full voice teenagers normally save for their parents, 'Ugh, are you bi?' and I simply shrugged and said 'yeah' and she slunk away because it's hard to bully someone who doesn't care (if only I'd realise that 5 years earlier, sigh). I think the reason(s) I've never had a problem is because I'm bi rather then gay and that's generally more acceptable to close minded smeg heads (and men who thinks that means they'll get a threesome), I'm fat and a geek so there's more obvious things to bully me about and because as I already said I'm fat, and I'm strong to boot, so I'm quite forbidding. However something came to my attention recently that really pissed me off and for the first time I felt discriminated against (because of my sexuality, as I said I'm fat and a geek and whole plethora of other things I'm regularly discriminated against for).

A friend (and no that's the 'friend' as in 'me but too embarrassed to say', I did try online dating once, it was crap) tried to sign up to a dating sight that shall remain nameless (cough *match.com* cough) today but left feeling annoyed, frustrated and discriminated against after trying to answer the very first question. It was not, as one might expect, their name but what they were looking for and they were presented with the following options: 'I am a man seeking a woman', 'I am a woman seeking a man', 'I am a man seeking a man' or 'I am a woman seeking a woman'. Now, I'm seeing a major flaw in those options. What if, like both me and her, you are a woman/man seeking a woman or a man? Some of us like to keep our options open but according to match.com we can be either straight or gay and not bisexual. Now I find this quite offensive and like she was would be very annoyed by this, I don't want to choose which one I have before I even start looking. A similar situation arises with one of my friends who whenever we talk about love/sex/whatever she asks 'Which way are you swinging at the moment then?' which I always find not offensive exactly but a bit baffling. Just because at one time or another I am dating/shagging/whatever a man or a woman doesn't mean the other sex is excluded from my sexuality. I mean if a straight/gay person is going out with someone does that mean all other people of their chosen gender doesn't exist anymore? Yeah OK they're not doing anything about it but nobody can claim not to notice other people when they're in a relationship. On a side note, personally I see nothing wrong with looking so long as you don't do anything about it. I'm not even that fussed if they fantasise about them, I mean if they need to fantasise about you then you're doing summat wrong, you know? But that's just me and is besides the point. It doesn't really matter who I'm seeing at any particular time I'm still bi. And I would like to know that if I ever tried to again there would be a space for me on internet dating sites and they wouldn't try to restrict me.

Mental Health

I measure my mental health with bus journeys. Sound crazy? Well, I did say MENTAL health! It's quite simple really, if I'm happy and nothings really bothering me I can get off a bus without really thinking about it, it's natural. If something's bothering me or I'm a bit down I get this urge to stay on the bus and just ride forever and it sounds stupid but I really don't wanna get off! If I'm really depressed or something huge is bothering me then I spend the entire bus journey convincing myself that I really do have to get off and can even get a bit panicky when I know my stop is coming up. You're right, it is crazy. But craziness aside, it's a really simple way to keep a check on the state of my brain as I get buses quite a lot. Interestingly (with the exception of work, but I think that's normal) it's only when I'm going home that this problem arises, never when I'm on my way to town or hospital or whatever and can even bother me when we're in a group, like heading back to Uni from the supermarket. Luckily the other day when I was coming home and had a mild urge to not get off the bus it was merely because I knew I had a bad headache coming on, not because there was anything serious wrong (assuming you don't think that spending a day in so much pain that banging your head actually makes you feel better nothing serious).

Not everybody has such healthy methods of gauging their mental health or, sadly, the self awareness to recognise danger signs. I know some people (if you're reading you know who you are and I'm sorry) who don't realise until it's too late. For example, I can always tell when one friend is having problems because she looses weight, yet she never says anything is bothering her...ofcourse there's always the possibility that she has realised somethings up and just hasn't said anything...maybe she's waiting for me to say something? The intricacies of the female mind will always baffle me, and I am a woman! How men are expected to cope is beyond me, but ofcourse I do expect them to cope! I do have some friends who have quite good warning signs: one gets physical symptoms before she gets depressed however often doesn't know what she's depressed about and another who you can tell when she's stressed or depressed because she doesn't come out of her room. I guess my rel question is - what the hell is up with us? Why do we all need signs to tell us we're depressed, shouldn't we be able to tell anyway? And why are we all so depressed all the time? The worlds a wonderful place isn't it? Well, anyone who thinks that needs to go watch the film My Name Is Khan then you'll see that the world is essentially shit but to be honest I don't think that's why we're depressed. We all have our own different problems and different reasons, ranging from just born that way to terrible parents to (talking for myself here) weird medical issues. But, to ask another question, if opposites attract, why do I, a long term depression sufferer, keep attracting other depressed people? I swear all my friends are headcases, mostly in good ways, and I'm definitely a headcase...Not that I'm complaining, I love my friends and wouldn't swap them for the entire world it's just odd you know?

Anyway, I totally went off the point I sat down to write about. To bring it back to said point it's this: mental health issues affect everybody in one way or another, whether they know it or not, from having that slightly off friend, the mother who takes little yellow pills, your own little yellow pills or the crazy guy who tells you the world is ending when you're trying to buy a newspaper and yet so many people are still prejudiced against people who have mental health problems making them something that's difficult to talk about. On yet another side note (but more related this time), I often get the feeling that some friends (especially the afore mentioned one who looses weight when stressed) don't want to talk about their problems to me because they think I have worse problems and wouldn't want to hear about it which is stupid cos I'm their friend BUT even stupider cos I do the same thing with one of my friends! I mean not all the time but sometimes I don't want to call her and mope about my life cos I know hers are worse which is incredibly stupid cos she's my best friend and I know she'd listen, I mean if she wouldn't she wouldn't be much of a friend now would she? I mean there's a time and a place, I wouldn't have complained about my headaches or getting the blues at my friends Mum's funeral, or right after, but I can do so.

So my point is this: talk about it! Whether it's in a public forum to raise awareness or just to your friends so they can help you get through things. Mental health issues are nothing to be ashamed of. So, here goes: I have had problems with depression for just over 7 years and have mild aspergers autism and am not ashamed to say it.

Hello!

So I decided to jump on this here band wagon and do one of these blog thingys. I'm doing it for two reasons - firstly because while the Vlogs are much fun (and apparently popular) I always forget to put stuff in them and technology regularly fails me, and secondly because writing every day is good for my creative muscles, even if it's not anything particularly creative. Oh and thirdly, it's another output for me to bitch and moan in and as you probably know I enjoy doing that!

OK so technical stuff: I'm not putting my name on this as tis world wide so if you like comment or whatever these things let you do just call me Spock89 or avoid name use entirely. I will not be using anybodies names but refer to you all by initials or euphemisms (like Baz or KitKat or Rut or Boobs...you know who you all are!) and if your not sure summat about you or not just ask me on facebook.

So, on with these weeks blog: the perils (or rather just pains) of writing.

I think the line that separates people who write for a hobby and people who write as a career is very well symbolised by the same reason I'm up this late at night: stressing over multiple competition and magasine (yes, with an S, cos I'm english!) submissions. Yes even when it's for a hobby you might send off one or two entries and worry about how well you'll do but I doubt you'd spend an evening trying to find old short stories to rewrite to enter competitions with because all the good stuff you've written is currently awaiting judging or the rejection of some editor somewhere. I also doubt you'd have a notebook dedicated just to such submissions, with lists of whats been sent where when and what competitions are coming up. And I doubt you'd be working on submissions for longer pieces that don't have to be done till the end of October because the winner gets published nor do I think you'd spend and entire weekend reading Writing Magasine and Writers News, scanning it for new competitions and making notes on articles about how to write good dialogue or get published.

Now I know what you're thinking: nobody is making you do all this, you choose to do it so shut up moaning. Well no, I won't, everybody bitches about their job and writing is mine so bitching is my right dammit! Joking aside, people do see writing as nothing more then a hobby until you've got a prestigious book contract under your belt but the truth is, whether you're a best seller or a nobody writing is a full time job. You have to be dedicated, focused, hardworking...maybe that's why I'm unsuccessful so far lol! No seriously, it's more difficult then people would like you to think. But it will be worth it when one day someone hears my name and goes 'Oh, didn't you write that book...'. Seriously, I live for that day. And you'll all be pleased to know that until then I intend to continue bitching and moaning about my struggles on a near daily basis :D

On that note you should all go to here http://globalwriters.net/, register for free and when you're log in details have been confirmed buy the anthology Global Shorts, in the words of the guy who runs the competition it's from 'it's a cracking read', especially the one by me :P.

Anyway, I'm having technological difficulties today. I tried to film for my Vlog and ofcourse my camera's broken so I had to use my phone which has been moody lately and doesn't always save things (and claims that there's nothing saved, even though there's photos on there, grr) so it took time for that to work and then when I got them onto my computer they wouldn't load into the inbuilt movie maker so I downloaded a different one and the videos played fine in there but the sound went at super speed so I sounded like a demented guinea pig on crack. I'm gonna try and put them on the downstairs computer tomorrow, see if they work better there. If it works you regular viewers can look forward to a special section on hats. Yup, hats. My DVD player (George) is also being an arse. He keeps freezing and I need to unplug him to get him to respond again - it's very annoying. i suppose it's because he hasn't been used this much for months cos I had no TV signal at Uni so I just used him as a DVD player whereas here his skills as a freeview box are once more being called upon. But live TV!!! I didn't realise just how much I missed E4 and Virgin - three hours of Star Trek every day! Hopefully next year I'll have signal, what with being higher up and the digital switchover and stuff and you know, not snapping my ariel!

Erm, what else? The Rentals are on holiday so I have the house to myself which is nice except it's so hot that I'm really sleepy all the time and there's nobody here to keep me awake so I'm getting little done. Oh but I start back at work tomorrow, first time since Christmas! I'm actually excited which is sad but oh well.

That's it for tonight folks, I'm off to enjoy the relative coolness of night time and watch some Star Trek Enterprise...don't judge me, it's the easy trashy version of ST and let's face it, I'm trashy!

Nigh night everybody (or morning if you're reading this in the morning because you go to bed at normal times.)