Bizarre sort of evening. Been out to the cinema to see Miss Congeniality and Enemy at the Gates (good and very good respectively) and yet - and here’s the bizarre part - I’ve been in a really bad mood for most of the evening. I don’t know *what’s* causing it. I mean, a guy told me off for queue-jumping when I was getting an icecream at the cinema (which I didn’t know I was doing, given the 300 people to 1 till crowd), but I was already feeling pissed off. I just walked off, as I was ready to snap back. So I’ve been trying to work out why I should feel so annoyed at nothing in particular; work’s fine, money’s fine, life’s fine.. Oh yeah. Definitely bad mood. Perhaps it’s the oversleeping today and the dregs from arguing with the neighbours. I think I’m just going to get some sleep and start again tomorrow. Need to get to the gym and kick hell out of the punchbag, I think. De-stress.

Got into an argument at 1.30am last night with the people next door. Had just gone to bed and they were talking real loudly next door (and the walls are fairly thin), and were keeping me awake. It’s happened before - and they’ve argued much louder before that - but last night it just got to me. So I banged on the bedroom wall, and for a moment there was a deadly silence..and then the guy yelled, “Mind your own business, you nosy bitch!”. I yelled back, “I would, if you were quieter - it’s 1 bloody 30 in the morning, for Chrissake!”. There was an exchange of words through the wall for a minute, then the woman yelled, “Come down to your back door now!”

So, I got on my dressing gown, wandered down to the back door - loud banging on it just before I reached it - and opened it to find the two of them standing there. The guy was effing and blinding - a real hothead, but the girl was slightly more reasonable. I think they’re in their 30s, or thereabouts, and brother and sister. Anyway, she tells me how rude it is to bang on the wall, and I retort with how rude it is to be so loud at that time of the morning. She argues back that I play loud (stupid divvy, in the guy’s words. What does divvy mean, anyway??) music at all hours. I say fine, I’ll turn my music down, and you should have said something. Meanwhile, the guy (Pat, I learnt) is ranting and swearing about how I’m a fucking nosy bitch, and how he owns the house next door, whilst I only pay rent (like that makes a difference, I tell him angrily), and who the hell am I to tell him what to do. The girl (Kate) is doing her best to calm him down, and finally he huffs off back into the house. We reach a kind of grudging compromise in the end - after all, Kate says, we don’t want to fall out, which I agree with.

They’ll try to be a bit quieter late at night - although as Kate says, they are naturally loud (as in voiced - I think it’s a Northern thing). In return, I’ll keep my music down.

I sloped back to bed, and just crashed - I think partially because of the stress of the argument, and the lack of sleep throughout the week. I woke up like 12 hours later - I’d slept right through, which shocked me. Sure, I’ve slept late before, but usually because I’ve woken at a normal time, and not wanted to get out of bed. And the most annoying thing? I’d had plans for today, and I’d slept most of it away!

Had a good (three day!) weekend.

Got my hair coloured on Saturday, spur of the moment decision (I seem to be doing a lot of that lately..was the same getting the tattoo). Anyway, I’m chuffed with it. Lowlights, sort of plum ‘n burgundy. Subtle, only shows up in light/daylight, so it’s a good non-scary intro to colour. Got it cut too, so it’s no longer annoying me by being too-long-down-past-my-shoulders. Steph turned up a while after I’d got back to the house, and I mentioned it to her. She laughed and said I shouldn’t have bothered paying for it, as she couldn’t tell. I was sorta in shadow, so it wasn’t surprising, but her reaction still pissed me off. She just totally manages to rub me up the wrong way. Still, least I don’t have to live with her or anything.

The 8 of us went out for a Chinese on Sunday for Mother’s Day. *Really* nice, Peninsular out at Fazeley. Expensive, but it was totally filling, without feeling bloated at the end. Mum liked her spa/health club day pampering sesh voucher from us too…I think. Hard to tell with Mum, she (and Steph, actually) never seem to get excited about anything. I can’t really relate to that, it just seems..I don’t know. Unhealthy?

I was absolutely shattered most of today. I was kept awake a lot of last night because Loz kept waking up, snuffling, and moving about with this cold thing she has. And being away from home, and in an unfamiliar bed, I was sleeping lightly anyway. Having to get up at 7am was a killer given the lack of sleep. Me, Dad, Loz and Judith got back up to Shef for about 10am. Went back to the house via the supermarket and slumped watching videos for a bit. Loz actually finished her interview early-ish. She got offered a place, but it’s not till September 2002. She’s got the Coventry offer for Sept ‘01 as well, though I think she wants to come to Shef. Big decision time..hope she doesn’t get too stressed over it. We got in an early dinner too, before they left for home. Jude got off to Liam’s and we’re meeting up later in the week (karaoke, God help me!). I crashed on the sofa after they left, woke up a couple of hours later. Ayup, I was tired.

Back to reality tomorrow. Just have visions of job bags stacked high on my in-tray, and several thousand emails with copy attachments and design briefs. Just hope I don’t catch Loz’s cold thing - that’ll be all I need!

Loads ‘n loads of personality tests at emode. I’m taking them with a generous pinch of salt, but apparently my personality type is a ‘Guy’s Girl’, my colour is black, my flavour (hmm!) is peppermint, and my aura is sapphire. Thing with these tests is I bet if I took them again in a couple of weeks, it’d be all change!

Had some phobia research to do this morning..there are some *strange* phobias out there. For instance;
Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth: Arachibutyrophobia.
How do people find these things out??
Fear of long words: Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

So it started snowing here about 3 hours ago, medium strength, bit of a wind, settling only outside of the city centre, temperature just nudging a degree or so below freezing. And yet the whole place grinds to a halt, and suddenly we’re apparently in the throes of a blizzard. You go out onto the street and people are cowering under bus shelters *and* their umbrellas, and talking to each other in disbelief,
“Goodness, isn’t it cold? And snow, this late in March!”
And their companion will nod and tsk, and say,
“So much for global warming!”
Heaven forbid any of them should visit east coast America at this time of year…

Thank God, all turned out to be fine at the hospital. Worry over, Loz is a-ok

Oh God. Louise found a lump today…it scared me to death when I heard. She got through cancer 4 years ago, and it’s terrifying to think that it could come back after all we went through. Of course in these situations people always say don’t worry, it’ll be alright. And sure, it could just be something as innocuous as a swollen lymph gland, as the doctor suggested. But despite the reassurances from others, and my own self-reassurances, there’s always that little voice in the back of my head that niggles at me and whispers quietly, but what if it’s more? what if it is your worst fear? And having seen it before, I can’t ignore that little voice. Not until I know it’s okay. Not until she’s seen the specialist. Monday. I think it’s going to be a long weekend.

So we got talking about old horror movies and splatterfest gore here at work, and it reminded me of something that happened when I was a lot younger. When we first got a video at home (a top loading Betamax!), our Mum would take us down to the video shop and we’d pick out videos, usually cartoons or cartoon movies. Whilst my brothers and sisters were choosing videos, I would wander down the other end of the store to the movies and start reading the backs of the horror videos in morbid fascination. Of course, I would scare myself silly over this, and it all finally came to a head one day when after reading the back of ‘Scanners’ (exploding heads in graphic detail), I couldn’t sleep for visualising this with my over-active imagination. Finally, I went downstairs to find my Dad still up, and sniffling somewhat, told him I’d had a scary nightmare. He asked me what it was about, and not wanting to admit I’d brought it on myself, I said I couldn’t remember. He gave me a hug and of course, as Dads do, told me it wasn’t real, and I stayed downstairs with him for a while before he took me back up to bed. I kept well away from the scary videos section for a *long* time after that!

01:10
Yay, it’s working! Thank bloody God, now I can get some sleep!

01:06
testing again??

00:59
Argh, how do I get this thing to work properly!!?? Is midnight really the most sensible time to do this?

00:50
Current song playing: Ready to Go, by Republica.
Kind of fitting for the first post!