Resolutions

1. Write more
2. Get more exercise
3. Lose two stone
4. Eat more healthily
5. Take more risks
6. Get a new job
7. Learn to drive
8. Eat less take aways
9. Buy the cat
10. Learn another language
11. Be more organised
12. Get a sleep pattern
13. Be tidier
14. Keep resolutions (what I can't stop at 13)

And I swear to go by this time next year at least one of these will be kept...maybe

OK, I started the process of signing on yesterday. It was very odd as two of the people there I knew, one was an old friend who I actually trust and the other is a person I wouldn't trust to keep the data protection act as far as I could spit, with very deep links to someone who made a chunk of my past bloody miserable.

However if I can manage it, I will get a new job within a couple of months and until then it gives me time to write, finish the house and try not to get incredibly stressed about the fact that I have no job.

wibble

An entirely new situation

As of tomorrow I am officially and completely without employment, for the first time in ten years. I'm also in full possession of a mortgage, for the first time ever. I know how I'm now meant to feel, panicked and stressed. The fact is I'm simply not. I suffer from being boring. I like nothing better than staying in and writing. (OK, I lie, I like to write in the garden) My savings will last me a few months and the state is there for a reason, but I have one worry.

Who am I now? When asked questions about myself, my answer was generally as follows; job, family, friends, hobbies, cat. Without the job, there is a massive gap in my life. The job I've just left meant me working around sixty hours per week. That is a massive chunk of time and part of the reason I decided to quit. The job had become my life, I hadn't seen a lot of friends or family in months and I have yet to actually deal with the two deaths in my family in the last year. So, there I went, bad idea maybe, my best option, definitely. People keep saying it makes me brave, I keep thinking I must be mad...Oh wait I forgot my meds this morning, but here we go, whole new ballgame.

Saying all that I am waiting with bated breath (God I hate that phrase) to hear from the place I went for an interview with on Friday. Yeah, I'm conflicted, get used to it, because without a job, I'm not completely sure what to do with myself.

Anyone out there with a job that doesn't involve manual labour or the adult film industry, because hell there are loads out there for that, and I'm just...no...Call me

Heart and head

It's an odd thing, a literary head...and is it the same as a literary heart. I do a job which I love and has a place of importance in society, so I feel that I am making a difference in the world, but it is completely and utterly exhausting. However it keeps my brain busy, which makes my creative mind spark and jump.

I love to write, it gives me a sense of freedom I can't get anywhere else, and a sense of accomplishment that I only very recently been able to get from elsewhere. In the written word, at least some of the pressure and self doubt can be expressed safely. I initially started writing on a more or less constant basis about five years ago, when mental illness bit deep and the freedom of writing gave me somewhere to express the violence and anger in my head. The violence and anger is mostly gone, and part of me worried as the illness improved that the creativity would wane. This hasn't happened, and it's helped me so much.

Now, as I come to realise that while it's hard to be me sometimes, it's also hard to be you, and I actually care about it being hard for other people these days. So, there it is. I'm glad to be me now, after so long, and while I can't say I don't care what other people think of me, I don't care as long as I've done my best and behaved well towards those around me.

So, bring it on world, consider every day as new, and as long as you've been the best you can be, learn from your mistakes and never be ashamed of who you are.

To me that means my brain hates to let me sleep, but it needs to, any suggestions as to what would help me that doesn't involve sleeping pills or alcoholic poisoning?

Eurovision

OK watching Eurovision is like applying a drill to the eardrums, but for some mad reason I watch it, every year. I blame my friend jed and the power of twitter based sarcasm. I've tried to drink myself into oblivion, but I don't have the right mindset tonight, so I'm listening to an aussie/cockney/german teenager sing about...nail varnish. pants and hair and how they fit into a teenage love affair.
Oh and 'I heart you' with hand mimes do not make you cool, and tone down the lipstick mini goth.

While I will freely admit that the song was dreadful, and possibly harping too far back into Britain's nostalgia for the eighties by letting pete waterman out of his box again, but my God we were not the worst out there... I think Lena may have won it by embracing every accent Europe.

A conversation I've had today regarding David Laws, I'm confused as to why he had to cover up being gay, which make this an expenses issue. He's gay, so what, why does it matter? Just don't claim the money and be who you are.

I feel that partners have been overused in this election, with David Cameron's horse like wife getting her own pop idol style nickname, but the partners don't run the country, be they male, female or equine.

Also RIP Dennis Hopper

Here we go

First post, I feel I should be being literary, but at this time on a Friday night I'm not up to it. What I'm actually doing is writing as I do with most of my free time and watching Life On Mars. I feel I should as huge numbers of people I work with are mourning the demise of Gene Hunt as solidly as if a member of royalty had just died.

I must be honest so am I, while the pretty the metrosexual male is great, there's something hugely attractive about the manly man, though I don't know how he'd feel about the pint of real ale in my hand right now. I'm not one for the violent side of life, or a fag after sex, but over the last couple of years I've come to learn the value of being protected.

I'm aware that's very anti feminist and that I'm contrary, I want to be protected, but not controlled, I hate being told what to do and how to think in spite of what some people seem to think, I don't like being controlled, so that mix of protective strong bloke who's relaxed enough to let me be myself is probably highly unlikely.

So long live Gene Genie, and the manly man.