Can you keep a secret?

If a secret is told to me first hand by a friend, usually (usually) I can keep it. I've never told anyone about R's boyfriend cheating on her and her forgiving him, or M being on antidepressants. But if something's told to me second hand, even with a mandatory 'Don't tell anyone, but...', is it even a secret? Or is it gossip? If the person hasn't had the decency to tell it to me themselves, then I find it physically impossible to have the decency not to spill all to the next person I'm talking to (starting with 'Don't tell anyone, but...', of course). That's the way secrets work. Somehow someone finds out and tells someone else but they're not allowed to tell anyone else and the other person promises that they won't breathe a word, even though everyone involved knows from the beginning that the person being told has no intention of keeping it to themselves and the person doing the telling shouldn't be telling them in the first place. Lalala *look at me using my hands to make a rounded tummy while whispering 'abooooortion' glancing pointedly at E*. Coughcoughanorexiccough. I kinda wish I could keep a secret but I love gossip too much. Is that a character flaw? It's not like I tell everyone secrets, it's usually just one or two carefully selected close friends. The opportunity to dissect details of another person's life is too good to pass up. He hit her!? Is she staying with him? WHY is she staying with him? V's dad is a sex offender!? Are you tellin the police? Does V know!? He gave her GENITAL WARTS!?!?!? And she forgave him!? It all demands discussion and debate.

You have to be careful who you tell your secrets to if you want it kept secret. If you go around blabbing the deepest, darkest details of your life to a bunch of randoms who you have no reason to trust, then I think you deserve to have them discussed behind your back. People need something to talk about in the pub - why shouldn't it be you?

Animals

I thought I'd be nice and so took la dog on a long adventure walk in the woods. After a brief but stern lecture on the things he was not allowed to do (get dirty, wet, or run away) I let him off the lead and he ran off to explore. It took him around 3.5 seconds to discover the dirty, stinking, swampy stream running alongside the path. It took him a further 0.4 seconds to make the decision to wade right on in. Little fucker. I could tell he was planning a swim and he glanced back at me as if to say 'I know what you're going to say but I'm going to go in anyway. Don't hate me'. I knew he'd ignore me but I tried a last second 'NOOOOOOO!' but as expected it was in vain. He just plunged in to this disgusting pond that stank of sewage and looked like a mixture of shit, mud, petrol and rain water, as if he was going for a pleasant leisurely dip in the local pool. Aaah, how refreshing. I was a tad hysterical at that moment. A crazy power walker storming through the woods with two ski pole things looked at me disapprovingly when I cried, 'If you don't get out this instant I'm leaving you right here and you can live on the streets for the rest of your life!'. Eventually he clambered out and shook himself, as if that was enough to make him clean and dry and ready to continue with the walk. I started ranting at him, 'Oh my god you fucking idiot, you ungrateful dog, WHHHHY did you do this to me?!...' etc etc. He's an expert at playing deaf and he does this blank stare off into the distance thing whenever you're trying to communicate something that he's so not interested in hearing. So he did that, and then just as I reached over to put him back on the lead he decided he was having far too much fun and sprinted off into another swamp. Another swamp. After that I really did consider going home without him. He's more trouble than he's worth sometimes. But...he's also pretty cute, so I waited for him angrily and he eventually got out again, shook himself dry and looked up as if 'Let's get going then'. I dragged him back to the car, hoping he realised just how much he'd pissed me off. There were towels all nicely laid out on the back seat which he promptly kicked out of his way so he could wipe mud all over every available surface, ingraining his stench into the fabric forever. I turned my Mystery Jets album up really loud because music irritates him and I was in the mood to irritate him. In an attempt at winning me round he sat up on the back seat and rested his chin on the back of my seat. Clearly this was more than a bit cute, but also it meant that his dirty slabbery mouth left mud all over another surface. Maybe that was his plan all along.

He would've been 18 next month.

I'm not going to write about what I was going to write about today because today, my cat died. It was the kindest thing to do, the vet said, and I'm sure it was but that thought hasn't stopped me seeing the rest of the day through tears.

He was my 5th birthday present. He was my baby. He never did anything cute except sometimes he'd come running through if you whistled on him. If he could have talked, I know his most commonly used phrase would have been 'fuck off and leave me alone'. He was never very affectionate, but once in a while he'd jump up to lie on someone's lap. The things he loved most were tuna, and sleeping. He had his own armchair in the living room but wherever he wanted to sleep he took the best seat. When he was a kitten he would rub himself against our legs asking to be fed. Sometimes he stuck his tongue out at me. He hated playing. He hated his big little brother (my dog) who has a waggly tail that used to hit him in the face, and who never looks out for little cats before he excitedly storms into a room. When he was a kitten we used to push him around in a pram. When he was older, everything looked like such a struggle for him.

I'll miss having to move him out of the living room at night and out of the conservatory if I'm going out. I'll miss shouting goodbye to him every time I leave the house. I'll miss not being able to open a packet of cold meat without him getting under my feet. I'll miss his fuzzy little head, and the way he'd look up at me and close his eyes happily, his purring, his little nose and his whiskers, and his bloody irritating 'feed me this instant, can't you see I'm starving!?' miaow. God, I miss him already.

Take a picture, it'll last longer

People keep staring at me. Seriously, I think I understand partly how people with proper disfigurements must feel. Yesterday my lip was even fatter than it was the first day. It just grew overnight. I had to go out even though I really didn't want to, and people just stared. On the train, in the street, at uni. They'd look then look away then look then look away again. I wasn't even just imagining it, they were definitely staring. OK I did look hideous but for fucks sake. There's no need to be rude, people. Today it got so much better but apparently was still stare-worthy. I did a quick Primark stock up and when I dumped all my stuff on the counter and said 'Hi' cheerily to the woman, she looked concerned and replied, 'What happened to your face, hen?'.

Today I also got a contraceptive injection thingy. It was a very stressful event but at least there's less danger of any more face smashingly painful cramps. I hate injections and the whole idea of them make me feel faint. This one worried me more than most because I spent all last night reading all of the internet horror stories and there definitely are a few potential scary side effects. Oh god I feel faint again just thinking about all of this. Ugh.

If everybody looked the same, we'd get tired of looking at each other...

I'm looking so sexy at the moment. Soooo pretty.

I've lost 16lbs now so feeling pretty good. Things were going well. Something had to fuck it up, didn't it? So I smashed my face off the bathroom floor and now I'm accessorising my new slimmer look with a scabby bruised nose and the fattest lip I've ever seen. How depressing.

I ran out of pills this month so, with hardcore period pain a distant memory and still no boyfriend, I thought a month off would be fine. Until this morning when I woke up in agony with cramp... spent half an hour in the bathroom, couldn't get up because it hurt too much to straighten my body and I felt too dizzy. Here's the really attractive bit - I fainted on the toilet. Niiice. I'd like to have seen that on film. I fell face first onto the tiles, came round a few seconds later wondering who was crying, realised it was me and thought I'd woken up in bed having a dream, opened my eyes and saw the floor and the blood and felt the pain and...yeah. I look horrific. I look like a battered wife. People are going to ask me what happened and I'll tell them and they'll think I just can't admit the truth. People will feel sorry for me and give me leaflets for women's refuges and things. I wish I'd been drunk then I could've made it into a hilarious story but as it is... I can't even laugh because it hurts too much.

I can't believe this has happened. As long as I live, I'll never come off the pill again. Well, as long as I menstruate anyway. So it looks like I won't be having kids. Oh well.

In case I forget

1. Graduate
2. Go to America
3. Come home
4. Move to London

She's a Perfect 10

So anyway, I lost a stone. That's a good thing, obviously. I'm slightly happy, but I'm not really happy. What would make me really happy would be never having had a stone to lose in the first place. I feel like all I've done is moved things closer to how they should be. I should be a size 10. That's who I am. I was always a thin girl in the wrong body. I am a size 10 in mind, if not in body, and I always was. How can I get too excited about simply restoring the natural order of things? People always congratulate others on weight loss but they never congratulate thin people on never getting fat in the first place. That's the hard thing - staying thin. They should be congratulated. Not people who have sat on their lazy arse eating Ben & Jerry's in front of Friends DVDs for years and then one day get up and decide to stop it.

Anyway I still have nearly another 2 stone to go, but then I will be a size 10.

I waited until the cheque cleared before I posted this

I always knew it probably wasn't my best idea, but I could see the benefits. The money. The calories burnt. And then there was the money. But the two days I spent delivering leaflets now has the unenviable position of being the number one worst job I have ever done, or probably will ever do, in my entire life. I've never worked so hard. I should've realised how hard it would be but all I thought about was getting paid and paying for my flight and I never took into consideration things like letterboxes that are inexplicably below waist level, my funny knees that can't handle anything out of the ordinary, overly enthusiastic bouncing dogs, and the sheer unbelievable weight of a bundle of leaflets. I don't do hard work. I can take shit off customers in call centres or pubs all day long but I can't spend a shift doing anything that requires me to be fit, or strong, or lift anything heavier than a telephone or a pint. Actually one of my main reasons for leaving my last bar job was because they kept making me lift tables. I like jobs where I can sit back and read a magazine and don't have to deal with the rain. I have a renewed respect for postmen (except my postman because he's a useless drunken fucker).

The first day I spent forever wandering the streets in the pouring rain wishing for blocks of flats to sprout up in front of me because despite there being (I'm estimating) 500 or so addresses in the area and me not being able to access around 25% of these addresses without a resident letting me in (short of breaking and entering), they still expected me to get rid of 1000 leaflets. When I said that I was running out of places to deliver to, the guy asked if I'd posted to any businesses. I almost hit him. No, I hadn't posted to any businesses. Because if I could just refer you to paragraph 8 of my fucking instruction sheet which clearly states 'these leaflets must not be delivered to business addresses'. But oh no, he now wants them delivered to businesses. He claimed there were 'loads' of offices nearby. Yeah, loads of offices if I fancied crossing a few picket lines. 'Excuse me, I know you're fighting for your rights out here but if you'd just let me past I'd like to leave a few promotional leaflets'. The offices that weren't council buildings all had their entrances blocked by hoardes of smokers huddling in building entrances having a cigarette, cursing the start of the smoking ban. Obviously I was too embarrassed to fight past them when I had absolutely no business being in their building and no idea where to go once I was inside. I went and sat in a juice bar for half an hour and threw the rest of the leaflets in the bin.

The second day, I had to dump some leaflets ('some' being almost half of them) in a bin and go home early. I just couldn't. I actually walked around crying for a while, it was that bad. I thought I was just being a drama queen making a 'I'm going to burst into tears' face but then I did actually start crying (which still makes me a drama queen, but I must stress that I was a cold, wet, tired drama queen wearing inappropriate shoes and carrying a very heavy bag). That was right after I realised I'd delivered 20 leaflets to an old peoples' home (as if I care, a letterbox is a letterbox). I must've looked crazy. I'd walked too much, the bag was too heavy, it started raining...the train station (not the train station I'd got off at - I'd walked so far I was at the next station along) was nearby (and by that point, half a mile away did seem nearby)... I just couldn't go on (I'm writing this as I watch a documentary on Captain Scott's trip to the South Pole and I realise that my two days leafleting probably weren't quite as bad as his expedition, so maybe I should stop dramatising). Are you getting the picture that the whole day was sheer hell? My instructions said optimistically 'you may take a 45 minute lunch break'. Yeah, right. The instruction sheet writer has obviously never spent any time in this area (lucky fucking desk job 9-5 bastard). There was literally not one single place to stop for anything to eat. There wasn't even a bench I could've sat on had I thought ahead and brought a carefully chopped fruit salad from home (my kind of lunch these days) or stopped off at Tesco for sandwiches before embarking on a 3 mile walk away from civilisation. I was kind of hoping someone would take pity on me and invite me in for lunch. I went into the ultimate Old Man's Pub for a drink after I almost dehydrated wandering round some endless estate, where 3 Old Men were sat around the bar like they probably do every single day of their lives talking about bird flu and their wives, but after that there was nowhere to be seen for miles. Literally, fucking miles. No one mentioned walking 5 miles when I signed up for this job. In fact, the phrase 'local area' was very much stressed. The only thing that kept me going was The Libertines on my iPod. When I wasn't crying I was singing along pretty loudly and fuck anyone who overheard because without music it would have been impossible.

I can't emphasise enough how absolutely hellish those two days were. I definitely need to get my knees seen to because I can't bend my legs properly or straighten them. I knew they were a bit dodgy but having never been pushed quite so much before, it's not usually a problem. I have a blister on my toe that actually has taken over my entire toe. A workman let a huge metal gate fall beside me and it missed me by like 3 millimetres. Oh dear lord god I saw a dead rat. Lying on someone's wall... it was huge and fat and it's fur was all straggly and wet, and it had massive ears and a big (I feel sick) thick tail. I almost went home after I saw that because of the trauma, and that was only 15 minutes into the job.

I might (might) laugh at this one day, when the stiffness in my legs has disappeared and been replaced with new muscles, and I'm getting drunk in Chicago and this is all a distant memory, but right now I wish I hadn't bloody bothered.

I'm Wicked Excited

Part of the reason I love travelling is the spontaneity of it. I love waking up in the morning and deciding to get on the next bus to anywhere. I love waking up hungover and stumbling down to reception to ask if it's OK to keep the room another night because we can't be arsed packing our bags. Despite this, I've spent a significant amount of time lately planning my US trip (I have to find something to fill my crap life as it is right now. I've also been making a lot of soup). And although it's partly because I don't have enough time to mess around while I'm there, it's mostly because I'm a bit scared. Scared of being on my own and lost or stranded or without a bed for the night. I'm hoping that by doing this alone I'll get more confident of doing things alone. I guess I'll have to, really. I think it's important for me to do this. Especially since my London Plan is still very much my main plan. People say that if you can travel across India, you can travel anywhere. I think that if I can travel across America for a month on my own, I can do anything on my own. I think it's important to be able to survive independently and I have to learn to do it.

I've planned pretty much a complete itinerary, down to things like '18/7/07 - 1:05pm bus to Memphis'. My itinerary changes almost daily but it's my plan to have it completely worked out before I leave. Is this cheating a bit? How hard is it to follow a schedule? Oh god. I'm so excited about this trip. I'm excited about everywhere I'm going and seeing L again. I just want to make the most of it and I'm torn between just landing in Chicago and seeing where I end up after that, and going with my original plan of the Complete Itinerary. At least with the itinerary I know I'll get to see the main things and places I want to see without running out of time, but sometimes the main things aren't the best things. With the wandering plan, I get to feel like more of a 'real traveller' and just go with the flow for a change. No pressures, no schedule.

I guess I'll compromise with a loose itinerary and maybe a couple of internal flights booked. Greyhound don't take reservations anyway. I can book hostels a few days in advance, I'm sure. Yeah. I think that's my new plan. Sorry for thinking out loud.