joecool_lemming

Bear with me. There has been too much self indulgent whining, and snarky humour. I have something serious to say.

I read a lot of the blogs on the internet. Through randomly clicking, I found my way to Whiskey In My Sippy Cup. A mommy blog. I laughed so much I thought I'd cry. And then the post, 'It's not the fall, it's the sudden stop' was the one that made me realise I needed help for all the problems in my head.

From there I moved onto Attack Of The Redneck Mommy. Another woman who will write posts about nipple rings and sex aids, next to posts about her children. And then she mentioned her son Shale, and I nearly cried. He was severely handicapped, and died when he was five years old. Several times I have cried as I read her posts about the way her son lit up her life.

Two days ago, I clicked onto the site to see if there was a new entry. There was. A baby girl, just seventeen months old, died two days ago - and Madeleine Alice Spohr is being mourned by hundreds. The internet is a powerful thing. I haven't seen anything like this before. Before she died, her mother Heather was trying to raise $3000 for March For Dimes, a charity for premature babies. That total is now, as of this writing, at over $20,000.

I had not heard of Madeleine before I found out she had died. And I cannot begin to imagine how her parents must be feeling.

I think of my friend S, and the way he looks at his baby Kami, and I know how it would break him in two to see anything happen to her. I think of my friend Jemma's godmother, Ruth, and the way that everyone in both households dotes on her three children, the youngest being the same age as Madeleine.

And I remember that Boy was premature. That his birth was complicated. That even now, his mother (attempts) to fuss over him (much to his annoyance.) And I feel thankful, and so lucky, to know that it was not more complicated than it was. That he is fine, and even as I write this, he is fast asleep and safe in bed. There are others who are not so lucky.

If you read this, please take two minutes to think of someone special in your life, and think how lucky you are that they are there.

We should not take that for granted.

Rest in peace little Madeleine. I hope that wherever you have gone, there is an end to suffering. And I hope, so much, that fewer and fewer parents will suffer the same loss in years to come.

I saw some statistics in the newspaper today. About how 1 in 3 people blame the victims of rape and think it's their fault if the victim was drunk at the time or had been 'flirting'. So I guess it's time to 'fess up and be honest.

Three years ago I was assaulted. It was a boy I knew, that I had in fact been friends with years prior to the incident. We went to the same school. We saw each other outside of school - in a group, mostly, occassionally just on our own. I hugged him hello and goodbye, as I did with the majority of my male (and female) friends. I may well have flirted with him, in the same good naturedly joking way as I did with my other male friends, where it was understood by all parties that if I made an innuendo, it was in the spirit of good fun. Especially when I would then make similar jokes with my female friends. So because I may have winked at him once, and hugged him goodbye, does that mean I was asking to be pinned down on his sofa?

Two weeks ago I  was drunk in a club. Would that make it my fault if I was attacked on my way home and raped?

There are women out there who get drunk, and are attacked. That is tragic, and unfortunate, and I have all the sympathy and concern in the world for these women. But look at the statistics, and the studies -

"The majority of perpetrators are known to their victims" - Kelly et al, 2001
97% of callers to Rape Crisis Lines know their assailant before the assault
The most common perpetrators of rape are husbands and partners - Painter, 1991

So if a woman is drunk, and her husband rapes her, is it then her fault? Is it a woman's fault if her partner rapes her because she flirts with him?

There is just a 6% conviction rate for rape in the UK. Of all cases brought to this police, 75% are recorded as crimes. Only 31% of defendents are charged. Of all rape complaints, only 21% end up in court. Rape is notoriously difficult to prove. There needs to be physical evidence, which means victims need to go to the police straight away. And even when it can be proved that a woman has had sex, it is difficult to prove that it was not consensual, unless she exhibits injuries typical of rape or assault. Rape cases often turn into the victim's word against the defendent's, with little conclusive evidence and since it is innocent until proven guilty, many guilty people walk away from their crime.

Rape and assault are traumatic, degrading and can be life destroying. No woman 'asks' to have this done to them. There are steps every woman can take to reduce the likelihood of this happening to them - but this does not make it their fault if it does. Regardless of alcohol levels, regardless of flirtation - no means no. Definitively and without question.

I find it depressing beyond belief to know that there are people out there who will think it is my fault that my assault happened to me, my fault because I 'flirted'. It has taken me the best part of an hour to write this. It has taken me two hours to decide to make this post public. But I refuse to be ashamed of it - it was not my fault. I did not ask for it. I was a victim, for one afternoon. And whilst I have to deal with that every day, in one way or another, that does not mean I have to be a victim my whole life.

So if there is a woman reading this, who has experienced this, or knows someone who has, just know these words, "It was not your fault. You did not ask for it. And there are other people out there who know that too."

(All statistics from the Rape Crisis website, http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/law/statistics.html)

Well hello.
I'm here because I'm ill, and miserable, and grumpy, and right now my friends all have problems that are about 6 billion times worse than mine are, so I feel guilty whining to them.
I logged into my old myspace today for the first time in what seems like basically forever and it just felt so weird. All these people who I counted amongst my best friends who I never even speak to any more. Some who I haven't seen in two years. Some that I see at Christmas/Easter/big catch up sessions in the summer. Some that I see whenever they're home, every couple of months, and speak to at least once a week.
And I'm just wondering - what happened to those nights, where you called me for hours so we both fell asleep on the phone? (At what point did you become more interested in the kids who did coke than your friends?)
What happened to when you used to go a mile out of your way to walk me home? (At what point did you become such a pretentious pile of wank?)
What happened to when you used to leave me comments about conversations we had that day? (When did we drift so far apart?)
What happened to staying up till 3am playing Mario Party, both bleary eyed but DETERMINED to beat the computer characters, and laughing at ourselves the next day for being so pathetic? (When did both of us decide that boys were more important than each other?)
What happened to leaving me song lyrics that we'd talked about the night before? (When did you decide that you didn't love me any more?)

And yes, I am being ridiculous and emo. So much has changed since. And honestly, across time, I didn't notice it affect me. But tonight, after the umpteenth row with the boy about not seeing each other enough, it's enough to make me worry.

I just don't want to fade away.




Pee Ess - To unashamedly big up one of my own friends, if you do have a myspace (or even if you don't) and you're looking for some acoustic, can I suggest you search for 'Daniel Davies' or go to www.myspace.com/danieldavieslive and check out 'The Love In Your Life'. The others are good too, but this is my favourite. /End plug.

Hello. I'm in private study with Soph. Say hi, Soph.
HI

Okay cool. Assad, Ricky, (or Rocky apparently), Martha, Sarah, Sybil and Shalina are all in here too, but Sybil and Shalina are far away. OH NOES.
Lala was right, bowling is next wednesday.
Sophie is sad as she has a cr*ppy mouse (school computers are sh*t for censoring...or at least I think, I've never tried, but as the school's retarded it seems pretty probable) and she's looking at french things...er, non dodgy french things that is. Apart from the trannies, but that's normal for Soph.
Okay, now she seriously is typing 'transvestite' into Yahoo France. (I never thought about having different search engines for different countries, but now that I reconsider, it makes sense. Query: where is the Russian version of google? RUSGOOGLE. BLATES. ...Ahem. SOPH HAD THE BEST ONE. Hungarian Google. HunGoogle.com "Lala, where's Brussels?" "In Hungary." Wow, this is all part of one set of parenthesis...How LONG is it, seriously?) (Okay, it was that long.) (Wow that sounds dodgy)
WAHEY, TIME TO LOG OFF. BYE BYES.
Say bye Soph.
BYE BYE chumies
Sarah says bye bye too: mmmmmmbye

 

Friends only from now on. Comment to be added =)

Rawr. Got my hair cut. Is SHORT. Used to be about three inches below my shoulders, and now it's just above them.
Also bought some stuff I needed for Wales tomorrow, so Sonja and I went shopping ^_^
I was gonna finish tidying my room before my mum got home, but she turned up an hour EARLY. So I ran around finishing, and it took about ten minutes. Hahahahahahaha. Shame. And all that happened was my mum said "So, is your room tidy?" so I opened the door and she looked in, then said my hair looked nice and wandered off. All that work put in for THAT?!

WALES TOMORROW! =D

....Oh my. My dad just agreed to give me £60 for Wales. OH MY. I know his cooking sucks, and sometimes he irritates me - but I do love my dad =D
Now all I have to do is finish cleaning my room, which should take me about another hour or so. Maybe two. But it will be done by the time I go to bed tonight, and then, tomorrow I get my hair cut and pack, and then I GO TO WALES! XD

"My parents would never allow it. We're just too different!"
"How?"
"In a million ways...I mean, I'm a woman and you're a man."
"Yes, but people of the same sex don't get married!"


...Well it amused me anyway. Yay for Ripping Yarns! ^_^

Yes. Anywho. Finally made an appointment to get my hair cut, dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun. And apart from that, nothing's new. Hehehehe, *mew*. Um, yes. Going out now. Toodles!

Okay, so I started off the night in a less than brilliant mood. But I've been cheered up by randomness, so here - enjoy it.

http://www.big-boys.com/articles/torn.html - ignore the dodginess of the first part of the weblink. Just please click on it and play the video. It is the funniest thing I've seen in ages. Yay for mimes!

www.werenotafraid.com - pictures made by people around the world, telling the terrorists that they are not afraid. Very inspirational and some of them very amusing.

Going to make an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow and clean my room, so that my parents can have no objection to me going to Wales. Um, apart from when I ask them for money, because otherwise I'll have to live on grass for the whole time we're there. And I'm sure they don't want their only daughter starving to death.

Oh yes, and I broke my phone today. The screen's all shattered and cracked because I dropped it on the floor. So I need a new phone...

My mum's just gone on a course for 3 days, so it'll be me, my two brothers and my dad until Friday. That should be cool. I mean, where my dad's concerned, he'll let me do whatever I want. I said to him yesterday, "Dad, I'm going out tomorrow night" and instead of asking where, who with and when would I be back he just said "Okay, you staying out all night?" o_0

Boredom.

FUCKING HELL.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4668313.stm

I know this is probably a false alarm, but - Laura, I know you are probably VERY VERY drunk by now, but for christs sake let me know you're alright. Text me when you see this, it doesn't matter what time it is. I just want to know you're okay. I'll probably look stupid if this is a false alarm (which it hopefully is), but I just want to know you're alright.

Random quiz thing stolen from Andrew's LJ from the last time he updated (about 50 million years ago, because he smells and doesn't update to give me something to read).

I WANT: Money. Please.
I HAVE: Too much junk, my desk is over-flowing.
I WISH: Stuff like what happened on Thursday didn't happen.
I HATE: Too many things to list...Reality TV is a good choice though.
I MISS: Lots of people who aren't here.
I FEAR: Woodlice.
I HEAR: Traffic outside, and New Found Glory, Broken Sound.
I SEARCH: For my hayfever tablets on my desk full of junk.
I WONDER: What the hell I'm gonna do when I get crappy GCSEs.
I REGRET: Not revising more.
I LOVE: Monty Python. And Ripping Yarns, which I just watched. I'm on a comedy binge this week.
I ACHE: In my head, a little bit.
I AM NOT: Tall? No, maybe something a bit more meaningful...I'm not as ditzy as people take me for.
I DANCE: Often. It's fun.
I SING: A lot, along to music. I'm almost always out of tune, but I don't care.
I CRY: Hardly ever.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: Practical. In fact, that's hardly ever.
I WRITE: Journals, diaries, emails, notes, letters, random short piss take stories that I normally rip up afterwards because I don't like them.
I NEED: Money. And to get my hair cut.
I SHOULD: Make a CV, go get a job, find out what I'm doing tomorrow, find something productive to do with my time, read all those books that I said I was going to read (there's about 5 of them now)...

People went to Belgium today. *Waves them goodbye*
Went to Romford with Lala yesterday, but there'd been a "serious incident" at the Brewery, so we had to wait about two hours for the cinema to re-open. Psh.

Everyone I know is fine, thank god - although I haven't heard from Nakeli or Kalalaa - you two better be alright.

My mum's friend ran to try and catch the bus that blew up. She saw it go halfway down the street before exploding.

If anyone is reading this who's lost someone today or are worried for a friend or relative, I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope things get better soon for everyone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4659093.stm

Fuck. This can't be real, can it? It's like some bad dream, this really can't be true. It's scarily close to where I live - I have a tube station up the road and I'm only about about 30 minutes away from Liverpool Street by train. Lala was going to go into London today, thank christ she didn't. My dad was on the tube, the train behind the one that had the bomb I think. He's safe at well, he's downstairs now. Martin even rang to check everyone was ok.

I'm really shaken up about this - but at least everyone I know is safe, and no-one knows anyone who's been hurt. It takes something like this to happen close to you, and to come close to losing the people you care about to realise how terrible it is. How could anyone do something like this?

Hmmm, yes, nice to know my friends are around for me when I need them or when I'm going through a hard time. I'm not stupid, although you may think it. I know you read this - you just can't be bothered to comment, right? Ha, I'm not interesting enough for you anymore, and now you've got other people you don't need me. Touché darling, I'm fed up with this. If you have a problem with me (which I'm certain you do), you could at least have the decency to tell me. Or, you could always leave it as it is and still claim we're friends. Whatever, I have more important things to do than be fucked around.

It's funny how my mum can make up a criticism of you and throw it at you like a brick. Problem is, she knows me better than most people, so she knows exactly how to get to me. So she's just put me on every guilt trip it's possible to put me on, and as a result I feel like complete and utter shit and I'm in tears. Fuck, I'm so pathetic.

I had to wait 45 minutes to see the doctor, then my actual appointment lasted all of two minutes. But I got new inhalers, which I kinda needed, and new eye drops. Um, woo. I'm worried about the instructions on these eyedrops though - "If your vision becomes blurred, do not drive or use machinery." It's like the warning on packets of peanuts where they say "Warning, may contain nuts."

Oh, and I met the nice old lady who lives down Charter Avenue with the alsatian. It's such a cool dog. Apparently it's called Ben. She talked to me for a minute, and wished me luck with my GCSEs. She's a nice old lady.

wanna WOW me says:
well.... i know enough to form a judgement that you're a smashing/nice/amazing girl
Rach: The truth is that I'm a bad person says:
smashing? cup of tea old bean?
wanna WOW me says:
LMAO
wanna WOW me says:
hahahaha
wanna WOW me says:
You're sooo sweet.
Rach: The truth is that I'm a bad person says:
nows the time i should probably tell you that i used to be a man
wanna WOW me says:
really? lol
Rach: The truth is that I'm a bad person says:
i wish i could see the expression on your face...
Rach: The truth is that I'm a bad person says:
no
wanna WOW me says:
ok....
wanna WOW me says:
lol
wanna WOW me says:
sheesh
Rach: The truth is that I'm a bad person says:
scare you? =P
wanna WOW me says:
yes :P

I know that was evil - BUT SO MUCH FUN!!!!