I'm celibate.

Well, it sounds a whole lot better than "nobody's been sniffing around lately".

I haven't been near a man since my birthday, so that'll be 2 months next week. That's nowhere near the longest dry spell I've ever had (18 months, after I broke up with The Ex Who I'm Still Not Over) but I'd been getting it relatively regularly since I went to uni in September, so I'm feeling the loss.

On one hand, I can't wait to get back in the saddle. Save a horse, ride a cowboy and all that business. On the other, I think maybe now would be the perfect time to stop shagging around and start looking for something more serious. I've been a right old slapper, and what did I get for my trouble? Knocked up.

But then, it's very rare that I meet someone whom I actually want to see more of - mostly I'm just in it for the sex. Or perhaps that's what I tell myself as a way of not getting hurt and convincing myself that I'm just using these guys, rather than them using me. Nah, don't think that's true - there's only been one man since September who I really really wanted to see again, and we didn't even properly sleep together (oral doesn't count, right?). If only he hadn't met that girl while he was travelling...gah. Move on, don't dwell.

For the foreseeable future, I think I'll try not opening my legs within five minutes of meeting someone. We'll see how long that lasts.

Just found out

that I got 87% in the exam I sat before I took a break from university. I'd assumed I wouldn't pass it at all, since I'd missed a lot of the placement in that module - I thought the two went together. But no, I only have to retake the practical element in October. Thank christ! And also, check me out! I revised the night before but that was about it - and yet I got such a good mark.

When I told my mother, she said "oh, that's great. But you still have to redo the practical part don't you?"

Yeah, let's not celebrate the one thing I've done well at. Let's focus on the bad part. Well fuck it, I'm proud of myself, and I'm ready to gloat for at least the next 3 days. Go me!!!!!!

I don't remember a lot

I don't remember a lot about my night out. I remember meeting my best friend from primary school and telling her I was nervous because it felt like a date. I remember going to the first pub and having a couple of drinks (doubles, obviously). I remember leaving that pub...and then it all goes blank. I wake up in the next pub we went to (apparently), which was a gay bar, and I remember dancing the night away in there. It was a fantastic night. I've got blisters all over my feet from walking miles from bar to bar, which again I don't remember. I've also got tons of photos on my phone of us covered in blue face paint, which I also don't remember.

These blackouts are troublesome. The worst one was when I was about 18, when one of my friends had a new year's eve party which we all went to, and I do remember certain parts of it. Then the next morning I came downstairs and their porch window was all smashed. I asked what the hell had happened, and everyone looked at me like I was mental. Apparently I had been there when the window was smashed (some bloke had fallen through it, so I'm told), and had become mother hen and vacuumed it up. I still, 6 years later, have no memory of this. It's frightening to think you can have conversations with people and interact perfectly normally, and yet have no memory of it whatsoever. My brain is probably completely mashed, and by the time I'm 60 it won't be functioning whatsoever. Oh well.

Bridesmaid revisited.

My cousin L and her live-in boyfriend have finally gotten engaged, after three years together. Woo! She's the first one out of my immediate family (I don't have brothers or sisters, so cousins count as immediate) to get hitched, so I'm ridiculously excited - we haven't had a big (read: drunken) family wedding since my cousins-once-removed got married in the nineties. The way I've phrased that makes it sound like my cousins-once-removed married each other; actually I have three c-o-r's, and none of them intermarried, thank you very much.

Anyway, I assumed L would ask her two sisters to be bridesmaids, which she did. But she also asked me! I'm going to be a bridesmaid!

I've been a bridesmaid twice before, for two of my cousins on my dad's side of the family - the first time I was 5 and the second time I was 9. So this is my first time as a grown-up, and as far as I understand, being an adult bridesmaid means you're almost obliged to get off with the best man, or at least one of the groomsmen. That's one of the reasons I agreed to do it, but now I've thought about it, I'm not so sure.

If the groom asks his brother to be best man, he's definitely not my type, not that that matters since he's also married. If he asks his best friend to be best man, he's definitely my type but lives with his long term girlfriend. Arse. Still, I might get to dance with him - right now that'd do for me, I haven't been within groping distance of a man since my birthday. It's been an appropriate amount of time since the abortion, I'm ready to get under someone again. Foetus's Father has disappeared for good it seems, not that I'd want to go out with him again - it'd just give me bad feelings, I think. Like guilt, I hate that. The guy I was seeing at the same time as FF is keeping me dangling: "when my exams are over, I'll make it up to you". Yeah, we'll see. Ex Who I'm Still Not Over has a new girlfriend - she's his flatmate, they met when he moved in. By rights it shouldn't last, but knowing my luck they'll end up getting married. I feel like I prime men for a long term relationship. Women should hire me to date the man they want to marry, once he breaks up with me he'll be actively looking for someone to commit to.

Oh well, I'm meeting up with my best friend from primary school in town this Saturday night. I haven't seen her in years, so that'll be fun, and as an added bonus maybe I'll get to do some flirting. Everyone cross your fingers.

We're going to the zoo...how about you?

I spent today at the zoo with a 4 year old, a 3 year old and a 2 year old.

Here's something I didn't know about kids before now: they like to run away from you. And if you chase them, they just run faster.

These kids were absolutely adorable though (they're my mum's best friend's step-grandchildren, I was roped in to lend an extra pair of hands on the trip) and despite the fact that none of them had ever laid eyes on me before, they were all perfectly willing to hold my hand and tell me about their favourite animals and listen to me when I shrieked "stop!!!!!" from five miles behind them as they were about to vault over the fence into the penguin enclosure. Not that penguins would do a lot of damage, but it's the principle of the thing.

It's a weird feeling when a kid launches themselves into your arms for a hug. At least it is for me, since I don't know any children and the last time I spent the day with a 4 year old was when I was 4 myself. These tiny little people are so trusting and so vulnerable and just make you feel so protective. I realised that to them, I'm an adult. I spend most of my time wondering when the grown-up gene is going to kick in and I'm going to stop feeling like an irresponsible 18 year old, and today gave me a lot to think about.

I read somewhere that alcoholics emotionally halt at the age at which they started really drinking. For me, that age was 18. Now, I'm not ready to link a to b just yet (that would mean actually confronting the issue, shock horror) but bells are ringing, know what I mean?

I'm fucking knackered though. Further proof that I couldn't have had that baby.

I was just

watching an episode from the first season of ANTM where the girls go to Paris, and it reminded me of a morning my ex and I spent in bed, communicating solely in French. I had got my GCSE French about four years earlier and had forgotten most of it about 6 months after that, and I'm not sure he'd even got to GCSE stage, so the conversation wasn't exactly coherent. But it was one of those stupid giggly things you do when you're in love. I want to cry thinking about it.

I'm having a supremely bad day.

First of all, I woke up hungover. Unsurprising since I was supping vodka like a Russian last night, but that's never the best way to kick things off.

The main cause of my pissed-off-ness is a letter from my uni department saying that due to the layout of the course, I can't resume my training until January. I was expecting to go back in September - my personal tutor TOLD me I could go back in September - and now they decide to put me back until next year. I am HACKED OFF. What the fuck am I going to do until January? I've got rent to pay starting in September!

I'm going to have to get a job.

I don't like having a job. I am possibly the laziest person you could ever meet - I don't like to get up before 10:30 at the earliest, and there aren't many jobs that let you come in at noon and leave at 3. I really can't understand people who always have to be working and who can't just relax and do nothing - doing nothing is what I do best. My mother is always bugging me to get a job in the university holidays, and can't seem to understand that I have no desire to work - I'll be working until I'm at least 65 (by that stage it'll probably be 70 or even older) so for the time being, if I don't have to work, I won't. Being in a work environment, trying to meet standards and get on with other people, stresses me out like nothing else.

I realise that if you don't work, you don't have money, and that's fine - I don't expect to be handed things on a plate. I'm fine with living on the breadline; a wage doesn't balance out the stress of work, for me (and yes, I am aware that I'm a bit socially retarded). In summary, I am a lazy bitch.

But this time I don't have much of a choice. Bugger.