Are we going to prom or to hell?

Gaaaaah. Just got back from a party in Maidstone. Have spent all morning sitting on the floors of various trains. In about eight hours I have to be at school wearing a ridiculous dress for the sixth form ball, which...yeah. God. Sentences. Goawaysentences.

I'm not hungover at all, just exhausted. Evening basically consisted of firstly drinking too much wine too fast forgetting I have a stomach bug, suddenly remembering I have a stomach bug, lying down behind a sofa for ages, and then spending the rest of the night talking to Charly/Antho/a few other people, and helping to look after drunks. It was quite fun actually - I mean, not looking after drunks, but just seeing people again. Also spent a bit of time wandering around having stupid earnest conversations with people ("Yeah, I mean - yeah! YEAH, totally!") and quoting things at a guy dressed as Hamlet. He looked like he was going to throw up at one point so I said, in a kind of I'm-not-really-taking-the-piss-out-of-you-but-I-am way, "O, what a rogue and peasant slave are you" to which he yelled in my face "FUCK YEAH. HONEYING AND MAKING LOVE OVER THE NASTY STY!" and ran out of the room. So yeah, that was...I'm not really sure why I just remembered that actually.

Am tired, tired tired. Very pale too. I will look like a corpse at the ball. Oh God. I want to go, but not now, not today. Just got that line from Heathers in my head: "Are we going to pruhhhhm or to hell?" Really want my pyjamas. My lovely pyjamas. Only I know if I get changed into them now I will never be able to get changed out of them. It's really dark and it's blatantly going to rain and oh heck, I have to get to school myself which means walking through town in a dress in the rain, OH WORLD GO AWAY.

At least, because I have no desire to drink tonight, at all, I won't repeat the ridiculous drunken fiasco of last year's ball. (Gah.) And it's in a house/manor thing this year, not on a big lurching boat, so...that should be interesting. I am looking forward to it. Should really stop typing. OK, I will read for a bit, then have lunch, then bath, then get ready, then stagger out of house. Yes, a plan. At the moment I'm reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (which has been on the To Read list for years and years) and it's quite good; I'm not hooked but I like it. It has Ken Kesey's sketches in it, which is nice. Pictures of men who look like their faces are falling apart.

My face is falling apart. What is this quintessence of dust?

Full stop.

...That's it. Hamlet copped it, the Third Reich has fallen, Manderley is burning, Turnus is in the underworld. I've finished my A-levels. I did well in about three of them. My room is full of pieces of paper. And today I am hosting a birthday party for ten ten-year-olds.

Mark Pilarski says

The smarter you play, the luckier you'll be.

Because life is indeed like poker (i.e. I don't really understand it and just throw cards down blindly, instead stacking all the chips into patterns and rolling my eyes at anyone who takes it seriously).

Verbs of fearing...

Saw the doctor yesterday (a regular feature of my life at the moment). We talked about all the knee/back/leg/foot problems of the past two years and he said that because of all this it was probably best that I avoided wearing what he called "fashion shoes" (i.e. anything that looks good) and stuck to wearing trainers whenever possible. Cue me sighing vainly.

He also looked at my feet and said, "You know, you have practically no fat on your feet."

I said, "Well, is there anything I can do to GET fat on my feet?", imagining a diet of chocolate milkshakes or something, to which he guffawed - he is the kind of man who never laughs but guffaws - and then replied, "No, not really. It's just the way you are."

So, yes. Am torn between feeling so worn out by the whole thing that I don't care anymore, and on the other hand wanting to fall to my knees (ow) and scream "WHEN, WHEN WILL THIS END?" Because none of it is exactly life-threatening and obviously I'm thankful for that, but on the other hand it's so, so annoying and makes me feel about ninety-five. (Dr E also said yesterday "It usually affects older people, you're quite unusual", which basically amounts to, "Yeah, you're a bit of a freak"). And also it's got to the point where I can no longer distinguish between health problems that are serious and ones that aren't, which AS WE ALL KNOW was not something I was good at in the first place, but all this is just making it worse.

Par exemple: elbow pain
Normal person: "Oh look, my elbow hurts. I'll take some painkillers in a sec."
Annie: "OH NOES! MY ELBOW! OH MY ELBOW! OH THIS IS CLEARLY LINKED TO ALL THE OTHER STUFF! OH ME! OH MY! WHAT HO! WHY WHY WHY" *collapses in panicked heap, etc*

And I miss running. SO much. I watched a runner go past me yesterday in the park and just thought, "You lucky BITCH."

Anyway, anyway. Bright sides: it's a beautiful day, I have strawberries, I also have ice-cream, and I think I'm ready for the Latin exam tomorrow. "Revised" just now by reading the whole of my Latin grammar book - all 149 pages - only I say "revised" because I was watching Casper at the same time so how much I actually took in is questionable. It's quite distressing, by the way, when you go back to a film you loved when you were little and realise it's actually a bit shit. (See also: Honey I Shrunk The Kids).

Thankyou, Dana

In a moment (alright, during an extended period) of madness I deleted this. Then I realised it felt a bit like - well, not like losing a limb, but definitely an eyebrow. So here it is, the return of the eyebrow. Minus about ten entries, but whatever.

Things are a bit odd.

I don't really feel like myself at the moment. Which is far less dramatic or interesting than it sounds. Head's all over the place and for the first time in my life I have insomnia, and basically never sleep except when I'm not meant to: in Kew Gardens, at Poetry Unplugged (oops), outside the Turkish shop in Penge. Dad is loading me with herbal remedies. The physio reckons improving my posture will solve all my problems. The funny thing is I don't feel stressed, and certainly not about exams. I just...

I know what the problem is and don't want to say, which makes this a bit of a non-entry.

I also want to read some chick-lit. Any recommendations?