Weddings are such happy occasions... 

Yesterday in town I saw a vision in a bobble hat, it was my friend - Suicidal Pyromaniac guy. He's not dead. He was eating a bagel and laughing to himself. Life goes on, I guess perhaps the novelty lighter he bought cheered him up a bit and he decided not to go through with it. Whatever.

Bizarre fact of the week: I am now into my third week of my photography course. So far I have had to trace a picture of Marilyn Monroe, cut a duck's head off on photoshop and paste it onto a desert scene, make a collage of lines and shapes cut out from magazines and have used a camera once. That's once. In three weeks. That's less than in a very long time. How ironic: now I'm training to be a photographer I am not actually taking photographs anymore. As I said to one of my course mates today as we all fourght over one pritt stick, one pair of scissors and three magazines, 'do you think this is some sort of reality tv show where we are being tested to see how long we accept the kid's holiday camp type activities they keep dishing out for us to do before we start to get restless and demand someone teach us about cameras?!' It's entirely possible. How long should we give the tutors to stop arsing about and teach us about photography....two more weeks of collages? A month? You decide. Oh well, even if I'm not learning anything, at least I'm getting a lot of quality passive smoking time. Seriously, I had forgotton what it's like being 16, every chance you get - you smoke! Each break I am stampeded to the door by a nicotine-hungry mob of teenagers, rollies at the ready, lighters twitching. I feel so damn old and healthy! My 28 year old coursemate, G has actually given in already and taking up smoking again after years of being a non smoker. But I will resist! It's my last chance to not relive my teenage years anymore than I am already just by being back at sixth form college! But it turns out that not reliving my teenage years is incredibily hard to do; especially when today I spent my lunch break in G's car in a remote village, listening to the Levellers (can you believe it?! It's like fucking past-life regression!) and passive smoking enough dope to give me the giggles all afternoon. So very, very uncool.

Hello everyone with no social life due to retail sucking the very life out of you (hello Katy). Tonight PJ Harvey is going to be on Jonathan Ross's show, 10.35 on BBC 1. If you miss it and you are upset about this, don't worry you can probably catch the repeat tomorrow night. Today on the way to work I was so depressed at the prospect of queuing in the pissing rain for a bus that over- charges me and gets me to a job i hate late nearly everyday that I could hardly move my limbs in the direction of the bus, and up the stairs and then off the bus again and down the road to my shop. Each step was physically hurting me, I was in such a state of despair that I started to plan my resignation speech but by the time I'd walked through the door and said hello to everyone and my manager had said 'oh thank god you're here can you do a new window display and restock the blurgy blurg and paint the ceiling and make me a coat out of magic wool and solve world debt and I'll have a coffee, black no sugar' I knew I was never going to be able to do it, we have no staff, I have nothing else to go to, I am desperately poor, no one listens to me when I say I'm working too much and for not enough money and I'm tired and ill. I tried to have a talk with my manager about the sheer amount of hours they are expecting me to do on top of going to college and how I only have one day off in the next four weeks but her response was to laugh and say, 'hey, you're young, you'll cope!'. Me thinks I am not quite getting my point across. Of course I'll cope, of course I won't actually die or anything but this is missing the point by about a mile. My job is hard. I'm not saving lives, I'm not on the front line of a war, I'm not inventing new pieces of technology that will further mankind but I am having to be confronted by humanity in all it's many battered forms every day and it's not a pretty sight. At quarter to six this evening, I am on my own in the shop due to the rest of the staff needing a fag break, i don't smoke therefore I work about an hour more than everyone else on average (do I sound bitter? Well that is because I am. No one lets me have Goth breaks. It's an addiction and therefore should be taken more seriously) a guy limps in from the dark wetness of the autumn night. I look at him, I can see all is not well inside him. He comes to look at the lighters.

Guy: Are these torches?
Me: No, they're lighters.
Guy: Need to keep buying things, so I don't kill...
Me: (In head) Oh fucking great, someone even more mental than me. Kill what? Time? The moment? Me? Yourself? Your family? The person who ran over your leg?
Guy: How do they work? (I show him) Good cos I'm going to pour petrol over myself later, slit my throat and set myself on fire.
Me (In head) oh actually, perhaps we're about the same...(out loud) Really?
Guy: (mumbling, flicking lighter on and off maniacally) Consumerism....mass....crap....culture of....no one buys anything they really need...(I see a pornographic magazine in his jacket pocket)
Me: (In head) Well I wouldn't say that...
guy: So I'm going to fucking slit my throat and set myself the fuck on fire
Me: Ok. That's £1.50 for the lighter then, please.
Guy: Oh right (finds money) there you go. Thanks.
Me: Would you like your receipt?
Guy: Don't fucking do this to me you fucking bitch.
Me: Ok then, bye.

And to sum up the infested minge that is my job, I would just like to point out that this exchange was the highlight of my day...goodnight.

I really don't know what to say about this but just click on the link and you'll find out. It's my namesake in America. Look at her address, look at her picture. Look at her willingness to service you. Katy Ross

Wonders will never cease, the Manics are still going (!!) AND releasing a new album of brand new material AND going on a full national tour this autumn. Wow. It's like I can't ever leave my teens behind. Time for bed, guys. Come on now. If anyone still cares and I'm not sure I do but it's a habit I just can't break, then full details of tour and album can be found at The Official Website for the Manics.

Me and R met up with E today (the angriest homosexual in the UK) for our 2 or 3 times a year ear-battering on our lifestyles, choice of men, fashion sense (or lack of) and eating habits. We all love each other dearly but it's always a marathon of insults, cutting remarks and derogatory asides followed by hugs and promises to call. I am most at home being a complete bitch and not having to worry about apologising afterwards or pretending I was joking, I also love being insulted directly to my face. It's a refreshing change, it toughens you up. I am slightly sadomasochistic I guess. I could be a gay man, I practically am - I certainly have the breasts for it. It's always a bit of a worry before hand though, 'Am I up for a meeting with the one man slanging match hurricane that is E? Do I have a clean pair of boxing gloves ready? Am I too hung over to even come up with 5 minutes of insults, let alone 4 hours worth? Will I ever convince him I'm actually not a lesbian?' But all performance worries soon disappear when E walks into the basement cafe of the art gallery we agree to meet in, Mohawk sharpened and claws at the ready. 'So, bitches. What's new in the world of Rock Chick? Obviously not your choice of colour I see. For goodness’ sake. I can't tolerate you in black anymore. Every single time we met: black, black, black! It's like being at a fucking funeral, only unfortunately you're still alive and you're still in black! It doesn't even suit you, no wonder no one asks you out they probably think you're going to cast a death spell on them, either that or they think it's an eclipse of the sun. I mean it's dark for 12 hours of the day anyway, why carry the look into the other 12 hours? You are contributing to world sadness. Have a social conscience, have some variety. I'm taking you shopping and you can't buy anything black or I'm going to divorce you! You're on your own, you can be miserable, you can marry Robert Smith, you can live in a hole but I will not be calling you and telling you about my new men anymore - whom by the way is lovely, but I can't talk about him because it'll jinx it (wait’s a beat) he's 6 ft 5, 26, works in fashion and drives an Audi. We have a date this afternoon, does this top look ok? Ah, what would you know, it's not BLACK. Are we going to order coffees or am I going to have to hear all about your pathetic sex lives without the support of an injection of caffeine? (Then directed at each of us individually) Only if YOU’RE still in contact with that man on the verge of suicide, I'm not interested because you don't just have to be involved with manic depressives just because you are one yourself (changes direction of insults) and if YOU’RE still pursuing that hideous ex who has less brain cells than Garath Gates in a coma then kill me now, I can’t take it anymore and you can both do better. Waitress! God the service is terrible in here (me: it's self service E) Well still it's terrible, you haven't got me anything yet, I'm sitting here dry as a boner and you miserable lesbians haven't even offered. I'm appalled. I can't believe I have such insensitive friends and you haven't even asked me how I'm coping with my split from Alfonzo..' It was a lovely day. Later on in the afternoon I bought a black skirt and a black jumper. E loved them.

Today I (and many other people of a more appropriate age) went back to college. It was an experience to say the least and instead of feeling completely different this time around, what with me being many years above school age and what with having done the higher education thing already, I felt exactly like I was 16 again starting my A Levels (this was reinforced by a pointed talk on punctuality after I was 15 mins late - well, I'm used to uni where you can turn up at any point during or after a seminar and no one cares...!). It's hard to say what my course is going to be like because all I did today was numeracy and literacy tests and stand in a queue for two hours to have my photo taken. Also I think I may have signed up for 'Ricky Gervais teaches Stand Up Comedy' by mistake as photography was barely mentioned the whole day and RG appears to be my lecturer - when we were doing aforementioned tests RG (for it is him, looks and acts just like him) had to leave the room to have a hysterics fit in the corridor because something in his head had made him laugh so much. We later found out it was because he had climbed onto a raised bit of ceiling behind us and nobody had noticed. Hilarious. When we were looking at some photographic slides he made comments such as, 'that's Adam's (other lecturer) mum' when it was quite clearly an old man and an elephant or something. I think it may have been the first time he'd been out of the house all summer. I did make friends with the only other person there who wasn't 16, a very nice guy dressed all in black who was popping painkillers all day for a mystery leg condition (this I found out about ATFER I'd made him accompany me on a long walk into town at lunchtime to go to a second hand record shop I knew of...opps) and I suspect is no stranger to capes and the odd game of Dungeons and Dragons. It's early days I know but I don't know how much this course is going to change my life yet, if at all. Here's hoping something will soon.

The lovely Bella came to visit me yesterday. Because she lives in the ghettos of Birmingham I thought it would be nice to take her out for a spot of punting down the river in Oxford, just to give her a taste of how the other half live, so to speak. Only I can't punt to save my life (now there's a funny thought, can you imagine being in a situation where you'd have to do that? Perhaps escaping from the slowest shark in the world? Or a murderer with only a 10 metres swimming certificate?) and Bella can barely walk or swim so didn't fancy her chances either so we pretended that we wanted Will to spend the day with us too so he would punt for us. It was a lovely day messing around on the river and here are some photos to illustrate the occasion.

Hey Bella, did you see that cute barman? Was it just me, or was he looking at my punt? 

No I suppose you're right, who would?  

Will, punter extrodinaire, asks if Bella or I would like to punt back from the pub to give him a break.... 

Anyway, now we've made it clear our thoughts on the matter - back to drinking....is Bella looking at Will, the champion Punter's pole?!