raven | cheese to my macaroni (Reply)

Okaaaay. So, I am somewhat tipsy at the moment. Rule one for what to do when your brain has been messy and angsty for days - don't drink, for heaven's sake. Certainly don't drink when you've had no sleep and have been crying and angsting and generally being crazy for what feels like an age. Clearly I am very bad at taking my own advice. Hurrah, red wine. Lots of it, too, and rather good. Hurrah for James, who patted me and was very good to me all evening. Mostly, there was wine and M*A*S*H. Also, we went to see Juno, which I loved, but more on when I am not drunk.

(Rule number two? When you are hallucinating death and carnage, don't tell people about it. Seriously.)

So, last night I cried down the phone at people and finally cracked. Sent a long email to my personal tutor with far too many run-on sentences, telling him that, basically, I cannot cope, help. If it were a weekday I would have thrown myself on the mercy of the college before nine in the morning. As it was, I sat the collection. I went in, I took the exam, I took deep breaths and tried not to let the scratching of other people's pens score grooves on the surface of my brain. It was hard. It was one of the hardest things I've done, not running out of the room at any point. I wrote three essays in three hours. (One of which I have already got back! I got a high 2:2 and three pages of annotations, which I suppose is very good marking, but I kind of wish he'd known I was a nutcase when I was writing the essay, rather than stupid, although the two are not mutually exclusive, far from it.)

Anyway. Yes. I did it. I was not crazy during it. Afterwards I went to Noodlebar, which wasn't actually part of the plan, but I went there last night with

jacinthsong and

sebastienne, and somehow, I don't know HOW, lost my wallet. Cue total, total, out-of-proportion insane panic when I discovered this some time later, trying to pay

shimgray for a glorious amount of food he'd brought round. Noodlebar had, in fact, found it - someone had handed it in, and I was pathetically grateful. I went down this morning and got it back, and yes, yes, it was my own stupid fault for losing it, it's my favourite lovely red leather wallet and I love it and I was glad to have it back, and see again where it was my own stupid fault for losing it, but - all the money was gone. Of course, all the money was gone.

And, because my debit card was nicked last week, I was carrying cash when usually I never do. So, urgh, I now have no money at all, and my parents are still in Delhi. I am deliberately not thinking about it. Stomped back to college moping quite significantly, was caught by personal tutor, who had got email, was concerned about collection and my having taken thereof - which, yes, very very bad - and demanded I see appropriate college-ish people this afternoon.

So I did that. But before that I went home, sat in the kitchen, spent four hours reading entire Saturday Guardian. Maria knitted, James baked bread. We were listening to debates on creationism and evolution.

lizziwig dropped in on her way to Torpids. I ate fruit, did the Guardian crossword, actually finished it. Profokiev came up on the iPod connected to the speakers, there were dramatic instrumentals. Someone said, "We may have to face facts. We're middle class."

Ouch. But it seemed like an inescapable conclusion.

In the end I went back to college, and reported to the Dean - who is also the Chaplain; he has a Southern-preacher drawl and is the actual nicest man in the world - that I'm in no immediate danger of total crazy. I really don't think I am. I'm fine as long as I'm around people. When I'm not, I end up crashing, because that's when everything feels weighty and heavy and like nothing will be good again.

(Did I mention the red wine? Lots of that, yes yes.)

Yes, being alone is not good. I'm having a mental-health weekend. In other words, I am not doing anything at all until Monday. Because, I don't know, everything is grey and faintly rotten and it seems like something I really ought to do. I cannot go on feeling like this, because I don't think people were designed to go on feeling like this - it's like tuning a piano wire or something, you can't twist it around too many times. Yes, mental health day, I hope it works, I really do. Also, why has my brain read so much pulp horror that I don't remember reading? Hallucinations = bad. Somewhat unwisely, I mentioned them when I was having my chat with the chaplain and he said, "Oh god," in a sort of horrified voice. Yes, yes, I am crazy.

I had some sort of conclusion I was coming to, maybe? Maybe not. Thank you all for your lovely comments - which I have not answered; I am fail, but I read them all and loved them all and was impossibly grateful for all of them - and your lovely things you've said and your lovely popping-up-on-Google-Talk and and your lovely coming-round-with-food when it's really, really needed. I love you. I do. I am incapable of expressing it because I keep seeing dead things out of the corner of my eye, but yes. I do.

Also I am drunk.

But. No more exams. And now bed. And then a day on which I will write fic and read fic and maybe fold my laundry and if I am really, really productive, do the Observer crossword. Love. Bed. Yes,