i might have a part-time job. i went into a coffee shop a couple of days ago and talked to one of the girls working there. she told me they're hiring and i gave in my CV today. i think she must have said something to the manager because he didn't even want to interview me; i have a trial next week. so that's something, huh? i like coffee, and cafés have a nice atmosphere. this isn't Starbucks or equivalent; it's gourmet shit and a bit more chilled. the girl is pretty cute too.

other than that, i've just been reading a lot. i bought The Prince by Machiavelli, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Sickness unto Death by Kierkegaard and The Symposium by Plato. i'm in a little phase where i want to soak up wisdom and think seriously.

i went home to see my cousin yesterday, which was great. i missed her. she got really excited when i turned up and sat next to me at the table in the kitchen while i ate, keeping her hand on my arm the whole time. i love being around her; she's the only person in my family i feel a real bond with.

i got sick almost two weeks ago and it's been pretty rough. i haven't been able to go to the gym and i'm just knackered all day. can't sleep either. stupidly, i've been smoking even more because i'm not going out. i really want to stop smoking weed. when i'm semi-sober, i get a much more positive reaction from people, i feel more articulate and less self aware. i went to therapy on Tuesday and i missed the scheduled time by four hours. he didn't even charge me extra because he said he can see i'm not in a place where i can be expected to keep appointments right now. that sort of stung, actually. i am pretty fucked up lately.

hopefully i can meet some cool people with this job. i'm so fucking bored.

i lurk /mu/ and recently discovered Death Grips. i haven't been listening to anything but Exmilitary and The Money Store for about 3 days. they're playing Brighton next month and i might go.

i'm in a slight rut. Sunday was awful; i didn't actually realise it was a trance night and it looked like all of Essex had turned out. i split a gram of some dreadful crushed up amphetamine bought from a sketchy cunt  with my mates and didn't feel much of anything but awake. i definitely wasn't feeling the music or the people.

the day before that i hung out with another guy i haven't seen in a couple of years, which was good. his girlfriend is cool too. i like hanging out with couples. i feel like i have all these people in my life i can occasionally spend a day with but no real... friends. i'm okay though. my therapist is away this week so i didn't have that today. i'm so bored during the day i end up wandering around Westfield or going into central for no particular reason. it costs a fortune to travel in London.

i asked someone i know about Amsterdam (he lives there) and he said he'd go out and party with me. maybe i should just go to Amsterdam for a week. i have some stuff on the horizon to look forward to but i feel myself slipping away a little every time i have an empty day.

today i did a pretty stupid thing. i went back to Meatliquor knowing that waitress would be working. i just wanted to know how she'd react. she acted like nothing had happened; just smiled and said hello. she remembered my name at least. when i was done eating she tried to chat to me but i wasn't expecting it and came off looking moody and resentful, which she made fun of.

the french girl i met a couple of weeks ago apparently DID like me and wants to go out again. i can't fucking work out women at all.

i want to help people with depression, i think. now that i'm not depressed and i see how fucking great life is, it kills me to imagine how many people out there feel the way i did the last 2 years right now: waking up every morning wishing you'd died in your sleep, nothing to look forward to, feeling ugly and boring and alone.

i am pretty shocked by the physical effects of depression, too. i looked like shit the last 2 years. suddenly, i'm happy and my skin is clear, hair looks good, i catch my reflection and actually like what i see. i'm drinking and doing drugs pretty much every night, i can't eat half what i used to and yet i feel so much more vital and strong.

i guess what i want to say to people going through it right now is that when you recover from it you won't recognise your world view, opinions or attitudes at all: they will be so far outside your reality when you're happy that they make no sense to you at all. for me, what got me over it was being social. just be around people you like as much as possible, and talk to them. fuck what they might think of you; interesting people will always divide opinions, and that's a good thing. it's better than being some boring cunt no one remembers.

i have reached a point where i have enough belief in myself to know that i can talk to people without drugs or alcohol, but i'm so used to relying on them i can't seem to give them up, or even moderate them, but i know it's having a detrimental effect on my life because i'm ALWAYS drunk or high, which means nobody ever gets to see the "real" me and often i'm too embarrassed to look at or speak to somebody because i know they'll see how fucking high i am straight away.

nothing happened with either of those girls despite my best efforts. i talked about it to a friend of mine last night and i pinpointed a couple of big mistakes i made: first, when i met that French girl and she mentioned she has a boyfriend, i should have just moved on because all she was doing was reminding herself of that while i was putting the moves on her, and i should have made her feel better by ignoring the subject entirely. instead, because i'm an idiot, i tried to use logic to argue that a long distance relationship doesn't work. she actually DOES want to end it with him, but that made her dig her heels in i guess. i asked her back to our flat that night and at first she agreed, then about 30 minutes later she changed her mind. what happened in those 30 minutes i'm not sure... social behaviour is so fascinating and hard to understand.

i don't even mind, really. every time i talk to a girl i feel like it goes a little better than the last time. it's all practise.

on the same day this French girl is coming round i'm watching a film with the Polish girl -- in my room. she's in the shower and then we're gonna watch Inception or Mulholland Drive. i feel pretty swag lately.

this will be hard to write because i didn't go to bed until 4.30 and i am really hungover.

last night i was supposed to be going out with my friends for a girl's birthday, but she cancelled our plans at the last minute so i was left with nothing to do on a Saturday night. however! my French flatmates were going out in Angel to meet a friend of hers (a French girl) and she invited me with them.

this was pretty fucking special, honestly. the French guy sat on the end of our group all night silently, looking miserable and mumbling one or two words every few minutes, while I entertained both his girlfriend and the new girl. who i really like, actually. i tried pretty hard. i talked to her for most of the night, i put my arm around her, held her hand, made sure to talk to the other two a bit so the focus wasn't solely on her, etc.

then towards the end of the night i find out she has some boyfriend in Paris she's going to see next week, and she wouldn't come home with me. fuck my life! i asked my flatmate (the girl) and she said she likes me, and she wants to break it off with her boyfriend, but i guess fucking a guy you just met when you're seeing your longterm boyfriend the next week is probably a line a lot of people won't cross. nevertheless, she is coming round today and i'll see what happens.

her name is Marie.