Our shampoo smells the way Marmite tastes when it's past its sell-by-date: of smoke, but a blend of it with no redeeming qualities. I actually like getting cigarette smoke in my hair, as a whiff of it brings back memories of good nights out, but minorly Marmitesque smoke is wholly unpleasant. More to the point, having hair that smells like smoke makes me look like I don't wash it to the close bystander, which rather defeats the purpose of doing so in the first place, don't you think? Life is hard.

Also, since I got back to Cumbria, dull. Happily, after two rather sleep deprived weeks, my body has stopped requesting more than five and a half hours a night, so I can get beeploads of stuff done. Sadly, incredibly boring tasks have been taking up all my waking hours. Namely: work, coping with dead e-mail accounts, transferring files from my laptop to desktop, putting a vast number of CDs up for sale on Amazon and on my livejournal to give away (my collection is set to shrink to half of its former glory/scariness), stuff like that. The only colour I've had has come in the shape of talking to Ibid and Bryn ont phone; running into Tony outside the bank one lunch time; reading "Dry" by Augusten Burroughs (ok, not great); and setting about building The CD Collection: Mk 2. Ten times bigger than the original, and with much more metaaaaaaaaal! I'm using this impressive but terrifying page as an inspiration.

Exiting the collection:

- Everything vaguely poppy, dancy, rappy, jazzy, soft rocky, Irish folky and country-y (yes, I had a Faith Hill CD), with the exceptions of Divine Madness and This Is Shampoo, but neither of them are really pop, just uncategorisably brilliant, and yes I do mean That Shampoo. I will defend their music as punk at its most perfect until the day I die.
- Some of the more dubious 80s items. Much as I'd never thought I'd say this, this includes the Duran Duran. But not all of the hair metal.
- The rappier purchases from my foolish nu metal days.
- All the film soundtracks, apart from The Crow one. (I'm such a beepin' goth!) I never like more than four songs on them, which I can as easily MP3ify.
- The indie I never listen to, keeping only the Manic Street Preachers, Mansun, Muse, Republica, Skunk Anansie, Supergrass and Symposium.
- Most of the experimental industrial, futurepop and softer EBM. I like it well enough in clubs, but I need my music heavier for bedroom listening.

This, scarily, runs to over two hundred items.

This leaves me with three piles of goth CDs, two piles of punk and indie, two piles of classic rock, and five and a half piles of metaaaaaal. As a pile is approximately eighteen CDs, this situation needs remedying post haste.

So, this week's acquisitions, thanks to all the discs I've already sold and receiving £147 from four days of work to spend as I please (though, as I'm looking to buy somewhere to live at some point in the future, I'm naturally saving some of it):

Death Angel - Act III
Death Angel - The Art Of Dying
Dimmu Borgir - Long Word Long Word Long Word
HIM - Razorblade Romance (I've never been keen on what I've heard of HIM, but today I found an album sampler I was given the first time I saw Alice Cooper, and it was surprisingly mint)
Iron Maiden - Piece Of Mind
Labyrinth - Labyrinth (yes, the power metal, rather than David Bowie variety. I've already heard "Dance Magic Dance" far more times than the recommended limit (one))

It's weird to think that less than two years ago I barely listened to metal at all. Because I'd known about it and liked it since I was nine or so, but I was tired of what I knew of the classics and nu metal alike, and couldn't get into extreme stuff. Now . . . thank Satan for Arch Enemy for opening my eyes to its splendour! It's not that my life was bad before the metal obsession kicked in, because I was reaping the rewards of being heavily into the goth scene (I even got invited to line dance for Sheep On Drugs, despite not being able to line dance). But metal matches my tastes and nature much better. It is metal and its appreciators I click and feel comfortable with. I've always felt slightly envious of metalheads, ever since the first time I saw "Wayne's World": getting to look cool and headbang and listen to great music all the time, but my social conditioning and other tempting genres long had me distracted love's true course. But we are united once more, metal and I. I still haven't quite found musical nirvana (although obviously I'm familiar with musical Nirvana [hey, do you think anyone's come up with idea of making a Nirvana musical? That would be mint!]) If it was possible to breed the best features of New Model Army and Sinergy, that would be It (in fact, I'm thinking I need to form death metal New Model Army tribute act called New Metal Army, only that might sound too much like nu metal - perish the thought!), but straightforward metaaaaaal suits me very well indeed. Oh yes.

Anyway. Yes. Boringness, although hopefully all the dull stuff's out of the way now. I have at least had a few mad dreams - last night I was crossing Antarctica, and two nights before, I was leaving Australia, finding I didn't have to space to pack any clothes, only CDs. In the same dream, I accidentally went to a Creech gig without any trousers on, but I wasn't overly bothered because at least I got to show everyone my scars. Blatantly symbolic of my problems (exhibitionism, being obsessed with metal, and suddenly finding I don't like half my wardrobe)? Yes. Amusing? To me, anyway.

As to work, despite setting my alarm on Sunday night, it didn't go off, and the parental units decided against waking me, so I didn't wake up til 10. Not a good start. I decided to put it off until the following day, as I had to go to Carlisle anyway, to order some new glasses (which were surprisingly cheap and better-looking than my old ones) and get a train ticket to London, for the purposes of getting to the forthcoming Screaming Banshee Aircrew gig. As I couldn't see well enough to drive safely (and don't like driving anyway), I got the bus home. My luck with buses continued! I think there's only one bus to Brampton every hour, and I didn't know at what time past the hour, but I reached the bus station right on time.

Since then, though, I've felt utterly indifferent towards my duties. They're not boring, but they don't require any mental energy either - which is nice, because I have no trouble getting on with them - but there's little satisfaction in their accomplishment. I'm already counting the days until I can leave; not because I hate it there, not at all, but because I feel I should be doing something I feel more strongly about, one way or another.

The only thing that gets me going is the titles of some of the sheet music we sell. There's a book called "Useful Flute Solos" (of all the attributes flute solos can possess, I wouldn't have thought useful was either the most likely or the most appealing, and of all the things that are useful, flute solos are surely among the least of them? Maybe they're good for repelling zombies. I've never considered fending off zombies to be necessary part of everyday life, but I've just been to Twi's Amazon wishlist to get her a birthday present, which included "The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead" so perhaps I'm mistaken.) And then there's "Let There Be Flutes". Gets me wondering what kind of sad individual creates woodwind exercises anyway. What gets them into it? Do they feel there's a world shortage of music devoid of artistic merit that helps people become better players, and succumb to the need to right this great injustice? Or can you just make good money from it? Or earn a place in musical history?

In other news, universal concern over my spinsterhood (hopefully soon-to-be mistresshood, but only in the academic sense) has commenced. I should have known it was only a matter of time. My family have never expressed any such thing. Although they too believe in the need to pair off - before he found one, they used to tell me Noj needed a girlfriend, and they sometimes enquire after the status of my friends - they regard my taste in men to be deeply dubious and clearly see it best not to encourage me at all. In fact, while I was going out with Bryn, my Dad would sporadically ask, "When are you going to break up with him?" But the man in the street doesn't know this, and seemingly it's his business too.

Because on Wednesday, my Dad drove me to Carlisle, so he could get some wood and I could collect my glasses. He told me to wait by the cathedral, so I sat down on the wall around it. The moment I did, a man came up to me, asking for money for charity. It seemed a bit dodgy, but ended up being surprisingly reasonable: he said younger people were tending to just give a pound, and in return I got a book called "Perfect Questions Perfect Answers" and a fridge magnet with "Call Out Gouranga Be Happy" on it. Cringeworthy, but cool.

But he asked me what I did for a living. Gah. This has been happening increasingly frequently since I gave up my brilliant career in academia, and how I hate having to answer, "I work in an office. Secretarial-ish stuff." I always have to back it up with, "But it's only temporary! I'm a postgraduate student really, just having a break!" Of course, I might well never return, but I still have less than no idea about that. But I don't have a future as a secretary! That much I know - it's just that you can't really get away with saying, "But my career as a novelist / rockstar is just about to take off" without people thinking "O poor deluded youth!" And it's entirely reasonable that they should think that, as students living with and working for their parents, waiting to be discovered, ARE all deluded. Except me! I really am going to make it! Sadly, and understandably, only those who know my brilliance (namely: me) are prepared to believe that.

Anyway. To this he responded, "Ah, yer wasted, you want to get yourself a rich boyfriend. Have you got a boyfriend?"

"No."

"What? Pretty girl like you, without a boyfriend?" It should be pointed out that I am not very attractive at the best of times, and was having a Bad Clothes Day, had two gigantic spots in addition to the mild acne that's been plaguing me for the last few months, and haven't slept properly in weeks.

"Well, I had one, but I went off him." He, of course, broke up with me first, but we'd still be friends with benefits were it not for my changed feelings. It doesn't do to explain this to random strangers though.

"Just the one?"

"Well, yes. Long-term, mind."

"You're not into girls are you?"

"Definitely not!" for the 'all weird-looking people are bi' myth needs vehement dispelling.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty three."

"Ah, you should get yourself a boyfriend."

"Better off without one."

"Having a break, are you?"

"Something like that." It wouldn't do to argue.

But what is everyone's preoccupation with getting everyone who crosses their path to settle down? It scares me! How can all these people who are younger than me be engaged, planning to stay with someone for the rest of their lives? I've still got to LIVE first! In family, I know there's a "Your son's got a girlfriend? That's nothing, my daughter's getting MARRIED!" aspect to it; but there also seems to be a universal myth unattached means being restless and unhappy.

And of course, I am, both, but not being with someone has nothing to do with that: I'd be worse off if I was ensconced. I'm desperate to live, to achieve to the best of my abilities, and having to make the sort of compromises required by the standard relationship just isn't going to help there. But of course putting your career first is Wrong. (Of course I don't see writing, travelling and making friends as a career, but goals and routes to cash as well as sources of joy, nonetheless.) How many films are there that open with a "Is our hero married? No, work is his life" conversation, and end with him slowing down to spend time with the romantic interest, which is For The Best? Society seems to view ambitions as dangerous childish daydreams, and believe that true happiness can only stem from forgetting them and settling down to replicate oneself. And they're right in that I'm probably never going to be content, no matter how successful I am. I'll always want to better myself . . . but I'll feel a lot happier continually striving than giving up. I'm not wholly averse to the idea of having a partner, but it's going to have to be someone very special to persuade me to invest the requisite time, money and emotional energy in them: it would have to be someone that brought out the best in me and who didn't hold me back in any way. And I've never met such a person, so I suppose I'll have to in some way hunt them down, but I don't see any need to, because I'm perfectly happy being single.

No offence to the bloke, mind! I'm sure he meant well!