Have I mentioned my mums evil lawyer friend, Ian, before? Possibly.. I can't remember. But anyway, his mission since he first met me has been to get me to blush as many times as humanly possible in the space of a very short time. I don't know what his record is, but every time I see him, he does a pretty good job of it.

His favourite tactic is a certain story:

When I was 6 years old, Ian spent the night at my house, in the morning I was hastling Ian to play with me, and eventually, he decided that he'd take me out of the room, put me in the kitchen and tie me to a chair. I thought it was great fun - until he went back into the livingroom and went back to sleep for a couple of hours. But after that, every time I saw him, I used to beg him to tie me to the chair again.

Obviously this is quite a little story from which you can crack a fair few embarrassing jokes, but, I think this was the first time Ian got an opportunity to tell it to one of my friends.

See, Ryan was there. And Ian decided that me and Ryan liked eachother. I don't know how he came up with that theory. Some uncanny lawyer sense. Or maybe it's just really obvious that I like Ryan. But anyway, he decided that he was going to tell Ryan this little tale. But it didn't quite go as planned, see, I was preparing myself for a short but painful little bit of humiliation in front of Ryan, I could have lived with that!

But Ian only got as far as, "Did you know Ryan, that Annie used to really like to be tied up"

Before Ryan decided to throw in a, "Yeah, she still does!"

Ryan walks out of the room.

I look at Ian.

Ian looks at me.

Ian smirks at me evilly.

"Do you know exactly how long it would take me to tell your mother that?"

Not too long. About 20 seconds after that statement, my mother was spreading the little story on around the room.

I walk out of the room and slap Ryan.

I walk back into the room about 3 minutes later and everyone is mocking and laughing at me!

"Give him a good slap?" asks Ian.

I completely lack witty comments and so humiliated, I sit down on the floor and wait for the laughter to cease.

I dunno, I guess I like it. I like to be embarrassed and humiliated. Those are emotions that are often forgotten and that I rarely feel, and Ian is about one of 2 people who can bring it out of me, and the other person doesn't even have a patch on him.

Tristan also tried to embarrass me by telling Ryan all about how much I like him.

As Ryan already knows that, I didn't actually really care that much. Sad isn't it? I just sat there as Ryan read every single detail from how much I enjoyed biting him to how I'd feel more comfortable suddenly going down on him than I would suddenly kissing him.

But I think the best thing about Ryan is that he can know all that, and yet still be my friend, he can still be my mate and we're still cool. I'm not embarrassed around him like I probably should be (Because hey, I've more or less been rejected here, though Ryan's too polite to say anything) and I'm comfortable hanging out and jokily flirting with him as usual. I know I like him. He knows I like him. Everyone knows I like him. But he's my friend and he's a cool dude.

Rosie was pretending to be drunk. It was stupid. She's not good at it and all she had was like half a glass full of mulled wine so nobody actually believed it at all.

I'm still really depressed today. I don't really know what's wrong with me. I feel really pretentious and stupid, because I mean they're all doing it, "Oooh I'm depressed, oooooh I self harm, oooooh I'm really fucked up, ooooooh does anyone fucking care?" it's like ... I don't know. It doesn't matter I guess.

Actually, do you know what I think it is? See I don't actually think it's people who aren't actually depressed pretending that they are at all. I think what it is, is that people who are depressed, not clinically, but depressed, what's going on is they're seeing their mate who's a bit worse off than them, they're seeing their mate self harming, and they're thinking "Hm... that's a good idea. I might try that" or they're seeing their mate depressed and they're thinking "Wait... if they can talk about it, why can't I?"

And more people are coming out and talking about their feelings. And I do get really pissed off when people say it's for attention, because 1. I don't think it actually is, I think it may be a part of it, but not the major part, and 2. If it is for attention, they're probably in pretty dire fucking need of it.

Relatedly, Good Charlotte. Their new song, "Hold on" when I first saw it, I thought "Good God, what the hell are they doing putting a suicide campaign in a song? A shitty song at that..." and then I started thinking.

I know it's a crap song, and I know most people are gonna see that and say "What a pretentious piece of crap" while shuffling awkwardly. And most people, they're not really going to be affected by it. But - a lot of people will be. You think no Good Charlotte fans are suicidal? It might be whiney and poppy and melodramatic, but I mean - that appeals to everyone on some level. Even I. And someone's gotta be out there taking care of the depressed people who don't have a taste in music. People take all kinds of messages from songs.

And if that message is, "Don't kill yourself" well... it doesn't matter how bad it is. If the message is that it's worth holding on and making your own life better and not giving up and leaving people behind... who the hell am I to say that song shouldn't be played 25 hours a day?

I'm so depressed at the moment, but I hate people who just give up. Maybe it's that competetive streak I have. But it just annoys me. 80 years isn't a long time. It's going so fast that I'm scared. And if your life is all misery and pain - well 80 years or so, you'll die nice and peaceful, with all the people who love you still emotionally in tact. If your life gets better though, if your life is happy.. well.. that's something that you just have to hold on for. Because even when I get sadder than sad, I know what it feels like to be happy and to value anything in the world. And I love being happy. The whole fear of being chepa and tacky cause I'm happy - bullshit. Those are the people who aren't really happy, the ones who go round announcing how happy they are to people and grinning all the time. They're cheap, plastic and repressing themselves. But real happiness... That's worth it. That's worth holding on for. It's worth a hundred years of constant pain.

Don't stop searching, it's not over.>