Thursday 4th January

I got this email about the Dalai Lama's advice for 2001 today, and I must say, he appears to have had a busy year because it was exactly that same as the "Advice for 2000" that circulated last New Year, so he obviously hasn't had time to come up with anything new. So, since it was about the 60th time I have received it, I decided I cannot let the obvious jokes waiting to be made pass by this time. Without further ado..

The Dalai Lama's Advice for the New Millenium
Sally's Advice for the New Millenium

When you lose, do not lose the lesson.
...and make sure nobody else does, either.

Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions.
Remember the three Rs: Red Roses Rule (cackle)

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
Realise that not getting what you want means that you didn't bitch and sulk enough when you were refused it

Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
Don't learn the rules, so that when you break them you can plead ignorance and get off light

When you realize you have made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
When you realise you have made a mistake, whine about it (without actually admitting it was you who made it) until you piss someone off enough to make them correct it for you. Try and do this from the comfort of your bed for mazimum laziness.

Open your arms to change, but do not let go of your values.
Open your arms to change, but be prepared to accept cheques and credit cards if the passerby has no change

Live a good, honorable life. Then, when you get older and think back, you will be able to enjoy it a second time.
Live a good, honourable life. Then, when you get older, you will be able to give your children smug advice about their screw-ups without suffering from a guilty conscience. If you cannot live a good, honourable life, lie. Be convincing - nobody expects a good, honourable person to lie.

Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
Share your knowledge. But only with those willing to pay or to endear you to people you fancy

Be gentle with the earth.
Yes - EARTH FIRST! We'll strip-mine the other planets later

Once a year, go someplace you have never been before.
Once a year, go someplace you have never been. Litter - it is a way to achieve immortality, especially if you use glass.

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Judge your success (a) by the success of others (preferably those less successful than yourself) and (b) by what others had to give up in order for you to get it

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
Approach love and cooking with the same utensils. But wash them after use, especially if you share a kitchen with other people.

Sorry for inflicting you all with that, I feel much better now I've got it off my chest. (Plus - some quotes for your web page, Bernie) (The Lama, not me (grin))

Well, the holiday season is over for another year, and this one was absolutely unique in that I spent the entire month of December sober for the first time since I was 13. We're not counting the JCM Christmas party - I cannot have been drunk, since I did nothing of an embarrassing nature (the barman doesn't count, he only embarrassed himself). It was a very...*refreshing* change, I suppose. New Year's was wholesomely fun, Frankie and I sat around eating chocolate and forcing Father Hand to watch Meet Joe Black (Frankie said, "Anthony Hopkins for me - Brad Pitt for you") whilst the Little Treasures drew pictures and played on my computer. Yes, I was amazed to discover that there is a game on my computer which beat Playstation and all its charms hands down. No, not Freecell - I can't seem to get them interested in that at all - but this agression-relieving game that involves decimating one's desk top with a series of interesting guns, termites and a big stamp. The Little Treasures delighted in torturing me by stamping bunny pictures all over the screen and then shooting their eyes out, but I suppose it was better than them shooting the eyes out of the subject of my wallpaper. They were playing with it for over an hour. My computer rules! Better than Playstation! Yeah yeah!

Anyway, around midnight we drove down to a patch of desert nearby and watched the fireworks and took pictures whilst the Little Treasures ran around attempting to deafen each other with my noise-making clackers (I only bought them because they were star shaped) and the squeaky horn Frankie bought me. Alex asked me then what my dreams were when I was 10 (he's 10) and when I told him I wanted to write books, he was extremely dissatisfied and questioned me as to what my real dreams were (apparently writing books was too geeky). So I economised with the truth and told him that I wanted to be a ballerina. I probably did, but I think I stopped dance classes before I was 10 so it can't have been that much of a dream. I know I wanted to be a nurse at some point but then every little girl wants to be a nurse at some point. Well, they did when I was a little girl. It struck me that 12 years later, I still want to write books and shakily pirouette around the living room when nobody is watching; maybe that means I am still 10 years old, secretly. In which case a lot of bars need to be charged with serving a minor, a lot of men with statutory rape (*cough* I mean...a few...not a lot) and the present government is a farce because I voted illegally. What a pleasant thought.

I have heard tell that Labour are going to call an election in May, which means I will have to work twice as hard to exercise my democratic privileges and get a postal ballot, I suppose. I don't understand their mentality, calling an election right now. When I first thought about it, it seemed like they were doing the democratic thing by calling an election after the fuel debacle last autumn - ie, they think the nation may have lost confidence and want to give them a chance to change the government (ha..as much as it can be). But even I'm not that naive. I don't get much news here apart from what I read, since the television news is full of things such as "Small house fire wrecks man's golf clubs" or "Mouldy tomato found in area resident's fridge" (it really is almost that poor) and Father Hand doesn't hold with cable TV, so there is no CNN. The Americans don't think news happens outside of their nation. The British Store carries week-old News of the Worlds, but I mean...please. I'm not that desperate. It wasn't much better during the presidential elections though, I suppose. Thank god that's all finished with - I don't like Bush much, but it was all getting so out of hand they almost aired "The Recount of Monte Cristo".

Wonders never cease, Zoe rang me recently. Sally's Diner folded shortly before Christmas - they didn't give her much warning, they just told all the staff at the end of a shift not to come in the next day because the place was closing down, and they owe her 600 quid from bounced wages cheques. So she is a little bit down; she ended up going to Blue Arrow, and that must have been sheer desperation because she knows even I couldn't hack working for Blue Arrow, but she must be serious about it because they gave her a 9 hour shift during which she did nothing but polish glasses and she's still accepting assignments from them. I guess I can rest easy in the knowledge that she won't be turning up on *this* doorstep with all her stuff in binliners, but I hope she's OK. She also informed me that the bloke Beccy had been sparring with for a few months had died of an overdose a couple of weeks before Christmas. This left me with a serious case of foot in mouth disease because I had just the day before emailed her to ask her how it was going between them *cringe* Hopefully I didn't upset her too much, and she did reply, so it's just another chapter in Sally's Book of Incredible Tactlessness.

I felt the need to honour the people I talk about most in this diary so I have done so here but please don't put a bounty on my head if you're not on it and think you should be - I'm sorry. I've also put up this funny account that Frankie wrote about our escapades, because I thought it might be nice to hear the other side of the story for a change.

I got sent flowers! I can't say who from, again...I need to think of a suitable pseudonym, but Mr X is so overdone, and Mr Y sounds too much like a question, so I'll settle for Mr Z. I keep looking at them and wondering whether they are really for me or if something went horribly wrong and they got delivered in error, like the ones in May, but it had my name on the card so I have no choice but to accept that they really are for me. I've got them next to my monitor and I keep kicking my desk to make them wobble and reassure myself that they aren't a mirage. My toe hurts now, but happily they're still visible. I am one lucky girlie (grin) Maybe I'll take a picture of them and put it on here, just for maximum smug-witchiness.

Father Hand has threatened to start reading this since I told him I wrote about what he said about Mr Z and me and my trusty air bed. He nearly caused me to have a heart attack today. I finally plucked up the courage to ask him what the international phone bill was for December, and when he opened it (he never opens bills until he has to pay them) he started making choking sounds and said, "FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS....four...hundred...and thirty....dollars" and I started mentally going through my stuff thinking what I could sell when he said, "Oh no, sorry, my mistake - forty three dollars." Grrrr. International calls cost only 9 cents a minute, amazingly, even to mobiles. I almost wish I didn't know this, it makes it so much more tempting to use the phone with wild abandon.

Ooo, speaking of the phone, you may recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about some git ringing me up at 10am on a Sunday morning and demanding to speak to Chris Hughes. Well, today, somebody *else* rang me up wanting to speak to Chris Hughes (and woke me up again) (his name wasn't actually Chris Hughes but I won't write the real one here in case I get arrested in connection with him). It turned out this guy was an investigator and wanted to ask me a few questions about Chris Hughes. Apparently this number is registered to another address (presumably where the erstwhile Chris Hughes lives, or lived) but he was interested to know if the police had been round. After I hung up I had to get up and pace for a while to stop the images of cops in full riot gear bursting through the door Elian Gonzalez Raid-style from flitting through my head, and it quite ruined my nap. As if I don't have enough keeping me awake at night, tisk. It's made me wonder if the phone's tapped. The police must be really sick of having to listen to hours of modem squeaking.

Oh yes, and do we remember the dishwasher saga? After which I said I was going to stick to taking the trash out and drinking gin, things I was good at? I'm not even taking my own advice anymore, because yesterday I pulled the vaccuum cleaner to bits trying to work out where the hose went in (it's one of those uprights..I'm not good with uprights) and when I finally gave up, but it back together and switched it on the apartment was immediately filled with choking burned rubber fumes. For a second I wondered what the hell I could have hoovered up but after that I was more engaged with trying not to pass out from a coughing fit. It turned out that my tampering had jammed the belt mechanism thingie and the motor had burned through it. Yes! I broke yet another household appliance!

Luckily it was easily fixed. Today I just took the rubbish out.

Wednesday 10th January

It's so wrong. It's just so, so wrong. Just...wrong. Sick and wrong.

In a moment of crazed morbid curiosity, I watched a new TV show tonight called Temptation Island, or, to give it its full title "Temptation Island - Sodom & Gomhorra comes to Belize in the 21st century". I sound like a prude (grin) No, seriously, it's just - awful.

I didn't watch Big Brother. I thought the entire concept was dumb. I had no interest in who Mel was seducing or how the bloody chickens were doing. However, it did capture the nation's collective eye, proved by the fact that I had to listen to all the details at work every night for the entire summer, that I overheard people talking about it in the pub all the time, that the numbers of people online dropped noticably at 11pm (or whenever it was aired). They even rescheduled Ally McBeal for it, goddammit! I concede, it may have had its positive points. I did, for example, nearly miss my last train to Portsmouth clinging to the edge of Richard's sofa, waiting to see who had won.

But this is an entirely new kettle of fish. It is truly horrible. The idea is, 4 couples are stranded on a desert island. The men are at one end, living with 12 thin, attractive, bikini-clad single women, hand picked to seduce them, all ex-Playboy models and Miss Georgias and perfect teeth, and hair resembling the offspring of a very furry animal fed all its life on peroxide and vaseline. The women are at the other end, living with - you've guessed it - 12 musclebound studs, all thong necklaces and tight shorts and "oh you look really tense, let me give you a massage", again, hand picked to seduce them. These unfortunates (well, I suppose it depends on your point of view - a free holiday in a tropical paradise with members of the opposite sex flinging themselves at you at every turn - but I digress) have to spend 2 weeks in this situation and "test their relationships". It's an absolute disgrace!

They interviewed the couples to begin with and they were all speaking very nobly about this marking a turning point, being the determining factor in whether they were going to stay together, yada yada yada. For a start, this does not strike me as the way to see if your partner can be faithful. These single people are being *paid* to seduce them. It's not going to end up being a show about loyalty, it's going to end up being a show about forgiveness. I think Americans must be just really weird, or else I have maiden-aunt morals (ha!) because the idea that I would even want to go on a date with a male whore 5 years into a relationship with someone who I claim to want to marry, and then have it video-taped and shown to my partner to make him cry just makes me sick to my stomach. It's just so wrong. It's all going to end in tears. In the "Scenes from the next Temptation Island" they showed a clip of one of the blokes weeping and shoving the cameraman away and yelling, "Turn it off, this is my LIFE!" Yes, it's your life, you stupid idiot. You're hoping to boost your modelling work (they're mostly actors and models, these couples, of course) with exposure on television but it's just not going to be worth it at the end of the day. Oh my god, I am so, so hacked off! What is wrong with the world, that people get a kick out of watching other people break their hearts in front of an audience of nearly 300 million? It's like, Indecent Proposal on a grand scale. With palm trees.

Enough of such ranting. I should make it my New Year's resolution to give up ranting so regularly, it's not good for my blood pressure. But, no, I'd like a New Year's resolution that I could actually keep; I kept last year's ("stop resting on laurels" - I did rest on my laurels after September, I suppose, but I had a lot that needed resting on by that point) and the one from the year before ("don't have a boyfriend") and this year I have been racking my brains for a good one that I can keep. I suppose I could make a concerted effort to be less paranoid about things. I could give up growing voodoo avocadoes. Speaking of which - Mother Hand informs me that Voodoo Avocado Exhibit D (named for Mr Z, of course) has been growing like nobody's business, but laterally, instead of vertically. She says she's never seen one with leaves as big and shiny as this one has, but it's not getting any taller. Weird? I wrote the book, it's perfect (twirl).

I know what it should be! I resolve to finish my book. I wrote some more of it today. 4 lines. And I added a word here and there. It's going pretty slowly. It's difficult to keep the right frame of mind for it now that my own has changed so much, but I'm trying. I don't think I'd even care if it never gets published, it would be good to know I had actually achieved something. All to the good if it does get published, naturally. I promised my first year maths teacher that I would dedicate my first book to her "for making my life such a misery" (she made me go and stand in the corner for that, the ungrateful hag) and even though she'd dead now, it strikes me as being a nice gesture.

Monday 15th January

I know I've written about socks before. But I think I need write again, because their strange powers have once again given me cause for concern. Are they the invisible threat? Will they one day take over the world? Will we discover that we go places, not because we want to, but because our socks want to, and lead our feet there?

When I came to Las Vegas, I had 4 pairs of black socks with me (and various blackish Christmas numbers which are something else entirely - not even washing them in Halls of Residence got rid of them - they are the sock equivalent of bad smells, evidently). I find it quite difficult to keep track of my socks, since I'm always taking them off, and putting them back on again, and changing them for indoor socks, depending on how cold my feet are. But the other day, an apartment-wide search (which didn't take very long) turned up one pair of black socks (with dark brown monkeys on - they look plain, but are technically a novelty sock, which is why they have lasted so long (Colin's mum gave them to him for Christmas in 1996..*cough* I mean me)) and 4 unmatched black socks. Out of these, none belonged to the pair I pinched off Zoe and wore over here, which have disappeared without a trace (after 24 hours of constant use, though, I am willing to concede that they might have walked off on their own). So...4 odd socks, previously belonging to 4 pairs - what's the big deal, you might be asking? Well, not counting Zoe's pair and the monkey pair, I only brought 2 pairs with me.

Are you with me so far? 4 pairs to start with. One pair still here. One pair missing entirely. 4 random socks.

The plot thickens.

I did laundry today, and found out that I had washed 10 blacks socks, when previously I could only find a total of 6. When I took the time to examine them, I found that 8 of them went together to make 4 pairs, which makes slightly more sense since I did buy a pair of black socks before Christmas (they came with free bracelets, I just couldn't let that pass me by). Still, none of these pairs resembles Zoe's socks, and it doesn't explain the 2 odd ones.

Feeling industrious, I also decided to rearrange the mess on my bedroom floor today...this involved kicking it into a pile behind a cardboard box (I wasn't feeling *that* industrious). I just went in there to discover that, in the way bedroom messes do, it has slunk back across the carpet again, leaving in its wake - guess what - 3 black socks. One of these matches one random sock from the laundry, so I am almost back to the beginning - 3 odd socks, but 5 pairs. None of these are Zoe's, so I have acquired a pair somewhere (Father Hand only wears white socks so that's him out) in addition to the pair I bought. It's got to be some sort of strange sock plot to confuse us and make us doubt our sanity. Even worse, it's evidently a black sock plot, since it never happens to my other socks, the ones I wouldn't *mind* losing (all the white ones) or the ones I have a profusion of (the indoor models). True, a black sock is a black sock, and it doesn't really matter if they don't match from an aesthetic point of view. But I feel unbalanced by the different thicknesses of cotton. I'm the sock equivalent of the Princess and the pea, evidently.

I can just hear Mother Hand saying, "Well, you *do* spread yourself about so, Sally, it's no wonder you lose things (put head to one side and pull "not-expected-daughter-of-mine-loins" face)". But I think these socks are just waiting to be removed from feet so that they can teleport around and cause mischief.

I did warn you I was going for maximum smug-witchiness a couple of entries ago. Here is a picture of my flowers. I dried them last week, and they turned purple, which was nice of them. Mr Z said the other day that he didn't mind his identity being revealed, but then later he said I should prolong the mystery so I am altogether confused and shall just continue to call him Mr Z, since it took me so long to think up the nickname (grin)

People have previously warned me about misusing my powers but I've outdone myself this time. It *hailed* here this evening, and there are snow warnings for tonight. The temperature didn't go above 48 degrees today! Well, not for the portion of the day I was awake for, anyway. I've got to stop being so homesick because I'm evidently drawing the English weather to me. It's the only explanation for it. I had to make some lemon curd today because I found out they don't sell it in the shops here and I was pining for it (one of those things that occasionally appears in unusual places in dreams (well, after all, it does go well with *everything*) and featured in mine last night). I don't understand how Americans can survive without these basic necessities!

Monday 22nd January

February approaches with all the inevitibility of an anvil towards Wile E. Coyote. Valentine's Day paraphernalia abounds everywhere I go, but happily this year I don't want to deface it all with cans of black spray paint; Father Hand has got a jump on things and is already winding me up about it. "Those would travel well in the mail," he pointed out occasionally as we traversed the supermarket aisles on Saturday. But since I haven't sent Mr Z anything for, oh, 2 whole weeks, I think I'm going to have to rack my brains for something original. Valentine's Day is merely an excuse (grin).

Teasing abounded again yesterday when Frankie and Littlest Treasure came over to go to Red Rock...
Father Hand: She was on the phone yesterday to Mr Z for TWO AND A HALF HOURS...
Me: It was only two hours, tsdk
Frankie: He's bad...he's very bad...I'm going to have to punish him when he comes over
Father Hand: (snigger snigger)
Me: You will certainly not!
Father Hand: I tried to sound threatening, I asked him if he'd been interfering with my daughter, and he just laughed at me
Me: He said you weren't scary
Father Hand: Muhahahahahahahaaaaa (scary look)
Frankie: He must be punished...what shall we do?
Father Hand: I think we should lock him in a my bedroom with Sally and refuse to let them out for the entire week, until he has learnt his lesson
Me: (choke on pizza)
Frankie: Well honey, that doesn't sound like much of a punishment...

And it goes on. *Sigh*

Pictures from our jaunt to Red Rock Canyon can be found here. In spite of the fact that we walked about 4 miles and my delightful companions attempted to photograph me watering the desert (they failed - tip: if you're peeing behind a bush, make sure you have the camera in your pocket) we had a lot of fun. Alex collected some snow in a water bottle and was then most upset when it melted, but such is life. Father Hand let me drive all the way home, in the dark, without my glasses - I didn't point out that I didn't have my glasses until we were turning into the apartment complex for fear he was going to make me pull over - which I guess is good practice.

Girl Scout update. Those rat lawyers lied to me, and it turns out that I cannot get a visa for working next summer, so I can only take the Program Director job if they will let me volunteer for it, and work for free. I'm torn. I really want to take the job, because I know how much fun it would be, not to mention all the good experience in management and admin and all that other stuff I will get. I'd get to plan the whole program, and I'd be counselor-in-training director too, so I'd be in charge of ten 15 and 16 year olds for 2 weeks to mould and train as I see fit (heh heh heh). The camp director's camp name is Star; the assistant camp director is Smiley and she's Romanian - how perfect is that?! She can help me with learning the language. On the other hand, I'll have to work for free, I'll be pretty much totally cut off from civilisation for 2 months, I'll have to come back to England with no money, and I kind of want to come back in March anyway. Decisions, decisions. But oh well, I'm sure it will all work out for the best in the end

Wednesday 31st January

Temptation Island, that show that is so shockingly bad that I have to keep watching it for the shudder factor, is going from bad to worse. One couple's been removed from the game - and I use the word loosely - because they have a child together, which they did not declare to the show's producers ahead of time, the show's producers feel that they cannot risk fracturing a couple who have such responsibilities because it would "reflect badly on us, on the show, on the network..." Naturally, no mention made about the poor tyke who might very well go through his life being known as "that kid whose parents got broken up by a TV show". Still, maybe that would be better than being the offspring of that Las Vegas couple who broke up over a jackpot. The story goes, they were playing Megabucks - ie, in order to win the entire jackpot, you had to play 3 dollars a turn, or you could play at a dollar a turn for lower stakes. So, they had been playing for a while, and had one dollar left. "Don't play until I get back with more dollar bills!" warned the husband, and rushed off to make change. Meanwhile, the wife gets bored, sticks the final dollar in anyway and - whaddaya know - wins the jackpot. Except that, instead of the twenty million odd they would have won on a 3 dollar play, they only won about 5 grand. He divorced her over it.

I bet the legal costs ate up their whole jackpot.

Temptation Island Syndrome seems to be spreading to England. I was shocked to my moral core (again, tsdk) when I read in the Evening Standard online about a new type of party night happening in London, organised by some big company, I forget which. Anyway, they sent out hundreds of invitations to this shennanigans, and the idea was that instead of taking a date you wanted to be with, you took someone you wanted to break up with, or someone who'd had a thing for you for ages who you wanted to get rid of. Then, when the party got swinging, the dumpees would supposedly find solace in the arms of strangers and everything would be sweet.

There are not words for it! But you know I'm going to try and find some anyway. What a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to do to someone! I mean, really.."Yes, I know we've been together for a year and a half but I'm breaking up with you. No, don't try and cry on my shoulder, you'll ruin my outfit - go and mingle, this party is packed with people waiting to feed on your distress like emotional vampires. As for me, there are vulnerable types all over the place here tonight so I'm going to snag one while they're still tear stained and get myself laid tonight. Don't wait up!"

I mean, really. Being dumped is bad enough. Being dumped in public, it's got to be worse. But being dumped at a party? And worse still, a party specifically for dumping people?! Do these people have no shame? It's fear, I suppose. Less likely to be messy in public, I suppose. It lets the dumper off the guilt of it, I suppose. It allows them to terminate what was supposedly (this being a party for over-18s) and adult relationship in a childish way. I suppose. It's like that advert where the lad's sitting in the park and some girl in school uniform comes up to him and says, "My mate, she don't wanna go out wiv you no more". It's that, but with cocktails. Because you can bet there are people there who took their significant others and didn't bother to tell them the theme.

It's all very disheartening. Try as I might to believe that this world is still a place I want to be in, as time passes I'm finding it harder to stay in love with it. Still, I suppose I should try, I did list it with my aspirations in the yearbook, when I left school. But then, at that time, I wanted to be a club DJ and end up with a TV cookery slot that got more viewers than Delia Smith. Maybe I was setting myself unattainable goals...just maybe

Freaky Gym Man has disappeared. I don't know when, exactly - probably during the month I stopped going (grin) but whatever, he's gone. So my nightly tortures have been relatively undisturbed. Last week, some woman turned up and stayed for half an hour, but she was very bearable because when the security guard came and made us put the lights on, she went and turned them off again when he'd gone. Then this week, some couple showed up and tapped on the window for me to let them through the pool gate, and nearly gave me a heart attack. They were dressed up for going out and tried to get into the Residents' Centre (which was, of course, locked) and then wandered around looking for the toilets, in vain (there aren't any). Then they came back and hid in the alcove where the scales are, and giggled away until I finally figured they'd only showed up to use the dark and usually deserted room for what dark and deserted rooms lend themselves to. I left them to it. I did not, as Stu suggested, "return with popcorn". Anyway, I pulled a muscle so it was probably for the best. I'm beginning to wonder whether the stretches I learnt in dance class when I was 8 might be beyond me now. On the plus side, Jen's "don't eat anything except apples" diet, combined with Frankie's "half a cup of rice whenever you start eating the couch because you're so hungry" diet (my translation of her words) and Dad's "complex carbs for breakfast and nothing else until dinner" diet has culminated in the loss of four pounds since Friday, so it's not all bad. And I do run for miles every day. Rather, Lara Croft runs for me *cough*