Post-birthday round-up
27.03.06, 2:55 pm

So, yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of me. So very worrying that I�m now 21 years old; it sounds so bloody ancient. My dad bought me a League of Gentlemen card that announced upon opening, �Happy local birthday� I hope you get lots of precious things!� rather than the traditional stupid silver key, which I�m very grateful for. I also now own the shiniest of all shiny things: a Creative Sleek Zen MP3 player thingy, courtesy of my lovely grandmother, because my minidisk player�s so very clearly on its last legs. There was no way I was getting an Ipod either, because something that�s endorsed by U2 can never be a good thing. I�m sorry, Bono, but you do suck ass. No one cares what you think, although you never let that bother you, and go on boring the world regardless. Also, all your songs sound the same.

Anyway, I was going to write a light-hearted, hopefully vaguely interesting entry about my weekend � I went for a meal at a Turkish restaurant in Didsbury with my dad and a load of his work friends and drank Turkish wine and heard some amusing stories about Viagra and everything � but I�ve just realised that I haven�t written about some important life stuff, i.e. the end of the Paddy saga and my gran. So I�ll cover those in this entry, seeing as I should have written about them when they actually happened, and it�s completely my fault that I was instead totally slack and now have to write about them on a day which is actually not a bad day at all.

Okay, so the Paddy deal. Basically after the whole �I still have no idea how he feels about me, and it�s making me all pissed off and generally crap and I need some closure� thing I had going on, I decided to send him an email saying just that, and he responded with his usual, �Let�s meet up and discuss this� tack. Clearly I�m just a total glutton for punishment. So I walked over to the Springvale pub, preparing for another good kick in the kidneys, and pretty much got just that. He said that he doesn�t feel anything for me, and that he thought he�d made that clear last time we talked. I guess I got my closure if nothing else.

Maybe he�s lying, maybe he�s not. Either way, it�s obvious by the way things have been handled this week that he�s not massively good with the emotional side of things, and that he can�t really see things from my point of view. I�m starting to think that he was right when he said that he�s a rubbish boyfriend, and no good in relationships. Anyway, it�s done now and I have to move on. Being away this weekend was fantastic, in that I didn�t think about him as much as usual, although there were times when the annoying memory of him sitting playing with his drink and saying, �I just� don�t feel that way about you� I�m sorry� just popped into my head without warning. Being back in Sheffield again has very much brought it all home though, but I�m going to stop talking about it because I just have to deal with it and there�s other things I want to write about.

With regards to my gran� well, they originally thought that her whole �not being able to walk� thing and the constant pain was maybe due to B12 deficiency, so they gave her B12 injections for a while. These haven�t made any difference though, so she�s got an appointment with the consultant tomorrow and I�m guessing they�re going to give her an MRI scan or something. She seems to be getting worse and I�m really starting to worry. Whenever she rings me she always sounds depressed too, and every time we talk about her health I always totally bullshit her about it, because I vaguely know what I�m talking about, telling her that it�s no doubt just a case of something in her spine being out of line, and that because it all came about so quickly it means that it�s fixable, and that she�ll get back to normal again eventually. Sometimes I even convince myself. I only say it all to make her feel better; really I have no idea what�s causing it, or if she�ll ever get better.

So that�s the bad stuff. The good stuff is that my birthday was actually okay, despite me thinking about my mum quite a bit, and I mean that�s to be expected. The kids gave me my presents and a card last night when I got in, as well as baking me a cake, and the card was really quite lovely and full of mushy things. The best message was probably from Em, who wrote: Hey you, happy birthday! You have been a truly great friend to me and I�m so glad you�re here next year. Lots of love, Em x. I also got so many texts and cards and emails and that, and I�m not saying this to be all ohmygodiamsopopular; I just mean that it really made me appreciate all the wonderful friends that I have. Everyone that I know is so lovely and so fantastic, and I�m really lucky to know them all. When the Paddy thing routinely comes around and kicks me in the face, it does help to remember that even if I don�t have him I have people who care. And that I�d always, always take having my friends over having him.

Oh, that was quite mushy for me. I�ve also really rambled on (again) and never got to tell the Viagra story, or bitch about the horrific weather today, or talk about Michelle�s antics. I�ll cover them tomorrow. Right now I have to go clean the cream cheese off my desk, as I managed to drop my half-eaten bagel face down onto it. So, so clumsy sometimes.

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