The self-centered, all about ME ME ME post
[2006-02-28]


Ok, so this is a HUUUUUGELY long post, all about me. This is like written masturbation or something, it's all so self-involved and self-obsessed. But I've seen this sort of thing in other peoples diaries and liked the idea. Oh well, it's here now so bugger it.

THE LIFE STORY CRAP IN BULLET POINTS. AND ALSO IN DISARRAY. WITH ADDED PINEAPPLE.

-- My name really is Kate, but my surname isn't Lee.

-- I don't post my surname on the internet because I'm paranoid and secretive.

-- I'm 23 years old but I look like I'm 18 or younger

-- I got married in August 2004, in a registry office in Stratford-upon-Avon with only our families and two of my close friends there

-- I met my husband at work and none of our colleagues knew we were getting married until we got back into the office the week afterwards

-- Most of my friends thought it wouldn't last - we finally got together in February 2004, moved in together in June 2004 and then married in August 2004. People said we were rushing. We were just confident. To this day we still say know we were right.

-- Alex was one of my closest friends for over two years before we finally got together. I loved him for all of that time, but it took a comment from my Mom (of all people) for me to realise this. Everybody else knew for a long time before we did.

-- We're expecting our first baby on 12th May. She's a girl and will be called Heather Louisa.

-- I'm both terrified and excited at the thought of becoming a Mom. I want her to be here now, but I want her to stay in there for as long as possible. I love the idea of having a child, but I also want to go back a few years and really appreciate the freedom I had.

-- Heather's middle name is my best friend's name. She's an amazing woman who I couldn't live without. I'm as close to her as I am to Alex and I don't know what I'd do without her. There's no possibility that we will ever not be friends.

-- I left school after my 'A' levels and got a job as a receptionist in a hotel in June 2000. I worked there for two years and I can honestly say it was the best, most easy going, fun job I will ever likely have.

-- I eventually left my job because they didn't pay me enough - they forced me into admin (forced me, I tells ya!). I worked for a woman who loved self-help books far too much until I could take it no more, when I decided that I would finally go to uni.

-- After making this decision I quit my job and went to work in a fancy dress and practical joke shop. This sounded like fun; we had to dress up for work every day, I learnt how to make balloon sculptures etc etc. In reality the shop was badly run, we were paid incorrectly without fail and the women who ran the shop were far too stressed about making things fun for anything to be fun.

-- I nearly went to work in a mobile phone sales, just to get away from them. I'm glad that I didn't.

-- At the end of my tether, I texted my old boss one day, jokingly asking if I could have my job back. Two hours later Alex wandered into the shop and offered me a job working for him. I nearly kissed his feet.

-- At the end of the day I quit my crappy job IN STYLE:
Me: "I won't be in tomorrow. I quit."
Boss: "You can't do that."
Me: "Oh, I think I can..."
Boss: "You're obliged to give us two weeks notice."
Me: "You're obliged to give me a contract..."
Boss: (stumped)

-- I loved this exchange, even though I did get very worked up and ended up crying through sheer nerves. I love repeating this conversation to people.

-- I tried to work for Alex but, after starting a relationship, it became difficult. Luckily two of the senior managers had just left their partners and got together, so they took pity. I went to work for Trish.

-- My role Business Process Officer, which was really sad and anorakey. Kind of like trainspotting.

-- I left my job in August 2004 in order to go to uni and do an English and Drama degree at Birmingham University.

-- I miss working in a professional environment but I'm glad I'm now doing something that will allow me to do a job I care about.

-- I love my degree and am enjoying every minute of it. I love the degree itself rather than the 'student experience'. The student experience doesn't appeal. Although I do enjoy not having to do 9 - 5 five days a week.

-- I hate it when people think I'm an 18 year old student who has no life experience, living in student accomodation and getting drunk all the time.

-- However, I find it funny when I get ID'd in pubs. I also think it's funny when people have weird reactions to my pregnancy as a direct result of their misconceptions.

-- I moved out of my parents house when I had just turned 18.

-- I moved out because I felt stifled - my mother is quite controlling and a big worrier and she was very set in her ideas of acceptable clothes/behaviour/times to be out until/venues etc. I shared a bedroom with my sister which, while not being a problem, meant that I didn't have my own space AT ALL.

-- I moved in with an aging, obsessive compulsive DJ who thought I was his live-in cleaner and who had a disturbing habit of sitting in the front room wearing two towels as though they were a toga.

-- I was earning �132 a week, and my rent was �45. The majority of my remaining funds was spent on alcohol. I lived on supernoodles most of the time. I loved having the freedom to go out and come back whenever I wanted, regardless of the time. I got myself into a huge amount of debt by saying "yes!" to everything that was offered - from weekends in Evesham to weeks in Newquay, from gigs in the basement of a social club to relatively expensive last minute Foo Fighters tickets. I wanted to do everything.

-- The house was very old, with original windows and doors. When the wind blew all of the internal doors would rattle. The heating was electric storage, which meant it was freezing most of the time, and the electricity was on one of the old meters which you had to put pound coins into. There was no shower and to have a bath you had to put the boiler on for half an hour. A number of times Aging DJ stole my hot water, meaning I would go for up to three days without having a proper wash.

-- On a number of occassions the electricity would run out at night, I would have no coins and would therefore have to sneak into the hotel where I worked in the early hours of the morning, in order to get some sleep and enable me to get up and ready in time to start work at 6am.

-- One of my favourite things about living there was waking up in the morning, removing the piece of fabric that covered the window (no curtains or blinds for me!), pushing the window up and leaning out into the cold winter sunshine, having an illicit smoke whist trying to make sure the smell didn't get into the room. The house was on the outskirts of the town in a fairly countrified area, so there was no traffic noise - only the sound of the birds singing. All I could see from my window was trees and the occassional garden shed.

-- I moved out of here when Aging DJ and I came to blows for the last time. I moved into a ground floor room in an extremely dodgy part of the town, in a huge house in which the heating only came on for half an hour, twice a day. My room comprised of a huge ornate fireplace, a bed, a side table, an ancient armchair and a wardrobe. These items didn't even come close to filling the room. I added a set of shelves with some fabric pinned around to hide some stuff and a small bookcase. I never unpacked and lived out of bags for the two months I was there.

-- I shared this house with five gay, cross-dressing, deaf people, two people with severe learning disabilities and a bouncer with an attitude problem who was convinced I thought he was trying to rape me. I don't remember much from when I was living here, as (embarrassing as it may be), I spent all my money on alcohol and only used to eat what I could scavenge from the kitchen at the hotel where I worked.

-- I could have used the kitchen at the house, but my anorexic mindset wouldn't allow me - I was far too embarrassed to be seen eating or preparing food. I would not acknowledge that I needed to eat.

-- My boyfriend/ex-boyfriend at the time was playing mind games on a very big level - he'd told me that he loved me, then the next day he dumped me. He then continued to sleep with me and act as though we were a couple in private, whilst flirting with other women and being openly cruel to me in public. This mind game crap was going on while I was living in the madhouse.

-- I moved out of this house into a flat back in the countrified area of the town. This was actually fine(although I was very disturbed to find that I was living with a friends ex...especially when I got up one morning to find my friend in the kitchen). We didn't get on too well though (because I was an arse, there's no two ways about it) and he kicked me out.

-- My parents allowed me to come home, to sleep on their living room floor. This was difficult, as I was still working shifts that meant some nights I didn't get home until 11pm and then had to get up for work at 4.50 the next morning. Sometimes I just needed to go to sleep at around 9pm when I could get the chance...but it's not possible when you're on someone's floor in their front room!

-- I couldn't cope with this and went to live in the box room rented by my (now on again) boyfriend. The room was tiny, the house was vile, he lived with an alcoholic who used to steal our spirits if we didn't hide them thoroughly enough and who would frequently leave shit smeared across the toilet seat/vomit on the wall etc. Again, the heating kept breaking and at times we were forced to pile clothes onto the bed in order to keep warm. For some reason none of this seemed at all strange to me.

-- Eventually I moved (again), this time into a house with another girl and a bloke, in an extremely dodgy area of the town. Everything seemed fine at first...until I began to realise that they were dealing out of the house. And the bloke had some serious mental issues (which he had actually been in inpatient treatment for), which led him to leave broken open razor blades around the house. And he used to walk in on me when I was in the bath. Then he stole some money from me the girl kicked him out, and her best mate moved in. She was no improvement - she used to go into my room when I wasn't there and steal my belongings (including, on one occassion, a thong).

-- I then moved in with my boyfriend, sharing his brother's house. We got on great for the most part, although I was cheating on him on a regular basis. In the end I cheated on him with eleven different people, including the guy who'd been his best mate since they were both three. And all of his other friends.

-- About a year later I met a group of blokes who were on my wavelength totally. I loved being with them, they liked being with me and we spent far too much time together. We used to go out drinking at least three times a week, sometimes staying at lock-ins at the pub where our mates worked (they were in a band, all their stuff was permanently set up there - it was always good after hours), sometimes going back to somebody's house to drink, smoke and watch cheesy old guns n' roses videos until the early hours of the morning. I frequently used to go into work hungover or still pissed. I now realise I was lucky not to lose my job.

-- I was diagnosed with depression while all this was going on and Alex used to take me and pick me up from counselling sessions, sitting in the car with me afterwards while I cried on him.

-- I fell in love with one of the aforementioned blokes...not schoolgirl crush, full on, real love. He felt the same - we so desperately wanted to be together, but we were both in long term relationships. He used to tell me how much he missed me, that he knew every part of me, he could even recognise my smell. Alex found me somewhere to live and I moved out of my boyfriends brothers house, ready to become single again at any given moment. He couldn't leave his girlfriend - when he told me this he broke my heart.

-- I now know that, in trying to mend my heart, I broke Alex's. I can't forgive myself for making the man who would become my husband cry. He stood by me and managed to help me deal with things better - he managed to recognise I was struggling with "unhealthy coping tactics" (alcohol and anorexia again, shock!) and kept me occupied and distracted. I had no idea how he felt about me - he kept it so well hidden...and he still helped me through all of the shit while I was unknowingly hurting him. I don't think he'll ever know how much I respect and love him for that.

-- In the midst of my emotional crap I decided to move back in with my boyfriend. He was happy. I was still distraught.

-- Alex and I actually got together a few months later, at the Christmas party. I hurt him even more when I dithered about leaving my boyfriend - I was scared of being homeless, I was scared of the unknown. It took me until Valentines Day to eventually split up with him, although Alex and I were seeing each other all of that
time. He was very patient.

-- My boyfriends brother said he understood. He said he couldn't believe how his brother had treated me, moved out temporarily and let me stop in his room for two weeks. His girlfriend then moved out of her flat and into the house, so that I could live in the (fully furnished) flat. I don't know what I'd have done without these people.

-- Alex and I didn't sleep with each other until the night after I split up with my ex. It was the most amazing experience of my life...not in a Marie Claire "spectacular sex" way - more because of knowing that it was Alex who I was feeling inside of me. This was like the culmination of every brilliant cuddle he'd ever given me...and that feeling has never worn off.

-- We moved into a little house together which was perfect, until we were offered this one - meaning we could move out of the horrible town and into an incredibly nice area of Birmingham, with a bigger, better house and cheaper rent. We're still decorating it, although efforts have been stepped up recently with the impending baby arrival.

-- I'm not going to put any more here, although I have missed things. I may write another 'filling in' one at another time.

THE OTHER CRAP ABOUT ME, WHICH REQUIRES NO STRUCTURE

-- I have a gap between my front teeth. I wish I'd had it fixed when I was younger, but remember being told they'd have to remove some of my gum to fit a brace, so I bottled it.

-- I love to make people laugh - it gives me a bigger ego boost than a million compliments

-- I'm really pleased that I'm married

-- I'm glad that I had a weird life for a few years. I wouldn't suggest that anyone actively seek the messed up gypsy lifestyle, but if you have to do it I think it's a good experience. It taught me a lot about myself, life and my own abilities to cope.

-- However, because of the messed up lifestyle crap, it annoys me when people actively seek it, usually in order to make their lives seem "rock n roll". If you'd been there for real, you wouldn't be thinking it was cool - you'd just be getting on with it. I hate it when people tell a story and then finish it with the words "rock and roll". I do not think you are entitled to use those words to conclude a story unless the story involved throwing a tv out of a hotel window, sleeping with groupies or a near death heroin overdose experience. If you did qualify to use the words "rock and roll" to complete a story, you probably wouldn't be all too bothered about bragging anyway so I will likely assume that you're exaggerating.

-- I'd love to have lots of friends but people don't seem to like me. I don't know why this is, as I only really want to be nice to people and make people happy.

-- I think it's possible that people mistake my shyness for rudeness, and therefore think I'm taking an attitude when in actual fact I'm just scared.

-- I find it very frightening to ask people to do things with me: I get nervous about asking people if they want to go for a drink (or even to grab some lunch halfway through a uni day), as I feel that they probably don't want to but will be too polite to say no.

-- I feel happy when people include me in their plans, I'm very miserable when I'm excluded. It makes me very sad when people misunderstand me or think that I'm lying.

-- I care far too much about other peoples opinions, and wish that I didn't. Sometimes I fool myself that I don't need other people's approval. I always prove myself wrong.

-- I sometimes wonder if I confuse people. From a distance I look incredibly normal, then when you get up close you realise that I have a pierced nose and a pierced labret (although the labret piercing has been missing for a while - obscure and sudden swelling a few months back necessitated removal), and I have the Nirvana smiley face thing tattooed on the inside of my right forearm. I like going to the theatre (I love Shakespeare) and reading Dickens, Austen etc...but I also like listening to loud thrashy rock. And cheesy 80's rock too. And every kind, really. People don't get seem to get all of this.

-- I have very curly hair but I straighten it because it's easier. Nobody would guess that my hair is straightened and hairdressers often find the curls suprising when they actually get started.

-- I don't like going to hairdressers and often do my hair myself.

-- I've had anorexia since I was fifteen, having an on and off battle with the disease which I've never managed to beat. At my highest weight I was 11st 3lbs and at my lowest (just before I found out I was pregnant) I was 7st7lbs. If you want to figure out the BMI numbers for that (I won't think about them at the moment) you'll need to know I'm 5'4" tall. Go on, knock yourself out. I went from my highest weight to my lowest weight in a space of six months. I'm just starting treatment now. I'm putting on weight, but the disease is still messing with my mind. I already have plans for how I will dupe the professionals once I've had the baby. I'm going to tell them my plans, so that I can't get away with it. I know this makes no sense.

-- I wish people wouldn't tell me how easy it will be for me to lose weight when I've had the baby. It's true - it will be easy for me to lose weight. But it doesn't make me feel any better. The difficult part comes when I get to a size ten (which is healthy for me) and try to maintain my weight at that point, knowing that I can easily get to a size 8 if I just restrict a little bit. I'm not sure if I'm going to manage. I'm trying to ignore the culture of 'thinner is better' but it's so present in our society that it's not exactly an easy task - when even the people who try to help are celebrating over weight loss. It's an impossible situation and sometimes I think I'll never win.

-- We have two cats, Flea and Carrott, and I'm a little overprotective of them. I love them far too much. Flea nearly died when she was a kitten and we had to nurse her back to health - I had to take time off work because she couldn't feed herself, meaning she had to be bottle fed every three hours (throughout the night too!). She was far too small and could fit inside a cupped palm. I'm glad we had her, as I'm not sure anybody else would have put so much effort into looking after her. She's now the most affectionate cat in the world. Carrott is a nutter who would talk with a Glaswegian accent if he could.

-- I love Cadburys Creme Eggs. I also really really love Big Macs, although I won't allow myself to have them too often. I enjoy drinking tea, but am often too lazy to make it. I'm really, really lazy.

-- I have a bit of a thing about bad tv, especially shows or films that MAKE NO SENSE. I enjoy these shows because it means that I can come up with my own stories, which I find much more amusing than a cleverly constructed piece of cinema. I don't have the attention span for watching tv or films sensibly.

-- I think stand up comedy is one of the best things ever invented. I especially love Peter Kay, but also Lee Evans, Jasper Carrott, Bill Bailey etc etc...well, most of them, really.

-- I also think that comedy shows that take the piss (8 out of 10 cats, Mock the Week, Have I Got News For You etc) are brilliant. I don't like American comedy shows with canned laughter, although I do like Friends. And I LOVE scrubs.

-- I think it's funny to talk like I'm a 'gangsta'. I think this is funny because I'm a white, middle class female with a slight Brummy accent. I think it's funny because so many white middle class females actually really do talk like they are "gangstas".

-- I love offensive, non pc humour...and wish that people could have a sign (like a bracelet or ribbon or something) if they also enjoy it, so that I can share my offensive, non-pc jokes with them.

-- Sometimes I clean manically, sometimes I don't clean at all. There's no reasoning behind it. Although I do love having a clean house.

-- I don't do any exercise, other than walking. I feel a bit guilty about this.

-- I wish I could play guitar, but I don't have the patience to learn. I pick up instruments easily (as in learning to play, not as in 'picking them up') so dont know why I don't just sit down with Alex's guitar and GET ON WITH IT.

-- I also want to be able to play drums. I have a much better flair for this and am now just waiting for the day when I can finally get my V-Kit. I'm actually ok (for someone with hardly any experience), but I want to be able to drum like Dave Grohl, Jon
Bonham or Lars Ulrich (even though the guy is a twat). I idolise drummers and know that this is a bit sad.

-- I wish I could do more for charity. I want to help everybody and I hate it that I can't. If I had more time I would do volunteer work.


Right...this is quite clearly long enough now (said the plastic surgeon) so I'm going to bugger off. Apologies for the long post (but you didn't have to read it all. Oh, if only you'd have realised that earlier...) I'm now wondering how many people have got this far...? Hmmm, intriguing.

Really going now.

I WISH SHE'D TAKE HER BUM OUT OF MY RIBS...
Lilypie Baby PicLilypie Baby Ticker

I COULD ACTUALLY REALLY DO WITH A BIG GIANT HUG. AND NOT A HUG IN A MUG. A REAL HUG.


give Kate-Lee more *HUGS*Get hugs of your own






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