Tuesday, 1st February, 2005

Fearing Change

Hmm, this isn't quite right

I'm not really a creature of habit, I guess. Not in as much as I have a set Monday to Friday routine or anything, but I'm not great at deviations from things that I expect.

You'd be forgiven for thinking, that something really bad has happened, and I must apologise for that — it's nothing. It's just that, well, the train this morning isn't on platform two. It's on platform five.

I know, this is probably daft, but I'm sat here, and even though I can see the monitor that says "7.15 Leeds, platform 5" and on the front of the train it says "Leeds" and the announcer just said "The train at platform five is for Leeds", even though I can see the Man-Who-Is-Always-On-The-Train ... despite all that, I can't help but wonder if I'm on the right train or not

You're right. It's daft.

It's just that, well, I kinda like things to be where I expect them. And if they're not, then I have butterflies in my stomach. Like just now, as we're about to set off...

Sorry about that — it's just that it reminded me of all the times I used to get the train home from school, and the moment of terror (a small moment, granted) as the train started to move

pause — cool, I can see my house from here

Only once did the train go the opposite way to what I was expecting — and even then, it was to do some strange switching-points malarky. But I used to hate the thought I'd end up in Lurgan rather than Belfast.

I have a little story about being on the train home from school. If I get the chance (and wake up a little bit more) then I'll tell it.

Three other things that are different to normal: two bad, one good. (1) There was actually some daylight this morning as I was walking to the station That means Spring is on the way.

(2) The price of a ticket has gone up £20.80 Apart from the extra cost, that now means I can't just hand over a single note, change is involved. (Ha ha ha — see what I did? A pun no less. Or is that just wordpley?)

(3) Somebody is sitting in my seat. Bastard. I need to start asserting my princess qualities (ie "throwing a strop") to get my own way.

No, it's not really important — it's just that I like to sit near the front, facing away from the direction we're going. Dunno why, it just feels safer.

...

Dammit, why do I feel nervous about today?

From 10.30 until about 1ish, I'll be walking through a simple video editing process with ten students. Ten. That should be easy shouldn't it? It's not like I don't know my stuff or anything, I think it's that I'm worried that I'll not get across the important parts of the process, and they'll just stare at me with blank faces for two hours.

pfft

I should have more confidence in my abilities, shouldn't I?

...

So yeah, a train story. Not a nice one though I'm afraid...

As I said, I used to get the train to and from school when I was young. We lived right next to the station, and my school was only a little walk away from the other station, so it kinda made sense.

There were a group of us who got it regularly — and despite what I wasw saying last week about not talking to other commuters, I don't think that applies when you're a kid. There was about 4 or 5 of us, and we got on pretty well.

One day though, there were three of us — me, my brother and another guy. Quietly sitting there, waiting (in terror ) for the train to leave. When a group of boys got on. They sat down in the same compartment as us, and asked if the train was going to Dunmurry — which is where we were going.

Looking back, I was kinda nervous (I don't like groups of boys even today) but everything seemed fine.

Until one of them came over that is.

He stood, looking out of our window, on my foot — which was a bit disconcerting I tried to move it out the way, but he just laughed. The wierd thing is that I was eating some Polo mints at the time, and he demanded I stopped.I tried to ignore him, but he kept having a go at me.

Which is about the time when I felt his friend's fist slam into my face.

I've got vague memories of this, to be honest. My brother and my friend sat there in disbelief, and I'm not one for picking a fight, so I stood up, and the three of us walked down to the next carriage without saying a word.

Knowing though, that they were going to be getting off at the same stop as us (and not wanting to have a repeat performance) we got off one stop early, and walked 2 miles home.

My mother insisted on calling the police, but to be honest (as they said) there was nothing they could do really.

It took me about two weeks to pluck up the courage to get the train again. I remember when I did get it, a few of the passengers told me that they'd seen what had happened, and that they thought it was "awful what those boys did to you"

Yeah great — thanks a fucking bunch. Why didn't you do something at the time?

Sometimes, I talk about being all brave about being out. Sometimes I get it into my head that the girls who worry about being beaten up just because they're trannies should take it on the chin (not literally) and hold their heads up high, regardless. But I probably shouldn't. I mean, I'm crap in a fight, as I think you can probably agree. I'd hate to be in the situation where there was a chance of violence. Maybe I shouldn't be quite so militant and idealistic.

...

There are two postscripts to that story BTW. MOnths later, I was late out of school, and as I got to the station the train was already leaving. I saw the same boys on it, and as it pulled away one of them spotted me and shouted "Hey! You're the little twat we gave a kicking to!"

Even later though, I saw him again. But this time we were both on the train, and I had about 6 other people with me and he was on his own. He didn't see me until we'd got off at Dunmurry — he took one look at the guys I was with, and legged it

...

Well, it went OK — but there were more blank faces at the end of the workshop than I would have liked

I'm doing a thing with the new website tomorrow — I hope that goes OK...

...

At some point, I must go through and fix the spelling of all that lot above — the train was quite rocky (honestly — that's not just an excuse for being sleepy) earlier, and my fingers were flying all over the place.

...

It was very nice of Mike of Troubled Diva to mention me today. I have been having a rather large email conversation with him about a couple of things I talked about the other day. What I must do, when I have more than five minutes, is take some of the things we've been saying out of the emails, and make a post about them.

Just continuing my little theme of wider viewpoints, some of the things he said were really enlightening

But bear in mind, "when I have five minutes to spare" ... this week's gone a bit crazy

Sooner or later...

troll trollfeeding rant funny

...someone will leave derogatory comments on your website.

I hope I'm not ruffling feathers here, but there was some emails on The Angels the other day about getting (LOL) "knockers" — people leaving bad comments on your website.

Now, my immediate reaction (after laughing at Becky Enverite's "knocker" joke ) was that well, maybe we need derogatory comments sometimes — maybe we need people to give us a little kick up the arse and shatter our illusions a bit.

I mean, we can take ourselves a bit too seriously sometimes can't we Emily (Howard)?

So, anyway, taking into account the fact that I've had this website (siobhansplace) for what, 4 years now? And that in all that time, I've only ever had one person say something slightly peculiar (in the Guestbook — a guy called Joe who seems to just be laughing), you can imagine my surprise to see about 4 photo-comments lying in wait for me in my inbox when I checked my email this evening. 4 nasty comments.

So, Mr Joey or Justin, whichever your name actually is...

Dear God man — is that the best you can do? You waltz into my little website and post the words "YOU'RE FUCKING HORRIBLE"

Ack, d'ya know what? That's just shite. I could gargle much better put-downs with one finger up my ass and a wine bottle shoved down my throat. And I wouldn't have to leave the caps-lock on to make my point either.

ahem clears throat

Joey, you are obviously not familiar with internet usage. A malignant little toad like yourself should restrain himself from vomiting such self-evidently illiterate tripe all over his keyboard, lest he give himself away as being the short-arsed hick, sat at his computer in four-day old underpants, scratching his backside with the edge of a can of beer that he's going to take a swig out of any minute, safe in the knowledge that he's just increased his machismo-points by taking the piss out of a trannie who wasn't pretending to be a girl in the first place.

Really, you had the opportunity to post whatever you wanted — no-one was watching, no-one's going to track you down and spank you with the trannie-stick, anything you like, and you come out with "You're fucking horrible"

"Horrible"?! What kind of insult is that? "Oooh mommy, I don't like this broccoli, it's horrible!" "Pa! Pa! Sarah Jane is being horrible! She won't let me play with her dolls!"

Pathetic mate, absolutely pathetic.

You know what would be more plausible? Try posting something like "Siobhan, I know you're getting a lot of praise for how you look in these photographs, but how seriously do you take the opinions of your own peer group? Would it not be more rewarding to garnish the opinions of a much wider selection of society. I for one, disagree, I don't find you attractive at all."

How about something like that? At least you'd have my respect.

hug

Justin has left this comment for photo number 11 on page http://www.siobhansplace.co.uk/index2.php?action=photo&pic=11:

-----BEGIN COMMENT-----

you are seriously ugly! Get a life

------END COMMENT------

Yours,

Erin

But that? Nah. Go empty your nappy somewhere else.

(Erin is my server — she sends me emails when people leave comments)

...

Sorry, I probably shouldn't vent like that — especially after what I've been saying over the past few days. I'm just living up to the stereotype perhaps. That Drag thing of being able to be cutting.

Truth is, I'm not fussed. I just find it laughable how pathetically inept someone can be.

...

In other news tonight, I paid about a tenner for a quiche.

A very good quiche, granted, but a tenner?!

I took pictures of the packaging. I'll post them tomorrow. Seriously, you're not going to believe how much effort went into the quiche.

And before anyone says it, I know. "You ate a quiche Siobhan? That's so gay"

No, no. Erin is my computer. It was some guy calling himself Justin that made the comment