'Tis the season to be- oh, wait.

Halloween, my love!

I've missed you. There is nothing like dressing up and harrassing your neighbours. And you're easy too! It's not exactly hard to find a Halloween costume when you've been through a Goth phase...

I do love you, Halloween.

Tell ya what... If you promise me that you'll provide me some more entertainment tonight in the form of men dressed as zombies fighting in the street, fireworks and a sudden influx of vampires, I'll come a-partying with you next year.

Deal? Okay!

Nicole.

I'm just here to love you.

Alors... 27th of October.

Exactly a year ago I did a variety of things... I babysat both of my nieces for three days. I asked for and received red and black bands on my braces, keeping in theme with Twilight. I nearly bit my dentist's fingers off and I discovered a turd on the floor in the middle of a waiting room in the hospital.

Also, my lovely, lovely nephew was born.



For the first week we couldn't think of a name for him. It's not like we hadn't been narrowing down the list for nine months or anything, none of us could agree on a name. I wanted to call him Caleb, like the guy from Kings Of Leon (wooooooooooah, your sex is on fiii-ire), but in the end I was turned down, which sucks because I'm kind of awesome.



But anyways, this awesome lump of luuurve is Rhiley Kaelen "Chunk" Gaines, my awesome TIMES A MILLION nephew. He's one year old today.

The year has gone really quickly, but it hasn't exactly gone smoothly. What with all the stays in hospital, the spell of Bronchitis that had me howling like a wounded animal at school, the meningitis scare that made sure I had worry coming out of my eyes and then having his bed collapse on him. It's been an eventful year.



When he first had Bronchitis I was in such a state that I was ushered into an empty classroom to calm down implode before being taken to hospital to see him, which was grim. All covered in tubes and crying because he kept coughing. Not so good.

Health scares and accidents aside, he's a pretty kick-ass baby. Insanely cuddling and giggly. He almost never cries and he's a total rock star, bobbing up and down waving his arms whenever music comes on. He gets that from me, obviously.



How could anyone resist that face? His sisters do it, somehow. They wind him up no end but he sticks it out, which instantly makes him better than me.

But that's cool. We're cool.


Somehow he always manages to look like he's seen the inside of a Travelodge just west of the seventh circle of hell, but honestly, he's a happy little chunk.

Happy birthday, baby! Don't party too hard.

Assholery is a fine art.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.

Well, not literally, or I'd be, like... in a wall or something.

But let's just say that I was in a very bad mood. A monumental bad mood. A bad mood that made it obvious that I was just not meant to interface with human beings on this day. It was the kind of bad mood that had be whimpering in a corner moaning about not having the patience to deal with school today.

It was THAT bad.

But hell, I went to school like a good little mite. And within five minutes of sitting in the common room, I discovered three things about myself:

#1: I'm a terrible human being.
#2: I find it surprisingly hard to function if I have the wrong mix of people around me.
#3: I'm insanely polite, all the time.

The third one is especially true. Apparently I'm a little bit (read: hugely) sick-minded, I think TWSS jokes are the Living Cheese and generally I hate everything with fun, red-hot gusto.

Sadly it sometimes seems like I'm lying to the world. Should I really conceal the sarky, cynical, hot-tempered asshole beneath the cool, calm asshole surface?

For example, a girl I cannot stand got punched in the face yesterday? The dialogue goes something like this:

Red 1: [Redacted] got punched in the face by [redacted] today.

Nicole: Oh? Did it really hurt?

Correct answer: Shit! She beat me to it?!

---

I'm given obscene amounts of homework?

Nicole: Well, sir... I want to make you bleed right now.

Correct answer: I'm gonna fucking cut you.

---

I'm teaching (oh yes, I teach people...) a complete ass, head and hole?

Red 2: Miss? Why are you even here?

Nicole: Because I'm a nice person with too much free time.

Correct answer: Because you're an idiot, son.

[NB: The kids I teach are actually pretty awesome... most of the time.]

---

Life, the list, and all goes on.

It's not that I'm not a nice person. I love individual people, but people in general drive me insane, which basically makes me a bit of an asshole in everyone else's view. I wouldn't change.

It also turns out that I love my fellow assholes. Our Lord Archer, for one, is probably an asshole. A really BIG one. But he's totally lovable and I hang onto his every word because he's just so damn wise and interesting all the time. And it's probably because we're both from working-class backgrounds that I get his asshole-humour, whilst no one else seems to.

Another person I know, Evan, is TOTAL asshole (to the untrained eye). I cannot begin to stress how much of a dick he is. He's arrogant and selfish and totally up himself. He's frustrating and makes no effort with anything and as cocky as hell and I spend a marginal amount less of my time thinking about how to stick it to him than I do thinking of how awesome he is. He's one of my best friends, and I'm glad he appears to be a total dick.

Other assholes I love? Frankie Boyle. You don't know if him? Let me get you upto speed. He's an insanely controversial comedian who was (until recently) a panellist on one of my favourite TV shows EVARR, Mock The Week. He says the most horrendous things and he's widely hated but he's just so damn funny and I am SO pissed that he left Mock The Week.

Witness the awesome, people:



Assholery is a fine art.

My family and other animals.

My family are really into animals, I've noticed.

Half of my family come from a tiny village (in fact, they are the village) about an hour away from here. The family from around that area that I see regularly are my uncle, my aunt, my three cousins, my grandma and my granddad (RIP - I guess I don't see him as much anymore).

My granddad and grandma have this huge farm with all old buildings and huge machinery and barns and orchard and fields and shit and my granddad used to keep cattle - bulls in particular. These bulls were FIERCE. I cannot count the amount of times I'd go into the cowshed as a kid, get too close to a bull and end up being head-butted, flying through air and landing square on my butt, up to my neck in cow crap.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my childhood in a nutshell.

When my granddad died (he had a heart attack in the cowshed) we sold the cows and bought some magic beans my grandma started keeping horses.

My uncle splits his time equally between working with cows (or just 'beef' as he calls it) and turning carrots funny colours for the hell of it.

My aunt has 4 Rottweilers (Kaiser II, Xina, Rocky II, Amber) and a Jack Russell called Gin. The Jack Russell owns those Rottweilers. I don't get it either.

One of my cousins has a horse and a cat, and two of them have a cat each.

And they all live together in a biiiiiig farm house.

As for us weird city folk (you should see the size of York, it's a tiny little footnote compared to New York), we are more for the... ahh... domesticated animals.

My mum had five cats and three dogs before I was born. My grandma has gone through so many cats and dogs in her time I cannot begin to count (though her latest cat seems to be a bit of a survivalist - meaning that I'm actually scared to go to sleep in case he claws my throat). My sister has had a plethora of hamsters (though she neglected them so that when the third one died, she didn't realise until the smell became too bad) and my dad used to have a gorgeous dog called Jet. My other granddad and grandma raise dogs and train them for the army and my aunt has a doctorate in animal rights.

Why am I boring you with this, you ask?

Well, because there's been another addition to the family...

You all recall Gunner, right?

You DON'T?!

Oh my days, people.

Fine, this is Gunner.



He was a gorgeous puppy and we all love him to pieces, but he kept eating my nephew so my brother passed him on to a friend and now he lives a life of luxury with velvet pillows and stuff.

And then there's Zebbie. The full post about Zebbie is here. Zebbie Zebedee Zebra had been around all my life and we were roughly the same age. He died a few months back and the whole family was absolutely gutted, because he was such a character and it's so hard not having that grouchy, furry guy around to make you feel all nostalgic.

Zebbie's a total babe (love you, pup):



And then there's Buff - though her full name is Elizabeth. She's a whippy little Jack Russell-Terrier who always looks scruffy and is impossible to exhaust (except when my sister's around).



She looks kinda crazy in most pictures.

But today someone else joined the ranks.

Meet- and I feel a combination of pity and awe as I say this... "Arthur Boscastle"



He's so cute!!! And totally huggable.

Of course, Buff likes to think she owns the house and poor little AB because for once she is actually bigger than something (Zebbie used to dwarf her, drag her around by her head and so on) but she doesn't realise that AB is going to grow...

And grow...

And then, more growing!

AB's gonna make Zebbie look small, and then Buff's for it.

I could teach them a few things about dual burden...

I have this awesome teacher formally known (by me) as Our Lord Archer. He is a l-l-legend. He's like the Eastender, twisted, cynical, brutish, bear-like, working class equivalent of Stephen Fry.

Amazing, I know. He killed a man with a packet of Quavers.

Now, Our Lord Archer is the tame evil overlord of social sciences. I study psychology and sociology AND he's my form tutor. There is not a day that goes by that I don't see this man at least once, and he happens to set the part of my mind labelled 'blog' in motion more or less every lesson.

However, due to his cynicism I find myself picking apart everything he says with an almost cruel intensity, and due to the fact I have a two-track mind which talks away to itself, it can be pretty interesting to be in my mindset during one of Our Lord Archer's lessons.

You know how you have an inner dialogue that rattles away in your head and supplies a dumb commentary to your otherwise meaningless and monotonous life?

Sometimes it's like I have TWO. It's HELL. It's PERIL. It's a DAY of UNECESSARY capitals, PEOPLE.

Most of the time my head just rattles with information I've been fed at school and lists of stuff I've got to do when I get home, but sometimes my head splits in two and starts chewing away at my brain, and then you get The Twins.

They're evil. They're annoying. They're diabolic. They're the two kids your friend has who argue all the time and don't stop talking and you just want to kill them but you can't because you owe that friend quite a bit of money even though she's said it doesn't matter but if you maim her children she might make you pay her back and you can't because you spent all your money on top-class male hookers, yeah?

They're THOSE people. You know... Them.

Meet voice in italics. She's a little sarcastic, immature as hell and spends her time bugging her twin sister and singing annoying songs very loudly.

And meet voice in bold. She's much more mature than her sister in italics, she is very sensible and straight-laced and to-the-point and what not. She likes to get the moral high ground, whereas her sister just plays for kicks.

Generally I prefer italics, but don't tell bold because she's a snooty cow, let me tell you...

These bitches argue like there's no tomorrow, people.

So imagine what happened when I had an entire day filled with Our Lord Archer. If you could get internal headaches, I would have a Really Big One.

Our Lord Archer: (about tutorials) I've made myself as available as possible, you all just need tah (he says 'tah' instead of 'to'. It's a Southern thing, I guess...) touch base with my every now and again.

Internal dialogue: Touch base? Which base? Second base or beyond? Shut yer hole.

Nicole: *suppressed snigger*

---

Later:

Our Lord Archer: Statistics are great, so according to that graph if you lose some lard of yer arse, you'll get really smart.

Nicole: That makes no sense, sir.

Internal dialogue: It makes perfect sense, your butt is solid gold. More or less true, but you are really smart, sort of.

Nicole: *slightly raised eyebrows*

---

Later still:

Our Lord Archer: The purpose of humans is to be born, to suffer and to cease, it's all we're good for.

*silence*

Classmate: But that's bull, sir. What about happiness? You can be happy, we don't suffer all the time.

Our Lord Archer: Happiness doesn't exist.

Internal dialogue: *stirring* Ohh...? Haha, you can see the pre-sermon glow around him. Wait for it...

Our Lord Archer: Yes, *says something too fast for my poor Northern ears to understand and interpret about happiness being a status and something else about souls and evidence and existing and then concluding a minute later with:* And so happiness and the concept of being happy does not exist and so a break from suffering is all we experience in reality.

*silence, inside and out*

Inner dialogue: ...Jesus fuck, that's depressing.

---

And finally:

Our Lord Archer: I'm very cold towards people, I don't form emotional attachments because I don't have the mindset to do that. It was only after my children formed an attachment to their mother that I started playing with them because I believed that was important.

Internal dialogue: You know what this means, don't you? Uh huh. After the bodies started appearing, he prepared to cut and run.

Nicole: *blink*

---

Never change, sir. Never change.

Il pleut à vache qui pisse*, and other awesome French phrases.

People tell me I'm a miserable cow.

These people are no longer living, I am in fact a Vicious Ninja Cow With Nine Acid-Shooting Udders.

Yeah, and don't you forget it.

Moooo-ving on - ouch - I'm actually a shiny happy person, and if I'm scowling or moping it's for a good reason.

Did I rush past you in the corridor? You're walking too slow.

Am I staring morosely at the floor? The bar in the common room ran out of flapjacks.

Am I scowling at you from across the street? You're wearing crocs.

It's all very simple, and so am I.

I am SO easy to please, a free period, a good song being played in the common room, discovering that twitter has been unblocked for sixth formers at school, it all makes me happy.

True Blood, people suppressing their asshole genes, freebies, seeing nice shoes, finding money under furniture... That's all great too.

HOWEVER, whilst being hard as nails and whatnot, if I'm overloaded with four or more of the following, I'll class myself as 'having a bad day':

- Missing the alarm and/or bus
- Being late for school and/or being given a detention
- One of my friends having an Asshat Day (AD-Days)
- Bar not serving my favourite food
- No free periods
- Being stuck behind crowds of small, straggling year sevens in the corridor when I really need to get my lesson, assholes and then there's a pile up in the corridor.
- People telling me that I look miserable
- Dropping my money down a drain
- Getting blisters (oww...)
- Nuclear Fallout
- Another celebrity dying

On an average day I get a mix of three of these things.

Today I suffered from not three, but EIGHT of them.

And people wonder why I lack my usual joie de vivre and goodwill to all hen and whatnot.

So sure, if I look down, either let me be or ask me if I'm alright and I'll smile and tell you that I'm absolutely great thanks, and take it as I say it, but DO NOT tell me I look miserable. I'm not, and I will send big evils your way for it.

I'm sixteen, I've got Halloween and Bonfire Night to look forward to, school's great, the world's my oyster and my motto is still laissez les bon temps rouler**.

I'm still smiling on the inside, people.

---

* It rains like a pissing cow
** Let the good times roll

Horse porn - a night at the theatre.

The other night I went to see Equus at the theatre with some of my English class. And by that I mean 'Me, Evan and Aaron went to the theatre with Ms Brz and Miss G to see naked people'.

Okay? Glad we got that cleared up.

You've all heard of Equus, right? It was the play that Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) got naked in.

You have? (<- possibly NSFW)

Well, we went to see that. I had NO idea what I was gonna be exposed to when I sat down. Basically it's about a guy who is well and truly effed up in the head and he rides horses naked yelling "I WANT TO BE ON YOU, ON YOU, IN YOU, WHAT THE FUCK, OH MY GOD, EQUUS, AHHH! AAAAAHHH! Amen." naked.

I know.

I just felt sorry for the guy that played the horse.

Sadly no one got naked, which is pretty much why I went to see the damn play in the first place.

To compensate, I spent the last ten minutes trying to see up the leg of lead male's shorts because that's exactly what I'm like, which is kinda unfortunate for everyone who knows me - particularly Evan and Aaron who had to put up with me shuffling around to get the best view.

We were going to go to the pub but after arguing with Evan for something like twenty minutes about whether or not he was underage (at 16 he most definitely is, mini-beard or no mini-beard) we ended up in the oh-so-Klassy McDonalds eating McFlurries and fries and trying to hypnotize each other at midnight or something. (Who goes to McDonalds on a late-night Thursday, really?)

And then I rolled into bed at 1am feeling rather... ahh... cultural.

And that is essentially all I've been doing since I left off last time.

Except today when I woke up to a naked Matt and a naked Ali in my bed.



But that's a story for another time.