It's 5am and I haven't been here in over a year. I've been with Dora for... what, like a year and 4, 5 months? We're really good a the moment. In my old journals I'd go on to describe how and why.

I've just sprung up from my bed. I was thinking about friends. I don't seem to be very good at getting and keeping them, at least not god ones. I had them, sort of, as a kid. I think. Actually, for the most part i was a loner, buckling down with school work, reading whenever possible, and constantly thinking. My favourite reading memory is of a beautiful green copy of the complete illustrated works of Lewis Carrol after bed time. I was about 8 years old, and would read for an hour at a time by game boy magnifier light under my duvet.

Hmm. Funny how memories captivate you. I'd remembered that book for years, but only just recalled the game boy light. That memory trace blossomed and lead to emotions not associated with the remembered phrase "i read lewis carrol", but with the actual memory itself, which had gone unexperienced since around that age.

Diverging: Back to friends. I was an odd child, the effects of this were likely exaggerated somewhat by me wearing a different uniform to everyone else, as my mum had bought for me a required black jumper that nobody else seemed to own. So i stood out as different immediately. But the most important cause of -- what, lonerism? Mild self isolation? -- was that i was odd. I was diagnosed from an early age (~6yrs) with OCD, Tourette's and ADD, so all the symptoms of children living with these mental differences were present in me (except vocal tics; that only occurs for like 30% of people with Tourette's). I can only rely on my mum's memories as I barely rememebr anything from primary school, and she's told me stories of such things as full-body tics, or stroking a particular male classmates hair for a texture i was fond of. He was ok with it, and the class accepted my wealth of oddities. Nonetheless, this oddness no doubt had an impact on my friendships. Or perhaps I was never particularly interested in friends? In primary school I had a few good friends - Adrian, Sahnat, Kelly etc. Others I can't remember. But I just remember hanging out with myself more than anyone else. Wandering the playground.

Interestingly, i was never short of girls asking me out and was almost always in a relationship. For such an odd boy, 4 girlfriends before puberty isn't too bad. There are hazy memories of other female interest, all astonishingly pointing towards there being something in me that people desired, even despite the weirdness. This contrasts sharply with the the image i had of myself growing up through puberty, even until just recently. It's only recently that I'v realised I have a choice in who I get with, and that I don't just have to settle with whoever I think I can get.

In secondary school I had... eugh, less inclanation to write about myself so endlessly. But I still found it incredibly hard to sleep. It's 6am, I got distracted editing the Bedazzled story below, probably the only other available post to this journal out of around 700 entries. There are 3 other journals I used to keep here, but this was my main one. There are others at other sites, too. I used to love writing.