A girl wanted to give Bryn and me AIDS, and through a very rapid sequence of dodgy encounters, she succeeded.

Sunday 21 January 2001, Hallucination #2: Charming!

Bryn had a voodoo doll that looked like me, and smeared it with mud.

Sunday 21 January 2001, Hallucination #3: That's Better!

Bryn got me a Slimelight membership card from a London Underground ticket machine.

Sunday 21 January 2001, Dream: Ibid The Brave!

Soppygit, Ibid and myself were part of a large group of people who lived on a huge boat. Two other groups also lived there. The aim was to collect playing cards, but to earn them, you had to cut off limbs of members of the other groups. One of the groups was so stupid that everyone was afraid of them, but Ibid boldly went forth and cut off a guy's arm.

(Ibid: I hope it was Bryn!)

Thursday 25 January 2001: Life Is A School Play and Zed Is A Slutty Blonde

Will and Katie were in love. Please appreciate how utterly implausible this is. Despite always ending up as a couple in every single school play or musical they took part in, in reality, they didn't think much of each other. However, in the dream, they were at UKC, sitting on the ground among a large group of people, acting sickeningly lovey-dovey.

I pointed this out to Vicky, and she pointed out an equally gruesome couple that she knew. The boy had a pig-like face and long-ish blond hair. Neither he nor the girl looked old enough to be at university.

There was a party in the Grimond Building. I went there, not intending to stay very long, but I met a boy who I proceeded to spend two nights with. The following night, I was lying in Bryn's bed, when I suddenly thought, "Oh, fudge, what have I done?" I couldn't even remember what the other guy looked like: I knew he was quite tall with brown hair, but I wouldn't recognise him if I saw him again. All I knew was that he lived in a hotel on campus, and his name was probably Chris.

The following morning, a Tuesday, I got up before the alarm went off, as I was to hand in a survey I'd done a week ago, but wasn't sure where to do so. I ran into the woman who surveyed me, and she started talking about it. "You were pretty idiotic," she said. "You might look like a brunette-" [My subconscious obviously hasn't come to terms with the fact that I have black hair now.] "-but you're definitely a blonde underneath."

"Huh," I said. "I have an IQ of 173."

After ten minutes of walking around campus with her, I heard the alarm going off. I saw Bryn and put my hands on his hips. Then the alarm really did go off.

Sunday 4 February 2001: The Lesbian And The Voyeur

My online friend Laurie wrote a really long journal entry, in which she declared she was a lesbian, and Bryn told his housemate to have sex with me, then watched.

Monday 5 February 2001: Zed: The Faithful, The Diplomatic, The Clever!

One morning, several people from my old school year came round to my house, one after the other, to spend a bit of time with me. Sheena did, Craig did, Smill did, then Chris did. He asked me to find something, and while I looked through a pile of papers, he started touching my arse. I got annoyed. "Stop it. I'm not interested. I thought I made that clear last time you were here."

"Well, you might have changed your mind," he said.

I was in the extensive grounds of some building, and a lot of people started arrival. I soon deduced that it was the funeral of a girl who'd been at my school. Although she'd only died that morning, her sisters appeared wearing special mourning outfits, which I joked about to my acquaintances.

After the ceremony, the place turned into an indoor market. My family went to the pet stall, to dispose of some pets we didn't want. They told us, "We won't know how much to pay you until this afternoon" so the rest of the family waited outside, while I stayed in. The shop turned into a kitchen, which my grandparents were occupying.

I went outside, to see my family, and noticed a packet of Custard Cremes. "What are these for?" I asked.

"Oh, could you put them in the cupboard in the kitchen?" Mum asked.

"No way! Grandma and Grandad are in there, remember? They'd catch me!"

"Oh, yeah," she said.

Saturday 10 February 2001: Zed The Cheating Stealing Lazy Geen

I was going out with Chris and Mr Dover, Soppygit's boyfriend. We went to the Electric Ballroom a lot. However, I paid more attention to Chris, so Mr Dover dumped me to go out with Soppygit instead. I instantly realised the error of my ways - now I had only Chris, who didn't really care about me. Then I remembered - I had Bryn!

It was the last day of school ever. In the evening, my year was to go to London for a meal. I assumed we'd go to a nightclub afterwards, so I brought my PVC dress to school. I wore a stripy top, stripy socks and stripy shoes, all very brightly coloured. "Am I too stripy?" I asked someone. "If you were wearing stripy trousers you would be, but no," was the response.

The girls in my year were planning to go to Slimelight the following Tuesday. "Can I come?" I asked, and they agreed. It wasn't until later that I realised that Slimelight wasn't open on Tuesdays, but I didn't have the opportunity to tell them.

After school it was my grade 8 clarinet exam. I hadn't practised two of the pieces in a long time, and was dead scared about the sight singing. It was in Newcastle and I wasn't sure which bus to take. I decided not to go.

I was working at Funky Monk's, a clothes shop in Canterbury, and a journalist told me to steal all the clothes. I climbed up a ladder to get there, and started throwing clothes down to my suitcase which was on the ground. However, the police caught me. I'd worked out a sob story to tell them, but half of it didn't make sense anymore, so I told them about the journalist. The dream ended with me entering my room at university, and finding the clothes on the floor, but not the suitcase.

25 February 2001: What A Date!

For Valentine's Day, Bryn took me, Ibid and a young priest to a town in Kent. We walked alongside a river, cut off from us by a mesh fence, and the priest preached.

26 February 2001: "No Problem!"

Bryn got promoted a rank (in Milites DeBec, the re-enactment group he's part of). His first three tasks were to be faithful to Zed, give a new member called Melanie a lift to practices, and make his lord a chocolate cake.

27 February 2001: Journal Problems

I was staying with my online friend Sarah Yoj, but Alison, who I haven't seen since I was eleven, was also there. My online friend Laurie came into the room. She only had a few seconds to spare, because her ex-boyfriend Chris was also in the building and she wanted to avoid him, but told us to ask her any questions. "Are you bringing your journal back?" I asked. "It's ok if you're not - I don't want to write in mine at the moment-" "It's coming back," she cut in. "I'm just not saying when."

Also, David, Bryn's brother, sent me a Valentine's Card, as a joke. I woke up, feeling most guilty for not having mentioned it in the journal entry I'd just written.

1 March 2001: Transportationally Unsound Stuff

I was living at home, when I heard that a book called "The Teenage Worrier's Guide To Sex" had been released. As a huge fan of the Teenage Worrier series, I drove to Carlisle to get it, although I didn't tell anyone where I was going, since my parents had taken my grandparents out in the Lake District. I thought about buying the book with no money, but decided it would be easier to use my debit card.

To get home, I needed to go to a bus stop, take a bus to another, then catch a different bus home. I couldn't find the first bus stop, so I tried to walk to the second, but it was up a v. steep hill that I couldn't climb. However, my mother appeared. We were about to get in the car, when I asked her a question. She went berserk, and started marching off across fields. I followed her. We encountered two young boys on rollerblades. One of them tried to trip me over, but he failed and fell down a steep slope.

From then on, a lot of falling and nearly falling down steep slopes occurred. Eventually, I pushed my mother down one, but she was rescued by her "good daughter" who looked like a character in "The Crow".

The scenario shifted to a television programme, which my family was in, and where we had to be nasty to each other. My brother threatened not to flush the toilet after him. I argued about this for a while, then realised I could use a different toilet instead.

6 March 2001, Semi-Hallucination: Flying Zed And The Psychic Farmer

(I could control what happened, but I went along with whatever my imagination came up with.)

I floated up Bryn's wall, across the ceiling and to his window. In the distance, I spotted a circus, so I flew to it. When I arrived, everyone was packing up and they were taking sheep with them. I asked if the sheep belonged to the circus, but I was told, "Mind yer own business." I phoned the police, but they said it was ok, the sheep didn't belong to anyone. The farmer who had owned them had moved away, because he was psychic and knew the foot and mouth epidemic would happen.

8 March 2001: Bryn Getting Up Early? Never!

Bryn decided to get up an hour earlier than necessary, so as to avoid walking up the hill to campus, by going to the bus station and getting a bus there instead. On the way there, we encountered a drop of a few metres, which ended in a large muddy puddle. Since I was wearing my New Rock boots, I was unwilling to make the jump, so we turned back and sought another route. This took us through a museum, where we had to descend several flights of stairs. At the bottom, I couldn't find Bryn. I waited for him to appear for about five minutes, then realised I'd miss the start of my lecture as it was, and set off. But I didn't know where I was. I followed a road to a Spar, but that was right on the edge of an unfamiliar part of town.

9 March 2001: Cars And Boots But No Sales

I was travelling from Carlisle to Kent, as were Bryn and my family, but in a different vehicle and taking a different route. Their car crashed and my family was killed. Mine broke down, and I tried to get in touch with my grandparents, but their address was no longer valid. I spent the rest of the dream trying to find their new one, although as a subplot, I bought some New Rock boots (here they are again!), with which came a free dog called James. I had to be careful not to confuse him with a farmer's twenty eight identical dogs. At the end, my phone started running out of money, and the daughter of the owner of a village shop kept playing with it. It occurred to me to call Bryn, so I did, but despite everything that had happened, I quickly ran out of things to say to him.

10 March 2001: When The Goalie Strips, She Gets Away With It

I was roped in to playing goalkeeper for Carlisle United. The goalkeeper for the opposite team was an old woman, who you attacked by yelling "Grandma!" at her. I had to wear a bra, stockings, suspenders, and a huge horrible pair of brown underpants, and defend my goal with a teaspoon. I did quite well, but wasn't allowed to have my other clothes back afterwards.

12 March 2001: Maths Wars

I was wandering round a strange planet verifying a set of numbers that satisfied the equation x³ + y³ + z³ = w³ and getting horribly confused.

13 March 2001: The Maths Strikes Back

I kept coming up with really clear ways to explain E-Series'.

14 March 2001: Exam Worry Or Something

I was taking my grade 8 clarinet exam, and hadn't played any of the pieces for months. I could hardly get any sound out of the instrument.

(Why does this theme keep returning when I took and passed the exam in June 1999?)

16 March 2001: Du Hast Nice Clothes

I went to The Twisted Wheel, the metal club in Carlisle. All the people there looked at me appreciatively, since I was wearing my PVC dress and New Rock boots. They only played one song: "Du Hast" by Rammstein.

Saturday 17 March 2001: There Were Three In The Bed And The Little One Said . . .

I was in central Carlisle, and ran into Bryn and his housemates, Simon and Tasha. Bryn suggested watching a video. Something dramatic, he said. He, Simon and I went to my room. He and Simon got into my bed, and I checked my e-mail, but I didn't have any. So I, somewhat reluctantly (mostly due to the size of bed), got in too. There was a TV on my bedside table, and the video was a collection of Simpsons episodes.

Alice, who was at my school, and her family went to my parents' shop. I talked to her, briefly, mostly about forthcoming holidays.

Stef, an acquaintance at UKC, sent me a long letter.

I read the journal of Laura, another acquaintance here. It recorded conversations that took place in the sixth form carrels.

I was having dinner at a round table in a canteen with Marion, Anna The Goth, Stef and a friend of theirs. Will came along. We made small talk - I told him that Noj had passed his driving test and wanted to go to Sunderland University. When he left, Stef asked, "Who's that stupid guy?"

Sunday 18 March 2001: I Don't Have A TV, Ok?

I was working for a company, but all I did was wander round its labyrinth of offices and revise Maths. There was a film script I was working on, and my mother suggested that it might be too complicated. Privately, I agreed, but promised her it wouldn't be when it was finished.

I got into a car, then remembered I needed to talk to my online friend Helen and yelled her name. She got in the car, as did Ibid. The latter wanted to know if she could borrow my television to watch a programme. I reminded her that it had no aerial. Then I made arrangements to stay with Helen for a weekend.

When I arrived in Sheffield, I realised I hadn't brought anything with me except food. Helen, me and Marion (Mykos knows why she was there) walked down her corridor, but Marion and I ran ahead, eager to find Helen's room on our own. We couldn't, so we returned to the kitchen (which was bigger than it really is and in a different place). Matthew, who was in my year at school, came in, carrying a large poster. He started cooking it. It made interesting flame-y effects, but I stood back, a bit scared. Afterwards, he examined it, and was pleased to see how faded the black parts were.

Thursday 22 March 2001: I've Watched That Enigma Video Too Much

I was in Bryn's room, putting on my stripy tights, but they had turquoise stripes as well as black, purple and magenta ones, and they had turned into a pair of stockings. Bryn commented, "My ex used to have a pair like that, but they had Christmas trees on."

We went to campus and talked to his friend Anna for a while. Then I noticed I was wearing orange and white trainers, which really clashed with the stockings. "Must go and change my shoes," I said, and left them.

I encountered my parents. I was to go to an event at my old school which wouldn't end until ten in the evening. Mum suggested getting the bus home afterwards, but I pointed out how difficult this would be. Dad said, "You need to take the train to Hull, and then to Dusseldorf." I wondered what he was talking about, then realised he was spouting nonsense as usual, and woke up.

After a few hours I fell asleep again. I was in an African country, in a classroom with some English and French people, doing a test where I had to write sentences in French. I thought the French people had a big advantage. My French was rusty, and I had to keep looking things up. The lesson was nearing an end, and I'd hardly answered any questions: I hoped we'd be able to continue the test in another lesson.

I was arguing with my mother about the stationery Jenn uses when she sends e-mails (in reality, she doesn't use any) and a party I was going to go to. "You should have booked your train ticket earlier," she said. "I booked it as soon as I found out about the party," I said indignantly.

I was taking part in a week long ice skating competition, held around a frozen lake. It was the first day, a Saturday. There was to be a meal that evening, and practice time the following morning. I watched people arriving, and felt threatened by them, especially a three-year-old girl. However, a six-year-old came over to speak to me and my best friend (who was just some girl that my subconscious invented).

"My name's Willow, because I come from Willow Springs, Idaho," she said. My friend introduced herself and I said I was called Zed Leppelin. The six-year-old was baffled, until I told her it was the rearrangement of the name of a pop group. Then she felt silly for not realising this.

Suddenly, it was the next afternoon. I was confused - how had the meal and the practice gone? Then I saw my friend lying unconscious on a stretcher, being put into the back of a car. I told my instructor that I didn't want to practice because I felt too upset, but she insisted that I needed to and that my friend would be fine for the shooting competition that evening.

So I went onto the ice. It looked very brittle and the water below it was dark blue, as was the sky. I skated around, lost in thought. I noticed my sock was sliding down, so I stopped to pull it up. I realised I'd have to remove my skate to do this, and woke up.

Sunday 25 March 2001: Talking The Night Away

It was eleven o'clock at night. I returned to my room, from Bryn's, to spend time with the weird sisters. We talked for a while, then I looked at my watch, and saw it was 11 o'clock and presumably the following morning. "Argh!" I thought. "I didn't spend the night with Bryn, I'm about to miss my lecture, and I missed my chance to get a module registration form for next year."

I woke up, and realised, to my relief, that I was with Bryn, it wasn't 11 yet, and in any case, it was Sunday, not Monday and I didn't have any lectures.