Thursday 31 July 2008

News

*yawns*

Sorry, I haven't written anything of value in a really long time. I'm just tired, I guess. And I don't have a whole lot to say.

I've been good about sticking to the gym. I go Monday, Wednesday, Friday without fail, and sometimes Saturdays or Sundays. I added leg curls for my hams and quads to my routine (started today, actually), so I now have 9 weight machines to train on, 2 sets of 15 reps each, plus stomach crunches (would be 10 machines, but I can't work out how to use the stomach crunch machine, LOL - and I need to, because they're murder to do without a machine; they kill my neck). Plus stretches and cardio stuff. I'm usually there a good few hours, although admittedly I'm still spending a half hour in the shower. The sauna was finally back on on Monday, too, so I used that Monday and today. I have a mild claustrophobia, plus I hate places that are really hot and enclosed - even if it's a house or something. I can tolerate heat outside, but it's hard for me when it's inside. So there's always this moment of panic when I shut the sauna door. But I force myself to do it, and eventually it'll get better. I am not someone who's willing to be at the mercy of involuntary reactions.

I'm even learning to use that stupid crosstrainer. It knackers my knees if I use it properly i.e. going forward, but I find if I pedal backward it's not so bad, almost like dancing. And I love the treadmill, and the recumbent bikes are fine, although I stay away from the upright ones, they hurt my hips.

I'd kind of like to start using the rowing machines too, I think my back and arm muscles would benefit from it.

All in all, I'm usually in the gym for about 3 hours. Maybe 45 minutes on the weights, 45 on the cardio stuff, a half hour stretching, a half hour in the shower, and a half hour for sauna and changing clothes, both before and after.

I did find out today that I can pay per session for the sunbeds, but the price change is ridiculous. If you pay per session, it's £10 for 10 minutes. If you book a course of sessions it's usually £34.95 for 100 minutes, but at the moment they're doing £34.95 for 130. Even without the special deal on, that's a third of the price it would be if you paid each time. So I need to rustle up £34.95 from somewhere, hopefully soon so I can be nice and glowy for the wedding. Which isn't going to be easy; payday is every second Tuesday, and I got paid yesterday, but nearly all the money has to go back to the bank for the car payment. Unless I go into my overdraft for a couple of days, which I suppose wouldn't be the end of the world, as long as it really is only a few days. Two Tuesdays from now is what, the 12th of August? My car payment goes out on the 9th. So I'd only be overdrawn for 3 days...yeah, if worst comes to worst, I'll have to do that. I may have to do that anyway, because I still don't have a wedding present for Tony and Debbie.

Which is something else annoying. We were going to get them a hot air balloon ride. Tony mentioned it just before Christmas, so I've been looking for literally SEVEN MONTHS for the right one, and I was just days away from booking and paying, when I found out that some jackass gave them one the other week. OK, OK, whoever it was wasn't a jackass. It was a really nice thing to do. But now I'm crazy panicked about what to get them, and Mom can't find the damn wedding invitation with the details of the list on it. (I knew I should have hung onto it, but no no, she wouldn't possibly lose it. Which is now exactly what she's done.)

We found out about the balloon ride on Thursday, at Debbie's hen party. Tony knew that we were planning to get it for them, but Debbie didn't, so she had no idea how we'd feel when she started telling us about the wonderful present that some friends of hers gave them. And of course I had to smile sweetly and gush about what a nice, thoughful thing to do it was, when really I wanted to throw a tantrum right there in the restaurant. What really pisses me off is that Tony didn't think to call me and say, "hang on, better not get us one of those, someone already did". If she hadn't mentioned it, I would have booked and paid, and it's not like you get your money back on those things.

Oh, I don't know. I know I'm being immature about it, and what's important is that they had a great time, but...ehh. Buying them bed linens or something just doesn't measure up to a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It was a nice hen party, though. We went to Prezzo, which is this new Italian restaurant on Verulam Road. The food was pretty good - not a huge amount of flavour, but nice enough. But I didn't get a starter or a dessert, because I thought that we didn't have enough money, and then Mom DID - and she NEVER gets starters, so that surprised me. And although my linguine carbonara was really nice, my stomach was growling by the time I got to bed. Although I suppose the personal trainers at the gym would be proud of me. And a couple of girls who used to work with Tony brought funny things - little sparklers, and drinking straws with little rubber penises on them, and after dinner dick mints. Classic hen party stuff - not that I would know, I'd never been to one before. Most of my friends are guys.

Anyway, it was a nice evening. And the gym is great, and my muscles are pleasantly sore by the end. And Oli's good too, but it's 5am and I'll have to leave that for another post.

All in all, things aren't bad right now...there's just not all that much that's new to talk to you about.

Monday 28 July 2008

A Shorter Quiz From Tommy

SECTION 1 - THE BASICS+ Known as: On here? Rose. Just Rose.

+ Born: 3rd Feb. 1984

+ Hair color: Blonde

+ Eye color: Blue

SECTION 2 - HAVE YOU EVER

+ Fallen off the bed?: It happens fairly often actually. I sleep on a mattress on the floor now. I toss and turn in my sleep all night.

+ Broken someone else's heart?: Meh. Probably.

+ Had your heart broken?: Not really broken. Bruised a bit now and then. Some times more than others.

+ Had a dream come true?: Well yeah, I'm a precog. It's what I do.

SECTION 3 - CURRENTLY...

+ Wearing: Nothing at all.

+ Listening to: Nothing. I might put YouTube on in a while, if I decide to stay on the computer after I finish this.

+ Located: On my bed.

+ Chatting with: Oli and Angel Eyes.

+ Should REALLY be: Eating or sleeping, probably.

SECTION 4 - DO YOU...

+ Have any piercings: Just ears. Very boring.

+ Drive: Meh. I have a car, I had my test booked, and then I injured my back and couldn't drive for ages. So I don't have a license. I should get it soon, but I don't have the money right now.

+ Drink: Now and then. Not often.

+ Have a cell phone: Yes. I don't know anyone in England who doesn't.

SECTION 5 - LAST PERSON YOU...

+ Hugged: Mom

+ Talked with on the phone: Mom

+ Texted: Sasha

SECTION 6 - PERSONAL...

+ What do you want to be when you grow up?: I don't know. Something that pays well, LOL.

+ What comes first in your life?: I'm not sure, honestly. I'm just trying to survive with my morals and my sanity intact.

+ What do you usually think about before you go to bed?: Making sure I've done everything necessary, just checking the house over.

SECTION 7 - FAVORITES

+ Show: Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer, Boston Legal, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice.

+ Store: For clothes, probably H & M. For furniture and fun, Ikea.

+ Food: Right now, everything. Working out at the gym is making me hungry.

+ Color: All of 'em.

SECTION 8 - DO YOU...

+ Like to give hugs: Sure, I'm a pretty tactile person. I like hugs and kisses and all that.

+ Like to walk in the rain: Sometimes, as long as I know that afterwards I can come home and take a hot bath.

+ Prefer black or blue: Depends what it's for.

+ Sleep on your side: No, I sleep on my stomach.

+ Have stuffed animals: Yes, I seem to have more of them every year. I don't know why.

SECTION 9 - THIS OR THAT...(pick)

+ Pierced nose or tongue: Ehh. No preference.

+ MTV or BET: We don't get BET here so I'm gonna have to go with MTV. Channel U is best though.

+ 7th Heaven or Dawsons Creek: Don't really watch either. I used to like Dawson's Creek, but I never watched it religiously. I've never seen 7th Heaven.

+ Chocolate or flowers: Probably flowers. Although not when I'm hungry.

+ Color or black-and-white photos: Both, for different occasions.

+ Stay up late or sleep in: Stay up late. I like getting up early, doing what needs to be done for the day, taking a nap in the afternoon, waking up at 9 or 10 pm, eating dinner and watching some TV, and then going to bed at 1 or 2.

+ Hot or cold: In what context?

+ Sun or moon: Both, depending on my mood.

+ Left or Right: *shrug*

+ 10 Acquaintances or one best friend: Oh...I don't know. They both have their pluses.

+ Spring or Fall: Fall is my favourite of all the seasons, but I like Spring too.

+ Happy or sad: Happy.

+ Wonder or amazement: Aren't they more or less the same thing?

SECTION 10 - FIRSTS.

First Screen Name: Nope, not telling you.

First self purchased CD: LOL, I bought three CDs at the same time, a couple weeks after I got my first CD player when I was 11. The soundtrack for "Dangerous Minds" (STILL one of the best CDs I own), and the singles for "Wonderwall" and "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis.

First pet: I don't know, actually. We had a lot of cats when I was growing up that just sort of adopted us.

First piercing/tattoo: Ears - they're the only ones I have. I must have been 10. I know I was the last of my friends, and I was so mad at my mom because she wouldn't let me get it done for ages.

SECTION 11 - LASTS.

Last GOOD cry: For me there's no such thing as a good cry.

Last phone call: Mom

Last time showered: At the gym on Friday. (I bathe every day, though.)

SECTION 12 - CURRENT.

Current mood: Kind of hungry but too sleepy to cook.

Current food: None, sadly.

Current hair: An annoying length.

Current annoyance(s): Aside from the hair? I don't know. I need to change my bed. I should do it now, really, but it can wait until tomorrow.

SECTION 13 - WHO LAST...

Made you smile?: I'm not sure. Oli last night, I think.

Saw you cry?: *shrug*

SECTION 14 - WOULD YOU RATHER...

Be serious or be funny?: I don't know. I'm generally a pretty serious person. Sometimes I think it would be nice to make people laugh though.

Drink whole or skim milk?: Semi-skimmed - that's 2% fat to you Americans (I think).

SECTION 15 - DO YOU PREFER...

Do you prefer gray or black?: Both

Lust or love?: LOL, who says you can't have both? I think a healthy relationship should have a good dollop of each.

Sunrise or sunset?: Both. (LOL, seeing a pattern here?)

M&M's or skittles?: Peanut M & Ms.

SECTION 16 - ANSWER TRUTHFULLY...

Do you like anyone?: I like lots of people.

Do you believe in love at first sight?: I'm sitting on the fence on this one.

Do you fall for the wrong guy or girl?: It's been known to happen. I'm trying not to let it happen so often these days.

Thursday 24 July 2008

What's The Noun Of Surreal? Surrealness? Surreality? Surrealism?

WARNING: This post contains sexual references.

Whichever it is, I'm feeling it now.

So you have a crush on a guy, right? All well and good. He's even a slightly-in-the-public-eye guy* - not everywhere, but amongst certain circles. You don't crave fame for yourself, but you think, OK, I can cope with that. It's not like he's Paris Hilton. (That's an amusing piece of irony, actually.) He's sweet, he's funny, he's smart. He wears mascara and guyliner sometimes, but you don't really have a problem with that as long as he doesn't start wearing your panties.

And then you randomly do a google images search for him, like you sometimes do for yourself or your best friend or the guy you dated in high school (just curious, really)...and one of the things you find is hardcore porn pics. Not just hardcore porn, but hardcore orgy porn.

So you're not a person who's easily surprised, and even when you are you don't always react much. So half of you is thinking, Ehh, we all have our kinky sides...but the other half is going, Meh, that's just too kinky for me.

Oh, and by "you", I mean "me", BTW.

So it's been a slightly odd evening. What makes it even odder is that I'm actually turned on by these stupid orgy pics.

Ja, I need to get laid.





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Other news...I had my gym induction today, and Ola taught me how to use the weight machines. I'm starting off small, lifting about 25 kg each time (although more for the back extension machines), but hopefully in time I'll get it up a bit higher. There was a point in my life where I could lift my own body weight (and a little more, actually) without a huge amount of strain. Which sounds bizarre, and even the gym guys would go "WTF???" when they saw me do it, because I don't look like a bodybuilder. Actually, I look like a soft fluffy marshmallow who should have trouble lifting her gym bag, let alone however much I weighed at the time.

However, that time was half a lifetime ago, or nearly. OK, 10 years. Not quite half a lifetime, but near enough. And these days, the fibromyalgia is a lot worse than it was back then, and there are days when I have trouble lifting a full kettle, so as I said, I'm starting out small with the weights. But I get to work my lats and pecs, then my adductor and abductor muscles (those are the ones in the inside and outside of the thigh, in case you didn't know), then my biceps and triceps. And hopefully soon my abs and quads and everything else.

Y'all are probably sick to death of hearing about my gym stuff, but it's exciting to me.

There's this one guy at the gym, he's a personal trainer there. And since I saw him the first time, I've had this sense that I knew him from somewhere. He looks a little like one of my cousins, a little like an old friend I used to have, a little like a guy from my English class a couple of years ago. But not quite like any of those people. I figured the sensation of knowing him was just due to the resemblances.

Either way, I've had a thing for him since I first saw him.

He doesn't wear a nametag, and I'm not entirely sure, but I think I heard someone call him Chris today.

I ran into him outside the gym, and he gave me a smile and a wave. And what a smile it was. It made my heart flutter and my stomach flip over, and it's been a long time since any guy's done that with just a smile.

So I'll keep you posted.





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* No, I'm not telling you who he is or what he does. Or anything else you can use to identify him, for that matter.

Monday 21 July 2008

Pick-Up Lines

OMG, I just got an email with the most priceless pick-up line, and it's actually one I haven't heard before.

Some guy who found my msn space by a post on the Big Brother blog sent me this:

"You must have been well watered cause you've grown into something nice!"

LOL...I thought I'd heard them all.

Actually, I might add him. He made me laugh more than anything else did today.

All You Need Is Lust - And A Gym Membership, And A New Pair Of Nikes

Finally, this girl has become one of the legging-clad denizens of the gym.

After a couple of weeks of should-I-shouldn't-I wavering about whether I should really spend such a heap of money, and ten days of wondering how to GET to the damn place, I finally went down to Christopher Place on Friday and found the entrance to the Fitness First gym. I had an eye test on Friday, and I figured hey, might as well kill two self-improvement birds with one stone.

And it wasn't actually as nervewracking as I expected it to be. Pete, who showed me round and explained everything to me, was really nice. And although my bank account is screaming at the £85 upfront costs (plus first month's membership) and the £38.95 per month thereafter, my body will thank me, I'm sure.

So after signing up and being shown round, I went to the sports shop and spent another obscene amount of money - £34.99 on trainers (which were the cheapest decent ones I could get, but at least they feel good on my feet), £9.99 on a sports bra (when you wear a D-cup, it's a necessity rather than a luxury) and £4.99 on a pair of shorts (which I then found are too small, but will be fine in about 10 lbs time) - and then came home exhausted, to nap and sleep. What with the gym and the trainers, I don't think I'm going to be getting contact lenses soon. (I couldn't believe they charge you £40 for the initial session, which is basically to show you how to put them in!) I was hoping that the NHS would pay, but apparently the rules have changed. (Although...remind me to look into that tomorrow.)

I hate spending money. At least when it's such a huge amount. I don't think I've ever spent that much in a single day, barring the days that I bought my car and my laptop, and paid for a year's college courses. And the amount I spent on the car didn't even register, really - I got the bank loan, went straight to the dealer, and gave them a check. (And have spent the last 3 1/2 years paying it off. *rolls eyes*) Never saw the money myself, so it didn't feel like spending hard cash - more like spending the money you use in Sims or something.

But Friday...yeah, that hit me hard. I had the money my Dad gave me for a wedding outfit, plus the check I got from Kell for the last job, but still. It hurt. Especially with the sports clothes on top. Nobody can believe that I haven't owned a pair of trainers since I was 16, but I just don't wear them. They give you osteoporosis* if you wear them too often, and I know if I had them the temptation would be to wear them all the time, so I just wear sandals and flat pumps, and the occasional fuck-me pair of heels.

But it had to be done, and I always do what has to be done, so I'm trying not to whine too much.

So yesterday (Saturday) I went back to the gym and got my BUPA health check, as part of my introductory passage. Which wasn't too bad, actually. A little embarrassing, considering that I'm kind of chubby, and gyms are always full of scarily-fit people, but it's just something that you have to suck up and get on with, or you'd never get started. So I got poked and prodded and measured by many different machines. I am 168 centimetres tall (don't ask me how many inches that is, because I don't know) and weigh quite a bit more than I should. Although a nice surprise was to find that the recommended weight for someone of my height is 78 to 84 kilos. That's what, about 150 lbs? And here I thought I should be working towards 105, 110. I guess I have unrealistic expectations, as most women do.

Much of the health check was a pleasant surprise. My BMI is horrendous, but that's nothing more than I was expecting, and doesn't bother me too much - a weight-height ratio is a ridiculously unscientific way to measure obesity. It doesn't take into account bone density, or muscle mass, or somatic type...anyway, I've been railing against it for years, and doubtless will continue to do so until it's been chucked out. (BTW, going by BMI alone, Brad Pitt is considered overweight and Tom Cruise is obese.) My body fat percentage, however, is just on the borderline between normal and high, as is my waist-height ratio. Nowhere near morbidly obese. That was a nice surprise.

Other stuff? My resting heart rate is 70 bpm - pretty damn good (especially for someone overweight). My flexibility is excellent in most of my body, although only average in the backs of my legs, which is where they usually test from. (I've always had shortened hamstrings and calf muscles - too much dancing on my toes when I was a kid, and wearing heels in my teenage years.)

My grip strength is good; I can grip 34 kg with my right hand and 26 kg with my left. And my lungs are excellent, and my FEV1/FVC ratio - that's the percentage of your vital capacity that you can blow out in one second - is an extraordinary 97%. (In an average person it's 70-80%, although professional athletes and opera singers have higher; I credit mine to my doc's orders to sing opera in the bath to ensure I can breathe properly even when I get pneumonia, which is unfortunately something that happens fairly often.)

And then you have my blood pressure, which she measured twice as 219/123 mmHg.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that either she didn't know how to take it, or the machine was broken. There are certain things that can cause blood pressure to get to that level - pulmonary oedema, bleeding in the brain, eclampsia, overdose on PMA** or something similar, possibly a couple of other things - but I'm pretty sure I'd know if I were that ill.

So all in all, it wasn't too bad. The blood pressure was nonsense. The weight problem I already knew about - well, that's why I'm going to the gym in the first place. The only other real problem I have is that I'm severely dehydrated, so I'm pouring water down my throat at every opportunity.

I didn't go today, and I actually feel weird already. I love the gym. I expect there will be times when I hate it with a vengeance, especially when I reach those points where exercise actually gets harder rather than easier, and you just have to push through the pain barrier. But so far, I love it. I love the way it's airy and cool in there. I love the rows of strange machines, just waiting for me to use them. I love the fact that I don't have to feel fat and unhealthy when I'm there, instead I can feel slightly overweight and like I'm doing something about it. I love not having to worry if I'm sweating, because at the gym sweat's a good thing. I love being able to spend half an hour standing under a cool shower. And when they've finished the construction project, which should be in about two weeks, I'll love the sauna and steam room, I expect. And the sunbeds, if I ever have the money to spare for them.

Ooh, and I get to go to free classes. I'm hopefully going to do Pilates and Yoga and maybe Street Dance. And hopefully when I'm fitter, Capoeira. That's something I've always wanted to learn.

I met a couple of excellent guys, just on my first day. It's funny, because in the past I've never gone for the pumped-up gym-going type of man. I usually like mine lanky and smart-looking. But there's something to be seen about a guy who can make his pecs dance and his abdominus rectus ripple. Even if I'm not interested in dating them, I can still look.

So this week, I'm generally a happy bunny.

Maybe I'll even be one of those Energizer bunnies, one day.




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* Truth. Nobody believes this, either. But you need regular shocks to your bones in order to build more and keep the density high, and good trainers - Nikes and Adidas and stuff - cushion your feet so well they don't get the shocks they need. Sports shoes should be worn for running and other hard sports, but not for day-to-day life.

** PMA is paramethoxyamphetamine, a cousin of ecstasy (MDMA), that has an extremely toxic effect on the body. You'll have to go research it if you're bothered, because I'm not going into all that here.

Tuesday 15 July 2008

~

I went to sleep last night praying that I'd wake up this morning and find that yesterday was all a bad dream. It was the worst day I'd had in months and months.

Well, that didn't happen. I guess as far as wish-granting goes, bending the laws of time is not on the approved list.

I may not be around for a while. I have a lot of things to do.

So until I'm back, take care of yourselves.

Huh

Well, that'll cure me.

A Fairly Long Quiz From Amy

1) Where was the first time you ever saw the person you like?

It was in someone's blog, but I can't remember whose.

(BTW, there are several people I "like" right now - for the sake of convenience, I'll stick to just one.)

2) What's the greatest thing that happened to you today?

I don't think much good stuff happened today.

My hair's still a pretty good colour, roots aren't showing yet. Does that count?

3) How many TRUE friends do you have?

I'm not sure, actually. I don't really know what defines a true friend. Most people seem to say it's someone who sticks with you through the bad times as well as the good, but I don't really know how many - if any - of my friends would do this, because I don't let them know when times are bad.

I probably should, actually.

4) Would you rather get up early or sleep in?

Well, I know I feel better when I wake up early. Most mornings I wake up at 5.30 or 6, talk to Angel Eyes (LOL...he probably is not amused at this nickname, but it's how I think of him), then get up and do whatever needs to be done for the day. Then I take a nap in the afternoon / evening. I feel a whole lot better if I nap than if I sleep in late.

However, some days I'm just lazy, and sleep late, even though I know I'll feel awful for it.

Also my cold isn't quite gone (although my head doesn't seem too fuzzy anymore, thank God), and it's making me very lethargic. I haven't got all that much done in the last couple of days. Mostly ironing and computer work.

5) Tell me about the shirt you're wearing?

I'm not wearing a shirt.

6) What did you do yesterday?

More or less the same as today. I slept in. Did some work in the afternoon. Did my Mom's laundry and ironed her clothes. (She was very pleased last night...then this morning she starts bitching about how I missed the skirt that she left in the kitchen, the one she wanted to wear to work. WTF??? I ironed your clothes, lady! Without you even asking! And it wasn't even in addition to mine, since mine basically don't need ironing! I can only assume she was having a bad morning.)

When I finish this questionnaire, I'm going downstairs to iron the skirt, so I can't get bitched at again.

7) What would you change about your life right now?

Amy's answer to this was "Heh, where do I start?" and that's a pretty good answer for me too.

I'd have good health. A good job that pays well. A driver's license. A size 10 body (US 6). The whole yuppie life, really. I long for yuppiedom - an apartment in the city, a little car, a job, a boyfriend who I go to the movies with and go to wine bars with and order takeout with (and who lives near me). Money (and a body) to shop in Kookai and Morgan and French Connection, and enough left over to get my nails done and my hair cut by someone in a proper salon, instead of at home by my mother.

A life where I get up and go to work every day, come home and cook every night, go to the gym every other day. See movies, see friends, have occasional dinner parties. Shop and swim and talk to my boyfriend on the phone and balance my checkbook.

What I crave, really, is a normal life. A life that matches that of an average 20-something London girl, and is unspectacular in every way.

And you know why I don't have that stuff? Health. Fibromyalgia. One thing missing, and the whole life plan falls apart. *sighs* If my health were good, I could get the rest for myself, but apparently I don't even get that.

Where is 8?

9) What's on your bedroom floor right now?

Furniture and a whole bunch of junk by my bed. I need to clean (or at least tidy) - probably tonight or tomorrow.

At first glance, by my bed there's two empty Coke cans (those will go in the recyclables tonight), a bottle of water, a Heat magazine (first time I've bought a magazine in months - I wanted to read the Big Brother stuff), some Mini Babybel Goats Cheese (which I didn't like all that much - it tasted kind of weird, and it's only 10% goat anyway, the rest is cow's milk which kind of defeats the point), the Dean Koontz book I bought in the sale the other day (The Darkest Evening of the Year) and haven't read yet, two Charlaine Harris books (Dead to the World and Definitely Dead, the latter of which I'm halfway through, the former I finished yesterday morning), the bowl and spoon from lunch (lasagne), a cup full of herbal pills that I forgot to take with lunch, a Cornetto wrapper that I haven't put in the bin yet, a box of painkillers, a blue Bic, a notebook with a scene of Palm Beach on the front, a bikini trimmer (still in its box; I bought it the other day and haven't figured out how to use it yet), my cellphone, my Nintendo DS and my laptop cable.

And that's just the junk that isn't in a pile - i.e. the stuff that doesn't belong there. I have a pile of stuff that lives by my bed (if I were in a proper bed it would be the stuff on my bedside table, but I sleep on the floor) which contains a puzzle book, a couple of reading books, some valerian for when I can't sleep, a bag of pistachio nuts, a pile of DS games, a decorative bird, some perfumed oils to relax you and a tube of Blisteze.

Most of the junk that doesn't belong there will be cleared up tonight, when I go downstairs. I try to keep everything as neat as possible, because I really like things to be tidy and in their place. The problem is that I have too much junk and not enough space - now that I've surrendered half my space to the lodgers, all my things that used to live in the kitchen or the guest room have been junked into my bedroom, and I simply don't have enough room to house them. I'm trying to get rid of a lot of things - mostly books - but it takes a long time, and as soon as I give some stuff away more springs up to take its place. Plus Mom keeps moving stuff of mine out of the living room, because she wants it to look more tidy. Which is driving me nuts, I have so little space for stuff now. I sooooo need to get my own place.

Where is 10? And why the heck did they leave so many out?

11) Favourite sport?

I'm not sure, actually. I don't play a lot of sports, my body isn't strong enough for most things. I like to swim, and windsurf, and I want to learn to waterski again. I also really want to learn to ski, but I don't have the Money right now. (Story of my life.) I love sailing, although I've mostly forgotten how to do it. (Any guys out there with their own boat?) I like horse riding, but again I haven't been for years.

For watching, boxing is my favourite, and ice dance. Mind you, I haven't watched much skating or ice dance since Alexei Yagudin and Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat stopped competing, and I haven't followed boxing in quite a while either. I like to watch baseball and basketball now and then, and I like Boston Red Sox and Orlando Magic...but once again, I don't really follow what's going on.

I wouldn't say I'm a huge sports fan. That said, the things I mentioned I really do like, I just don't have the energy to keep up with them, especially with the crappy sports coverage we get over here. (Most of the sports I like are American, and over here we get football all the bloody time, and cricket and tennis and rugby, but no baseball and very little basketball coverage. And if you want the boxing, you have to order it from Sky Box Office for £14.95.)

12) What's currently bothering you?

Oh, I don't know...it's just one of those days. Nothing is really wrong, but nothing is really right either. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I seem to be a bit stuck, and my health hasn't been right since Christmas (although honestly, it hasn't been truly right for about three years...the summers have been so awful recently that I haven't got the respites that I've come to rely on).

13) What was the first thing you did when you woke up?

Drank water and read some of Definitely Dead.

14) Who did you last IM?

Angel Eyes.

15) What do you currently hear?

No music, but there's an airplane outside, and my computer is making that sound like it's too hot. (WHY do they not put little stand up legs on all laptops these days? My old one had them, but this one doesn't, and it keeps it so much cooler.)

16) Who was the last person to make you mad?

Ali. He keeps leering at me, and it's gone on for far too long and is making me really uncomfortable. A person should be able to walk around in her own house without having to encounter an obsessed male with his tongue hanging out. Even in my bedroom I don't have total privacy; whenever he goes past my door he stops outside it for anywhere from five seconds to a minute, and I can't hear him doing anything there, so I'm pretty sure he's looking through the crack between the door and the jamb. And usually I'm lying on the bed naked, either reading or working on the computer, so he can see the whole of my body. But I won't be made to feel guilty and embarrassed in my own home, I won't, so most of the time I just ignore him, and occasionally look towards the door and glare at him or give him a raised middle finger.

I can't see him looking at me, so I don't have anything concrete to accuse him of. But I can feel him. And Mom says I just have to deal with it for now, because we need the Money, and she doesn't want to have to find another lodger. So until he tries to grab me again, I just have to put up with it.

I've fought off scarier guys than him before, despite his size. But I resent not having privacy even in my own bedroom, and having to wear clothes that cover as much as possible of me and don't show off my body so I don't give him the wrong idea. It's July, for pete's sake. If he weren't here, I'd be wearing a bikini and T-shirt around the house and sunbathing topless in the garden, instead I'm stuck in ankle-length baggy skirts and old sweaters for the whole time I'm downstairs, desperately trying to conceal my figure and not give him anything to stare at. And when you have an hourglass figure like mine, it's pretty damn hard to conceal. Even in a skirt and sweater, my hips and breasts show.

17) When was the last time you had your hair cut?

Last week, my mom took a couple inches off the bottom. I'm one of those people who really needs to get it trimmed every 3-4 weeks, I get really bad split ends, but mom doesn't have the time and I can't afford to go to the salon, so the ends get worse and worse and we end up having to take loads off, so I can't seem to grow it longer. It's at a really annoying length now, too - not short enough to be chic and elegant, nor long enough to be floaty and feminine.

18) Would you rather be mad or sad?

Neither. I don't deal well with emotion.

19) Does it take a lot to make you cry?

Ehh. Usually, although I have emotional phases where everything sets me off. Usually the only things that make me cry are specific works of art or music, or occasional writers. About the only times I cry when I'm not reading or watching or listening to something, are when I'm really really angry.

20) What’s the worst feeling in the world?

I don't know.

Not having any hope, I guess.

21) Are you close with your mum?

We are, but I think recently it's gotten so close it's stifling, and our relationship is suffering because of it.

My mom's angry a lot of the time these days. She's tired and in pain and worried about Money, so I can understand it, but it makes our house a very uncomfortable place.

I need to move out, I really do, but at the moment it feels like there's no way out of the mess that is my life and my mother's.

22) Who were you last in the car with?

Mom and Tony, Thursday night.

Oh, actually, the last thing I was in was a taxi - so Mom and the taxi driver. (I wish I'd got his name, he looked like Jay Sean - total hottie.)

23 is missing...

24) When were you last outside?

Yesterday when I brought the washing in.

I have not left the house today. That seems so weird. You can tell I'm still sick, since I walk several miles every day when things are normal.

25) Name one fear you have:

Throwing up. It's actually the only thing I'm scared of, aside from bugs laying eggs in my skin and then hatching out as larva, and that's such a totally ridiculous fear that most of the time I can push it to the side.

But in day to day life, nothing really bothers me other than throwing up. Anything else, I can cope with just fine, although I don't like surprises. I'm perfectly fine with bugs and snakes and spiders as long as I know they're there. It's just when they surprise me that they scare me for a moment.

Although I don't like larva in general. Maggots, all that sort of thing...yuck. But it's more a disgust than a real fear, although if they touched me I might feel differently.

If I can conquer the emetophobia, I'll be able to say I'm not scared of anything. That would be really neat. And it might be possible. I can't see it now, but I know there was a time when I was so petrified of needles that they had to give me valium before I had a blood test, and I conquered that one by sheer willpower. Same goes for fear of the dentist. So I figure, two down, one to go. I can't actually imagine a time when throwing up doesn't practically send me into a panic attack, but I guess it could happen.

26) What's your favourite thing to do?

Read, maybe. I don't really know. There are several things I really like doing. And then plenty of other things that I love doing when I'm well, but haven't had the energy for lately, like clubbing or baking or going to the movies or out to dinner.

27) Does the thought of marriage scare you?

Most of the time, no. I'd love to be married. What scares me is the thought of being a drain on my husband. If I get married, it'll have to be to a guy who has a pretty well-paid job, because chances are he'll have to support me. That's not laziness or pessimism, it's just sheer practicality. When you've been sick for as long as I have, there's only a very small chance that you'll actually get completely better. Best I can hope for is a partial recovery.

Although a warm dry climate helps, which is why Mom and I are hoping to move to California. I'm praying that living there will restore my health, if not to 100%, at least to something better than it is now. But I'm trying not to pin all my hopes on it. *sigh*

28) How many kids do you want?

I used to really want 4, but with the economic climate the way it is, I think 2 - unless I marry a superstar with millions in the bank. I'd like a boy and a girl. But I don't know if they'll be my biological children, or adopted. Possibly some of both, if I have the Money. (That sounds horrible, but kids are damn expensive, and I don't think you should have them unless you know you can feed and clothe them, at least. It's just not responsible to bring a child into a life of poverty.)

29) What's your favorite colour to wear?

Depends on the season. In summer, I love pastels and a couple of bright things. In autumn, I love bright, vibrant colours, but also grays and browns. In winter I wear a lot of red. I wear a lot of black, white and cream year-round. Probably white and cream are my favourite colours to wear, and if I'm dressing up for a guy, or a special occasion, I'll almost always wear a dress in white or cream. But I probably wear black the most. It's pratical, and it's slimming, and it looks good with my blonde hair.

30) Who was the last person in your bedroom?

I don't think anyone's been in my bedroom for weeks, unless Mom has.

31) What are you doing today?

I gotta go do the laundry soon...this questionnaire is taking longer than I thought it would.

32) Would you rather be rich & sad or poor & happy?

I don't think I could be happy if I were really poor. I've been poor all my life, and you worry about everything all the damn time. If I were rich, or even comfortably-off, I'd make my own happiness. I make my own happiness now, but it would be easier if I didn't have to worry about Money, and had enough to do the things I like to do, like go to the gym and drive.

33 and 34 are A.W.O.L.! Call the guards!

35) Do you get bored easily?

No. I can usually find something to amuse myself. I generally find people who are always bored are bored because they're boring, and they're too lazy to think of something to do.

36) What's something that someone can do that really bothers you?

Tickle me.

Every time I say this to someone, they think it's an excuse to do it, and that I'm just being cute. I'm not. Tickling really, genuinely hurts me, and if you try it you're liable to get a bloody nose.

No 37...

38) Do you wish you were famous?

I don't know. I have little famous fantasies sometimes, but I'd probably hate it.

39) Do you make a wish at 11:11?

No, but I usually wake up at that time. 23:23. And also 4:44. I didn't know other people knew about sacred geometry, actually. I'm surprised to see the question here.

40) When you go to the beach do you swim or lay out more?

Both, I couldn't go to the beach and do just one. I alternate - a half hour of one, then the other. Or sometimes an hour, depending on my mood. But I won't go to the beach unless I get to swim at least three or four times, and sunbathe inbetween.

Where is 41?

42) What are you obsessed with?

At the moment I have a slight infatuation with a guy.

It's probably not healthy, but I can't seem to get rid of it. *sigh*

43) Who and when was your last hug?

Mom...must have been yesterday evening.

44) Do you like going to the mall to shop or just shopping online?

Both. I use online mostly for books and interesting stuff from ebay, real shops for clothing and house stuff and cosmetics and knicknacks.

45) Can music affect your mood?

Oh, definitely.

46) Who is your best friend?

I don't know, actually. Ellie, for sure. And I want to say Oli, but...oh, I don't know. Things have been weird for several months, and I was ready to give up on him, and then he split with his girlfriend. I don't know where we go from here, though - whether we can be friends, or whether he'll start flirting again, or whether the lack of girlfriend is completely moot and we're finished regardless. I just don't know. He's been my closest friend for a year, closer than Ellie because he's always there, whereas I don't talk to her all that often. But things have been strained since we split up in November, and I don't honestly know how I feel about him now.

Where is 47?

48) Have you ever been in a cave?

Sure, loads of them.

Where is 49?

50) When will you hang out or see the person you like?

I don't know. Five years, maybe. *sigh* Of course, it's probably a pipe dream; by then we'll probably like other people.

51) Has anyone ever told you that they want to spend the rest of their life with you?

Too many people. I seem to have this effect on men. (I say this in a very dry, cynical voice - it's the bane of my life. Or one of them, anyway.)

Now if someone I wanted to be with said this? That would be something special.

52) If you could pick the temperature of the outdoors for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Well, if I could pick it would change to suit my needs for the day. I kind of like the change of seasons.

53) What are you doing tomorrow?

I don't know. I don't have any plans for the rest of the week, unless I get called into work, and I probably won't because I called them and told them I was sick.

54) Do you believe that you can change for someone?

Yes, absolutely. Change is a natural process, and it's healthy. You hear so many people talking about how they wouldn't change for anyone, and they need to stay true to themselves, but I think it's much more "real" to accept change as it comes, rather than clinging to a set of outdated values. We're not the same people at 25 as we were at 15, we're not the same at 45 as we were at 25. And what we believe about the world and about ourselves needs to change and evolve, just as we do, or we end up emotionally stunted, clinging to the last faint residues of our younger selves - which is neither healthy nor desirable, in the long run.

As for changing to please a partner...that's something everyone has to choose for themselves. To some extent, everyone has to compromise, that's the nature of relationships. But we all have different levels of compromise that are acceptable to us. Some people would be happy to move to the other side of the world for the person they loved, and leave their home and job and family behind to start a new life. Others wouldn't even be willing to give up smoking or nights out. Everyone has to look inside themselves, be honest about what's important in their lives, and decide from that how much they're willing to change.

55) Do you get along with girls?

Not as well as I get along with guys, but I have a handful of girlfriends.

56) Who was the last person to call you baby?

Not sure. I don't really notice, unless it's someone I really like. Unlike just about every other female I know, I have no problem with strange men calling me baby or sweetheart or darling. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.

57) Do you crack your knuckles?

Yes. And no, it doesn't cause arthritis.

58) What'd you do two nights ago?

I'm not sure, I was still woozy.

59) Who was your last call from?

Probably my obsessed ex. He's been calling me every day, from different phone numbers in the hopes that I'll pick one of them up. I don't hate the guy, I just...ehh. He's like an energy sink. Just talking to him, let alone being around him, is so completely draining.

60) What show did you last watch?

Channel U. I watch the music channels quite a bit. Last proper thing I watched was Criminal Minds.

61) Do you wear Hollister?

We don't have it here. I'd wear it if I were in the US though, I like the clothes.

62) Who's the last person you had a deep and meaningful conversation with?

I don't really do deep and meaningful. It was probably either Oli or Angel Eyes, but I can't remember what it was about, or when.

63) What's on your mind right now?

Food. I need something to eat. I might go get chicken chow mein, if I have enough Money in my purse.

64) Would you rather be with your boyfriend / girlfriend right now?

I don't have one at the moment, not really. There's Cam, but we're always very open, more friends than anything.

If I had a boyfriend that I was happy with, then yeah, I'd rather be with him. But I prefer being alone to being with someone who doesn't feel right.

65) Do you have family problems?

*shrug* I don't really have enough family to have family problems.

66) Where are most people in your top friends from?

Don't have any top friends on here.

67) Does anyone like you?

Like as in fancy? I know there are a couple of guys - mostly on here - who want to screw me. And various exes who still have a thing for me, plus my pervy lodger. I don't know if there are any new guys out there, in my real life, who have a crush on me. I'd like to find out.

68) When was the last time you saw # 4 on your top friends list?

*shrug*

69) Were you smiling when you woke up this morning?

I don't think so. I was very sore when I woke up.

70) Last song you heard?

I think it was the fifth remix of Bashy's Black Boys.

71) What colour is your hair?

Sort of honey-blonde.

72) Kissed someone in the last twenty four hours?

Not properly.

Actually, I haven't kissed someone properly since October. That's pathetic. I really need to start using this site for what it was made for.

73) Do you give good advice?

I try not to give advice these days, except in very rare cases.

But I will give you one piece now - one of my favourite song quotes:

"Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia: dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth."

74) Ever been skydiving?

Nope. I don't know if I ever will. I like the idea, but...ehh. Maybe. Probably in tandem, if I ever do. If I get thinner.

75) Do you like your mobile phone?

Well enough...I like the colour (pink) and the size (small) and the way it flips open. But I could probably do with something a bit more techie.

Mind you, I'm used to this one, and for all I said about change being good and healthy, I hate change.

76) YouTube video?

I mostly watch video clips of Anissina-Peizerat and Alexei Yagudin. Plus occasional music videos that don't get played much on TV.

77) Do you like running?

Not a whole lot, but it's necessary.

78) Do you like myspace or facebook better?

Facebook, I hardly ever use myspace. (I wish I had used it more recently, but more about that in a different entry.)

Where is 79?

80) If you were sent to the hospital, who do you think you would call and ask to come?

Nobody.

81) Favourite place in the world?

Menorca.

82) Who is number one on your top?

Don't have one.

Later note: Someone has been at this post and changed things. You think I don't notice when someone changes my writing, even if it's just capital letters here and there? Whoever you are, get the hell out of my account.

Monday 14 July 2008

Well, At Least I'm Recovering *sighs*

I woke up about two hours ago and realized that I'd lost three days.

Not lost lost...I don't think I was abducted by aliens or anything. And I didn't completely sleep them away. I think it was just the cold - and the cold medicine - to be honest. But my brain is all a bit kerflooey, and the last couple of days are mostly a blur. The last thing I remember really clearly was having dinner at my brother's house, and that was on Thursday night. (Now, btw, it's Sunday evening.)

So apologies for the lack of entries, and the poor quality of the ones that I DID make.

I know that I went into town a couple times, and yesterday I went to Sainsbury's, and the strap on my favourite shoe broke. I know that I got pissed at my mom for treating me like an invalid in front of the cute taxi guy. I know that I was mad because Matalan was closed, and I was mad that Sainsbury's no longer sell pesto salads, and I was mad that my bill cost more than I expected, because a bunch of things had been marked down when they shouldn't have been. But I can't for the life of me remember why I was so mad about all those things. Normally stuff like that just sort of washes over me.

I vaguely remember Mario being kicked out of Big Brother. And I also remember having Rex and Darnell make me dinner and then eat ice cream off my stomach, but I'm fairly sure that bit was a dream.

I also had a couple "WTF?" moments when I checked my msn conversations and found that I'd shared a bit more about my fantasies concerning one certain person than I probably should have.

Basically, I don't have any missing memories...what I'm missing is the idea of exactly what was going through my head when I decided that that would be a good thing to say or do.

This is why I should stay away from people when I'm sick. I lose all my impulse control.

I imagine this is what a hangover feels like. *sighs*

Sunday 13 July 2008

Difficult Admissions

A friend of mine - or more accurately, an aquaintance, but someone I can see being a close friend one day - lost his grandfather the day before yesterday.

He didn't even know his grandpa was sick. Apparently his family found out only about a week ago, and none of them told him because they didn't want to distract him during an important time at work. When he phoned, they told him grandpa was in the shower. When he caught his mother picking up medication for him, she told him it was for her. I guess they never thought he'd die, or at least not this quickly. But now my friend has the grief, which is compounded by the fact that he didn't get to say goodbye, and on top of that a whole heap of guilt for not being there, even though rationally I'm sure he knows there was nothing he could have done.

Isn't that just the crummiest thing?

What makes me feel so bad, other than my feeling sad for him, is that it's something that I might do. Not if someone was dying, I wouldn't go that far, but I have been known to withold information about bad stuff because I didn't want to upset people. I didn't want to distract them while they were taking exams or had an important project at work, I didn't want to ruin their birthday, I didn't want to cause them extra worry when they were already having problems at home. Several times I've put off telling someone something, justifying it to myself by saying it wasn't a good time and I'd tell them when the time was better, only to find that there's never a good time for bad news. There's always something going on - either something good that you don't want to spoil, or something difficult that you don't want to take their attention away from. And sometimes you just don't want to tell them, full stop.

When I was raped, I didn't tell my father. Actually, two and a half years later, I still haven't told my father. I don't know why telling him was so much harder than telling anyone else...perhaps because I know that like me, he doesn't deal with emotion well. Or perhaps I was scared that he'd give me hell for not being more careful, or try to restrict my freedom in the future. I don't know, perhaps I just didn't want him to feel bad, although that wouldn't explain why I didn't have so much trouble telling my mom or friends. (Not that I told my friends at first - my mother took care of Curt and Ellie, and Becki found out through Ian (who, being a cop, was the first person I called) and everyone else got it through word of mouth.)

After a month, I knew I had to tell him something, in order to explain the court case, so I told him I'd been attacked by a guy I vaguely knew. I specifically used that word - 'attacked' - rather than the more accurate 'raped'. I pointed out my bruises from where I'd been hit and the cuts on my face, and he drew the conclusion that it was just a mugging or an episode of domestic violence. And I never corrected him. I figured the truth would come out at the trial. But then the case never went to trial, and it was easy to just put it off again and again.

I don't know why it's still so hard to tell him, because I haven't kept it a secret from anyone else. I don't feel any shame about it. I don't feel degraded or dirty - never did, actually. The people my mother works with know, because she took personal leave for the week afterwards. The people from biology class know, because when we were studying forensics I stood up and told them about the DNA tests and other evidence gathering that the SOCO did on me. Everyone who ever read my blogs on the Oaklands website or Facebook know, because I've referred to it several times. And most likely all my friends from City & Islington know, because Curt was never great at keeping secrets - although possibly I'm being unfair; he was pretty cut-up about the whole thing, and may have shoved it into the back of his mind and actually forgotten about it the way he does with some things that are too painful for him to face.

So I don't know why I will probably never tell my father.

The rape was in that October, and a couple of days after Christmas that year I had a miscarriage. I didn't even know I was pregnant until I started bleeding. And the details of this time are a bit fuzzy for me, because on January 1st I hit my head and suffered from absolute personal retrograde amnesia for a little over a year. I had no personal memories of my life before the accident, and it wasn't until the following January that I started getting them back. (Most of them came back that second year, although some things I still don't have, and possibly never will.) But I do know that I didn't tell anyone about the miscarriage, either because I felt guilty, or because I couldn't bear to cause anyone more pain.

I certainly didn't tell C, and he was the one person I should have told, because he was the likely father. It was either him or my rapist. They were the only two possibilities. I don't know if they could have found out the paternity after a first trimester miscarriage, because I didn't ask - neither answer would have made me feel better. But I didn't tell C, I felt like I couldn't, because only a couple months before that he'd been through a similar thing with a different girl, and I just couldn't do it to him again. And I didn't tell any of my family members either, because after the rape they all basically fell apart. My brother, the world's biggest pacifist, swore vengeance. The guy I was dating cried for days and then started stalking me, totally refusing to give me any personal space. My mother fell to pieces, refusing to sleep at night and then sleeping and chain-smoking and biting her nails all day. And it was pretty much up to me to hold everyone together.

So I kept the miscarriage to myself. Partly because I didn't want to hold everyone together again, didn't think I could hold everyone together this time. But also partly because I felt like it was my fault. Because after the rape, I'd had a number of x-rays on my back (having a 260-270 lb man on top of me for the best part of 8 hours caused a displacement of my lumbar vertebrae, which caused a lot of back and leg pain), and when the technician had asked me if I could be pregnant, I told her no. I shouldn't have been. C and I used condoms, even the rapist used condoms, *and* I was on the pill. The rational part of my brain knew even back then that there was no possible reason I should have thought I was pregnant. That rational part also told me that it was by no means a certainty that the x-rays had caused the miscarriage; that 1 in 8 pregnancies ends in a miscarriage during the first trimester. But I still felt guilty. And possibly an even more important reason why I kept quiet was that I couldn't face what people would say - or worse, the things that they'd be too polite to say, but I'd hear them thinking. Things like, "well, it's probably for the best, considering who the father might have been". Because I didn't care. If I'd had the choice, I don't honestly think I would have cared whether the genetic material came from the love of my life, or the closest human thing to the devil. This was my child.

But anyway, for whatever reasons, I didn't tell anybody. And it wasn't until summer, after my memory was gone, that I was re-told about the miscarriage by my doctor, who told me there was a large chance that the amnesia was at least in part caused by post-traumatic stress disorder, and that after the traumas of the rape and then the case being dropped (in addition to all the Curt-related heartbreak in the summer), the pregnancy / miscarriage had pushed me over the edge.

That was when I told C. And my mother. Very casually, very lacking in emotion - because at that point, I didn't have any emotions about it. I had very little emotional feeling at all about my former life. Even now I don't feel much about it. I feel sad, but the type of sad that you feel when something bad happens to a person you vaguely know and sort of like.

What I do feel, though, is pretty rotten about the thought that perhaps my witholding information from my loved ones about my tragedies actually, in the long run, caused them as much pain as Eric's family's deceptions, however well-intended, caused him this week.

I thought I was protecting them...but maybe, just maybe, that isn't my job.

Now there's a thought I've never entertained before. :)

Friday 11 July 2008

Falling Asleep...Sorry, Guys

Someone logged onto my msn the other day. Someone called Alex.

So I thought, "Who the fuck is Alex?" (Whoah, 90s flashback there.)

And it turned out to be my friend Zander.

I said, "Huh, your name is Alexander?"

And he said, "Well, yeah - what else would it be?"

And I just sort of sat there blinking for a few minutes.

...I had a really good idea for this post. Well, maybe really good is pushing it, but an idea, anyway. I wrote a lot of it in my head earlier when I was in the bath. It was supposed to be about how we see people and how our views of them aren't always quite in line with reality. And I had some quite good thoughts on the subject too.

The problem is, I went to my brother's house to eat dinner and discuss wedding plans, and wedding stuff always makes me tired. Not to mention the fact that their house is an extremely soporific concoction of shabby-comfy couches, neutral rustic decor, soft lighting and the mixed smells of food and rose incense and flowers and vanilla-scented candles, and half the time I want to curl up in a ball and nap as soon as I walk in the door.

Simply put, I'm barely awake enough to put the right tags for colour and font onto this post, let alone write something worth reading.

Wednesday 9 July 2008

Rain, And The Rest Of My Day

It's been raining here for a couple of days. I can't quite decide how I feel about rain. When I'm at home and don't have anything urgent to do, I love it. I want to curl up with a special person and listen to the patter of the raindrops and the crashes of thunder outside, and see the lightning that flashes through my room, and then make our own thunderstorm in bed. But when I have to go out it can really drive me crazy. And when it's loud enough to keep me awake, or even to wake me up a couple of times, I lose the romantic feeling and instead feel kind of lonely, because the right person isn't there beside me.

The sun came out today for most of the afternoon, and I took advantage of it to go into town. I've been having some problems with my debit card (more about that in a moment) and thought that I'd better get to the bank - and also to the gym - while I had the time. So I got dressed, looking all pretty and put-together, and I got halfway down my driveway (which isn't long, maybe about four metres), and somehow slipped and fell. I don't even know exactly HOW I fell, except that my right leg went under me, and my left leg went out in front, and I ended up with a twisted left knee, a bruise on my left butt cheek (thank goodness I'm a bit chubby, it would have hurt a lot if I were thinner), a nasty gouge on the top of my right foot, and a scrape about the size of my hand on my thigh. And I got generally wet and muddy. It's not like I hurt myself badly, but I feel like a bit of an eejit. And when I went out to check what I'd slipped on, it turned out some jackass left an apple core on the drive, and it had broken up into little mushy pieces that I didn't see (since it was the same colour as the ground), and that was what was so slippery. I didn't think it could have just been the stones, since the only time they get bad like that is when it's icy - which is maybe two days a year. I can only assume that the culprit was one of my lodgers, being too lazy to put it in the bin or throw it on the compost heap (which is like three metres away - lazy bastards) but it could easily be one of the neighborhood kids, new ones are always throwing trash into our garden until they get broken in by the older kids who tell them it's not on. *sigh*

Anyway, I'm not badly hurt, just a bit sore.

So I went inside, cleaned and bandaged my wounds, changed my skirt and cleaned my shoes and went back out. My card got declined in two shops yesterday, and I knew I had money in the bank, so I thought I'd better go sort it all out today. And I did, and the guy who dealt with me was really, really nice. We talked for about an hour, both about bank stuff and other things. I told him about my illness and my mom and living at home and money problems and phone bills and Oli and my American accent. And he told me about moving back in with his mom (same as me), and having a car but no driver's license (also same as me), and travelling and his mobile phone and how he twisted his ankle playing football yesterday. Possibly not the kind of conversations bankers should be having while they work, but it was definitely the highlight of my day. (Or one of them.)

It's so funny, I don't meet anyone really interesting for months and months, and then I go and randomly meet 3 or 4 great people in the space of a couple of weeks. I don't know why it always seems to happen like that.

Hmm, what else happened? I actually slept last night. I took a nap yesterday afternoon, went to sleep at about 4.30, and slept until 10 when my mom woke me up for food. Got up, could barely stay awake to eat a chunk of bread and a piece of bacon (my eating patterns have been sporadic for years, and although I try to eat properly these days I still fall back into old habits when I'm not very well), talked to Oli for five minutes (just enough to tell him I have a cold and a foggy head), and fell back to sleep by 11. And I slept all the way through until 6.30 this morning. Amazing. And I woke up feeling not too bad, so I talked to The Light of my Life (heh) and then worked for a while, until I went into town.

Oli split up with his girlfriend a few days ago. Yes, the mean, slightly crazy one. And he's being so casual about the whole thing, I can't work out what he's thinking about it. This was how the conversation went when he told me about it:


 
[The conversation did go here, but I no longer feel comfortable about posting that. The long and short of it was that he said, "Guess what?" and after playing a guessing game for a few minutes, he came out with, "I broke up with my girlfriend". And then proceeded to act like he didn't care at all.]


So there you have it. I don't really know what to say about the whole thing. Part of me feels bad, because I know he's got to be hurting - he did love her, after all. And also because I can't help but wonder if part of the reason they split (at least if it was his idea) was that he realised how he's been treating me for the last X months. Part of me's wondering what the heck made them break up after all this time, but I don't want to ask - when he's ready to tell me, he will. The only thing I'm not wondering is whether or not we'll get back together. She was never the main problem in our relationship, she was just a symptom.

I don't even know how I feel about him anymore. I guess I knew, even when I wrote that post (see "I wish my life were a Frank Downey story"), that I couldn't kick him out of my life. I love Oli, even if it's just as a friend. And even though the way our friendship has been lately has left me feeling really bad, I know that he would never hurt me deliberately. But even though he's still my friend, will probably always be my friend - or at least until he tells me he doesn't want me in his life - I don't really know what form our friendship is going to take in the coming months.

He's finished uni, got his degree, and is moving back to London in the next couple of months, so perhaps we'll start seeing each other more often, and move into a new kind of friendship. Who knows.

Oh well...I guess all I can do is hope that things work out for the best. Whatever that may be.

Monday 7 July 2008

Very Little To Say, I'm Sorry To Admit

I tried to post here last night. Actually, I tried eight times, but I couldn't seem to write. The things that I wanted to write about wouldn't come out, and everything that DID come out sounded like a melodramatic pity-party, and really there's very little in my life right now for me to feel sorry for myself about.

I don't feel particularly well, but that's just par for the course.

For the last week, I haven't been able to sleep at night (no, Angel Eyes, it's not you - even if you weren't around, I wouldn't be able to sleep, so don't feel bad) which means I sleep away most of the day, and when I get up I feel like hell. I think I must have picked up another bug somewhere; I've been fighting off what's either a cold or some sort of allergy for a couple of months, but in the last ten days or so it's bothered me a lot at night. If it IS a cold it never seems to develop fully: I get sore throat and ears and a stuffy head for a few days, but it never goes into my nose or chest, and then after a couple of days it clears up, only to return again in a week or two. And then at the moment it's the opposite: my nose starts running in the evenings (which is why I think it can't be hayfever or anything similar, since that should get worse in the day and better at night) and then is blocked up in the mornings, but I don't have the throat or ears.

I don't know, part of me wishes it would just come and get it over with, but instead it seems satisfied to lurk.

My health is being quite frustrating at the moment. Every day there's something wrong, some stupid little thing that isn't a major part of my illness, that shouldn't bother me much at all, but is just obvious enough to make me feel uncomfortable. Yesterday it was a patch of skin behind my knee that felt burned. I get these over-sensitive patches now and then. I can only assume that they're a result of malfunctioning nerves, because there's never any obvious signs of burning or irritation, or anything like an insect bite. The worst one I had was on the outside of my left thigh, a patch about three inches long and an inch wide, and for more than a year it was excruciating to touch. I had to bandage it up so my clothing wouldn't brush against it, even though there was absolutely nothing there to see. And I thought that the knee one yesterday was going to be another one like it, and was dreading the thought...but today, it seems to be gone, thank god.

It's just stupid things like that. A really painful blister on my foot, a sore back, a mosquito bite on my forehead, a spasming muscle in my inner thigh or inguinal area - things that shouldn't bother me much, but because I'm producing so much substance P at the moment, do. And they'll last for a couple of days max, and then the next day there'll be something else that drives me crazy. Even something as little as feeling damp will make it impossible for me to relax. And since it's raining a lot at the moment, and my house seems to be leaking in various places, I feel damp a lot.

Part of it's due to the fact that Bruce cut one of my medication dosages in half, and it's taking me a couple of months to adjust to it. I know why he did it, I know it has to be done if I'm ever to live in the US, and I'm generally someone who does what's necessary and tries not to complain too much about it. But it's driving me nuts all the same.

Are there any GOOD things to report, you're wondering? Well, not really, since I haven't done much recently. I did get into town once, and I picked up a prescription, made an eye test appointment for Wednesday, bought a black cardigan. I went to join the gym, and couldn't find the damn gym. I know vaguely where it is, but I couldn't find the entrance. I'll have to try again in the next couple of days, though, since we're now nearly done with the first week of July, and Tony and Debbie are getting married on the 16th of August, and I'm still not slim and beautiful like I was hoping to be. I ordered that Pink Patch thing that I keep seeing advertised everywhere, have been on it for two months now, and although my metabolism has gone through the roof, I don't feel any thinner. The metabolism increase is good, and that alone is probably worth the price I'm paying for it, but I was hoping that it would make me look like the girls in the ads, and so far it hasn't. But that may happen in time, especially if I go and start working out daily. And who knows, the exercise might actually make me feel better.

There are a million and one things on my list of stuff to do: see my Da again, have coffee or dinner with Zia, sort out the shoe rack, finish painting the kitchen cabinets, paint the bathroom, paint my bedroom, reorder the furniture in my bedroom so I don't get woken up by the sun every morning, learn how to use a drill so I can put up a curtain rail on my window, pack away my winter clothes and get the summer ones out, go in the attic and get my too-small clothes out so I can see how much weight I need to lose before I can get into that gold dress, sort through my college folders and organize and file away the notes, decide whether I'm going back to college in September, make the appointment with the PI I've been meaning to do for three weeks, get a better job...the list goes on. But I don't seem to have the energy or the will to get any of it done.

I really hope that the sun comes out soon, and I start to feel better.

Friday 4 July 2008

News

I've been meaning to update you guys on here for a while, but I've had a heavy work schedule for the last week or so, and I haven't had either the time or energy. Well, I suppose I could have made the time, but the energy is a problem. Most of the time I got home too tired to even think straight, and then when I had today and yesterday off, I spent most of them reading the Simon R. Green books I got in the mail, and eating and sleeping.

So...news.

- Justyna, the new lodger, seems to be settling in well. I like her, a lot, and I don't usually like lodgers much. Oh, I don't dislike them, but it usually takes a while for me to warm up to them, even the nice ones. But Justyna seems pretty good. Friendly, but not overly so. Not too shy, and not someone who seems bothered about me wandering around the house in a T-shirt and panties in the evening, or a bikini in the daytime. (She doesn't wear a whole lot either, most of the time.) She cleans up when she makes a mess (and occasionally even cleans up *my* stuff - how cool is that? LOL ) and doesn't steal my cosmetics or food. She pays her rent on time. She doesn't lie around the house all day. She doesn't have wild parties at night or play music loud enough to wake the dead. (Or even me.)

And in addition to being an all-round OK lodger, she's a nice person. She's fun and interesting. The other day we sat out in the garden for an hour or more. I was cutting herbs, so she brought her dinner outside and we just chatted for ages. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and wood touched and all the superstitious things, hoping that she'll continue to be nice, and stay for a while. Because we've had a LOT of really, really bad lodgers in the past couple of years.

Starting from when we moved back to the house in 2002, we had Richard. He stayed for a year, and was actually pretty neat, aside from the fact that he was always cooking fish-head stew, which was something I could look past. Unfortunately, or fortunately - depending on your point of view - he was also the first guy I fell in love with. At least the first as an adult. And we had a pretty tempestuous relationship, and a year after he moved in, he eventually moved out, because we were just doing each other too much harm.

Most of the time, if I think of him at all, I miss him and sort of wish things could have been different, or that we'd tried harder. But when we're having lodger problems, I sometimes find myself wishing we'd never got together at all, because he was a pretty decent lodger, and if we hadn't started sleeping together, he might have stayed.

The next couple, I can't remember the order they went in. There was Cliff, the alcoholic butcher, who actually drank himself to death not long after Mom kicked him out. Akinbo, a 6 foot 5 Nigerian guy who I made the mistake of having a one-episode fling with, and who thereafter decided I was going to be his woman, and was frequently picking me up and slinging me over his shoulder and trying to kiss me. He was a pretty good person, but a nightmare of a lodger, even without the constant come-ons. Hope, a pretty, exotic American girl who started out well, but went downhill quickly and possibly gets the award for "most annoying lodger EVER". She stole my makeup, had no respect for hygiene either in her own room or in the communal areas (god knows how she always managed to look put-together), was a compulsive liar, had both the manipulativeness and the vanity of Jen from BB9, was too lazy to even change the toilet roll when it was finished or put a new bin liner in when her stuff overflowed the last one, always had to be right, and worst of all IMO, had extreme contempt for interracial relationships. (Despite the fact that she was half white, half Indian.) She was studying to be a psychologist, and in her opinion the fact that at the time, I had a black boyfriend and a couple of African masks on my walls showed an immense amount of hatred for "[my] own people", as well as dangerously low self-esteem, and she told me on several occasions that as soon as she got her psychology degree, she'd make sure I got the help I needed to deal with my self-loathing.

Absolute crap. In the months she lived with us, I didn't bring a single friend from college home, because all but two of my college friends were Black or Asian or Middle Eastern (I went to college in Islington) and I knew she'd have something unpleasant to say about - and probably to - them.

After Hope was Graham, a friend of my mother's, and while I love the guy I hope I never have to live with him again. 60 years old, and messier than your average teenage boy. I don't know how anyone can get to that age like that. And then Paul, who had no sense of responsibility and thought that he shouldn't have to pay rent because it's harder for a Black man to find a good job (why that meant he shouldn't have to pay rent was never quite clear to me, but whatever), and Martin, who was generally a petulant child in a man's body, and ended up burgling three houses and getting sent to prison. Oh, and then Nutan, who lived here for less than a month, and moved out when Mom refused to let her friend move in and share the room with her.

So with all that, you can see why I hope Justyna works out.

Of course, if it were up to me we wouldn't have lodgers at all, if we could afford not to. But then if it were up to me, I'd have a yacht and a swimming pool and a house on the beach, so...

- The thing with my kid got...well, not completely resolved, but thereabouts. The guy he hit finally woke up from his coma, but he didn't really remember what happened, so the police couldn't charge him with anything really serious. All they had on him was something to do with the Public Order Act, and he ended up with community support and mandatory anger management classes, which is what I'd pretty much figured as the best-case scenario. He gets to do his community support as part of the community outreach program I work in, and I get to be the sort of mentor. It's more responsibility than I'd usually take on, but I guess I have to grow up at some point. His parents don't want him in the house anymore though, so he's having to find somewhere to live, which isn't easy what with the state of the economy.

Honestly, I feel pretty sorry for the poor kid. Sure, he shouldn't have hit the guy, but what happened was an accident. I know he didn't mean to hurt him - at least not badly. Boys fight, especially boys from poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods. I'm not saying it's right, but it happens, and you just don't expect someone you get into a fist-fight with to end up in a coma. With any luck this experience will keep him on the straight-and-narrow, and he'll end up doing something good with his life. He's a smart kid, and there's no reason he shouldn't go to uni and become someone great.

- Aside from those two things, there isn't much new in my life, except for one person. I joined this site one night basically because I was horny, and Oli was trying to turn me on over the phone, and I knew I couldn't let him when he still had a girlfriend, and I just got sick of all the indecision and decided this would be a good way to move forward with my life. It didn't work out exactly the way I was hoping; although I got a lot of emails, I didn't find anyone who I really clicked with around here. There were a couple of people from elsewhere that I liked, but nobody nearby who I formed that instant bond with (although there were a handful of possibilities). And then the thing I was least expecting happened: I found someone who could possibly be a close friend, someone who I bonded with on a mental and emotional level, as well as a physical.

It surprised me, because I didn't expect to find a good friend here of all places. Especially not one whose brain turns me on as much as his physicals.  But there it is, and I can't say I'm at all unhappy. On the contrary, I'm very happy. Even if the whole thing is slightly surreal. OK, a lot surreal. It's strange to meet someone and within an hour or two feel like you've known them for a long time. But then I always fall fast. In love, or in like, either way. And although I'm not here to fall in love, and to do so would be utterly inconvenient, I can definitely say I've fallen very much in like.

And in the long run, if this site brings me even one person that I become close to, it's worth it.

(Of course, there are a couple others that I talk to who may in time become good friends - don't think that I'm ignoring you guys, please. You too are much appreciated.)

And on that note, I'm off to bed. Or at least to read for a little while, and then fall asleep. (I love wireless broadband - being able to write all this (as well as work) from the comfort of my bed makes all the difference.) Someone kept me up all night last night, and I didn't get any of my chores done today, so I really have to make an effort to get up. My alarm's set for 12 noon, and it's now 4.15 am, so hopefully I can sleep soon.

[The following paragraph no longer holds true - I have long since given up the habit of using initials or fake names, since my poor damaged brain can't keep them straight.]



* Some of you have noticed that I don't use many names in here. It's for the sake of anonymity, and not getting sued. People who are a big part of my life, and I write about often, get made-up names (although usually ones that are something close to their real name) and people who I'm just mentioning now and then get initials. It's just easier that way. I usually mention these people by their real names in the rest of my journals, but considering where we are it's probably not such a good idea. Chris Kennedy is the only one with his real name in here, and he encouraged me.

Addition: Man, I had to edit this post like 10 times, I kept finding places where I'd just left out a word, as well as typos. You can tell I'm tired. Anything else that I missed, you'll just have to forgive. *kisses*