Poorly

I would like to know whether I am a hypochondriac or not. I've been off for most of last week with no real signs of illness other than feeling crappy and needing to sleep. A lot. Generally, unless I am showing visible signs of being ill; fever, vomiting, the runs etc, I will feel guilty about being ill. I will also try to go back to work way before I am feeling better and end up getting sent home in disgrace. This time I cried which was so embarrassing. I would just like to know whether my brain is in control of my being ill or whether it's the bits of my body that are affected by the actual illness. I think mainly, that I would like to stop feeling guilty about being poorly.

0, for a muse of fire

I found a fun game on the bbc website on Tuesday and finished it yesterday. You can find it here. Being both gory and reasonably challenging (as well as perhaps based on Theatre of Blood) I enjoyed it thoroughly. My personal favourite was the death that had elements of Merchant of Venice and Titus Andronicus.

I was talking about food at a post-rehearsal pub visit last night. I don't eat fruit and feel panicked if someone makes me try to eat anything except an apple (I can eat them, don't know why. None of this is rational). This led to a discussion about other people's food habits and we found out that someone's Dad eats cheese and strawberry jam sandwiches, which prompted MuleBoy to ask if he was pregnant. The justification given was that he likes cheese, he likes jam; why not eat them together? I can't really be too disgusted as I used to eat uncooked spaghetti and brown sugar sandwiches, we had a shortage of fun food (the words "why don't you have some fruit? was the refrain should Big Sis or I fancy a snack) in our house and this, for some reason, became a viable alternative. I don't remember enjoying them very much, however.

(PG) Tips: On the tea front I have been advised on how to get around this by a fellow feline. Am not sure as this still involves having to make tea but shall think on't.

Cup of Tea

I'm finding the politics surrounding cups of tea a very tricky balance at the moment. I normally drink water at work, which is all very healthy but we've run out of bottled water and when I drink the tapwater I feel like it is covering my throat in limescale. So, how do I create a comfortable balance between drinking tea infrequently enough so that I don't have to make it for anyone else and frequently enough to cover the gap left by water? Currently I drink, on average, a cup of tea per week, sometimes less. Everyone else drinks about four cups of tea and coffee per day. I therefore feel justified in never making a batch of hot drinks. One of the (many) things I like about this job over my last (evil) job in the accountants is the lack of enforced tea-making. But now I want more tea! I may have to bite the bullet and make a batch, which will either soothe the troubled minds of my colleagues and morally justify the very few teas I have, or set a dangerous precedent.

On an unrelated note, I am wearing an outfit which I am unsure of today. It seemed a good idea when I set my clothes out last night (it sounds anal, but it's either the night before or getting dressed in the dark, as sleeping MuleBoy and the wardrobe share the same room) but I am now reconsidering the skirt in combination with the sparkly jumper. Well, there's nothing I can do now, short of buying a new outfit in my lunch break and I have sworn off clothes in order to save holiday money. I'm expecting this particular resolution to last for about a week.

Time, Please!

I went out to the Monday Night Drinking Club last night for the first time in ages. I haven't really been to a pub since the whole new licensing stuff was put into effect. Thus I am really sleepy this morning as there was no time called and no overly officious bar-manager type asking us to go (definitely the downside of the Wetherspoons chain). I feel like a kid who's been given a taste of freedom and then regrets it when they get all tired and sulky. Added to that the current insomnia of MuleBoy who, after ghosthunting on Friday with his friend Zombie (we share an enjoyment of the horror films and, hey, cool name), cannot seem to sleep any earlier than 4am. He woke me up when he came to bed at first attempt this morning at 2 and then again at 4 when he came to bed proper. That said, it was a very nice evening yesterday. I went to Weightwatchers and found that I lost 3lbs last week, and then went to the pub and spent time with people I like. So I can't help feeling that the upside outweighs the down even if my back-cracking yawns have been disrupting the office this morning.

They didn't even know what animal I was!

We had auditions last night and I really sucked. I kept giggling when I was supposed to be taking it all very seriously and we had a game where we had to be people with animalistic traits and no-one could guess my animal. I was very disappointed. I thought I made a good tiger.

losing the ability to speak

I have noticed a worrying trend in my ability to speak coherently to other people. The trend being that I seem unable to do it. It isn't exactly new but it is annoying. Part of it is that I will start saying one word and then halfway through change it to another for no apparent reason. Or I'll say one word but mean to say something else. Once at a family party I was asked what drink I wanted and I said icecream. I thought I was saying lemonade but ended up saying icecream about three or four times, getting more and more annoyed. Last night I tried to tell someone that I wasn't feeling very coherent and ended up saying cohesive, which obviously was still true. But I find it really weird. It's like there's some essential connection missing between the part of my head that thinks up extremely witty repartee and the part that governs my mouth. I think speed has a lot to do with it; if I write it down, I can communicate better because I have time and I can correct it afterwards but speaking well is often something that eludes me.

If you've seen me speak in front of a number of people, then you will have seen my strange little way of talking that involves me correcting myself and rambling and using strange word choices. It almost looks intentional now but it is really just my way of governing the discrepancy between mouth and brain. I guess it's why I like acting, I only have to worry about the how rather than the what. I can do that.

Snooze Button

Just a quick word today, but don't you think life would be easier without the snooze button? This morning I pressed it 4 times, which is excessive. Having it there is so much worse than not having it there. With my old alarm clock, if I wanted to continue sleeping I would have to reprogram it and reset it, a process that would result in my waking up completely and deciding that I may as well get up anyway. Snoozing is far too easy and far too seductive especially in the dark days of January. Ban it, I say!

The only consolation I can gain from the snooze button is the hope that it wakes my upstairs neighbours and makes them feel all cranky and sleep-deprived as the bell rings out every 9 minutes. Oh how I hope for their sleep to be disturbed. Noisy feckers.

A less muted hoorah

I have lost weight over Christmas. I put on weight before Christmas so not completely ideal, but there you go. 4lbs to go until I am back where I was and then 1stone 4lbs before I reach my overall goal. It feels achievable now as I've already lost more than that. Hooray!

My next plan is to start exercising on top of eating less. This needs to be implemented soon as I'm going paintballing in two months for the first time and I would quite like to not be the one gasping and wheezing for air because I am so unfit. Especially because I am the only girl and have to prove a point. So I shall march onwards, continuing to lose weight, looking prettier and kicking some serious ass (or a humourous donkey, I'm not choosy).

A Bit Shit

I'm sure that the twos of people who read my blog have been quite appalled at the lack of posting over the Christmas period. It is shocking I know, but the truth is that I spend so long at the computer for annoying work-related things that I cannot be arsed to use the computer for fun things any more. The only exception is when MuleBoy and I have a row about what actor appeared in which film and we have to check IMDB.

So I apologise for not updating before and I hope that you all had a good Christmas and New Year. I had an ace one, particularly as I spent all last week at home doing very little and feel rested now for the first time in a really long time. It's my longest holiday since last Christmas! I've been making do with long weekends here and there, which are lovely but haven't eased the ridiculous sense of fatigue that I've been feeling.

Don't get me wrong though. I still didn't want to come back and actually had a tantrum yesterday morning when the MuleBoy tried to make me leave the Playstation and get on with something a bit more constructive. The main thing that bothers me is that we've spent two weeks together, pretty much all day, every day, and it has been awesome. Going back to seeing each other briefly in the evenings as we get on with all the other stuff that we commit ourselves to is difficult. Ah, well, such is life, I suppose. I wonder if I could persuade him to stay under my desk on the days when he doesn't have lectures, hmm...

In other news, it was great catching up with family and seeing friends over Christmas. Many board games were played and I decided that I will refuse to play Trivial Pursuit in the future. Mum and Dad's needs updating and the Millennium one that the MuleBoy's Mum has doesn't make any sense. Also, playing it with my Granny is a pain in the arse as she generally accuses other teams of cheating. In one particularly weird instance, Beanpole and I were having an argument because he'd given an answer, but not a final definitive answer, that I'd accepted and he said that I shouldn't have done because tactically I should have let them carry on and convince themselves out of the answer, to which I was pretty much just saying "but I said you were right" in a confused fashion and was then told by my Grandmother that I was a bad loser. I blame the excessive amount of cheese being consumed. I got to watch a lot of classic films, including National Lampoon, which wasn't too unbearable from my freak's perspective. MuleBoy still hasn't watched It's A Wonderful Life (next year, next year) but I managed to get him to watch The Princess Bride which he had avoided because of the genre. I think it was all of the best of... lists it appeared in over the festive period and Christopher Guest that swung it. Embarrassingly enough, the confrontation between Inigo and Count Rugen still makes me cry and I have seen it so many times. I ate masses of food (who didn't, lets face it) but was halted by MuleBoy the food nazi, protector of my weight loss. Thank God he's there but I still resent it. It's like he's my external willpower and I'm his external memory. I got lots of lovely presents and managed to stretch out the enjoyment of receiving until last Friday when I went out and used all my vouchers. Big Sis and husband Beanpole (I expect a suggestion if you don't like it, Beanie) gave me a voucher for a massage and I went and got pummelled on Friday morning, then popped into Chi and went and spent my Dotty P and Monsoon vouchers. The latter was the most fun as DP vouchers went on the necessary jeans as my old ones look slightly ridiculous as a result of weight loss (hoorah, although muted as I have WeightWatchers this evening and ate like a pig over Crimbo). But in Monsoon I tried on pretty dresses I could nearly afford and lots of other fancy, floaty things. I said no, after about a half-hour of prancing around the dressing room, to a beautiful dress that was Titania-esque and picked a fluffy angora and silk top in the most gorgeous shade of green and lots of nice jewellery instead. I love clothes, can you tell?

Jeezy Creezy, what a long post. Je suis fatigue.