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.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Merry Christmas Everybody

I hope you have a cracking holiday and get all the presents and obviously joy and goodwill and stuff that you want.

After all there's only one more sleep 'til Christmas

Other people's plays

I've been thinking about moving to another local amateur theatre group. Not permanently, but just so I can do a musical. I haven't done one since school and I want to do one mainly to see if I can, to change the way that I approach singing. At the moment I do one-off gigs with my band, with a long gap in between so can be a bit careless with the way that I use my voice and I want to see if I've got the stamina to go a few months of singing regularly. There's one local group that I was thinking about as they do the sorts of musicals that I like (the ones where you get to act alongside the singing). I went to see them do a show last night and was a bit put off. The show wasn't that bad, not great, but not bad but it was the details about the way the company worked written in the programme that was the problem. They only do one musical a year that they cast way in advance and casting is done by invitation not audition. So it could take about three years before I'd get the sort of part I want and I'd have to be in the chorus for ages or something. Boring! Okay, I know the whole "no small parts only small actors" thing and I know my ego is probably the problem but I've done chorus parts and shit parts and not being cast for several years and I don't want to get back to that. I think I was being a bit naive in assuming that they work the same way as our company. We're all about democracy and giving new members a chance in quite big parts. Even the most established actors have to audition. Because it isn't just about knowing that someone could do a part, it's knowing that they can do a part the way that the director has imagined and can do a part so that the chemistry of the actors works together.

So I don't agree with the way that this other company works and am unlikely to get a part with them. Back to the drawing board for me, then.

After all, there's only four more sleeps 'til Christmas

I have not yet had time to catch up on Muppet Christmas Carol as a yearly tradition. This obviously involves singing along (obviously because I am always singing, humming, tapping and doing stuff that makes a tune or a beat. Imagine having to work alongside that every day), saying the lines ("light the lamp, not the rat!") and crying when a puppet rat kisses a puppet purple alien thing. It's a fairly recent tradition, pretty much about 4 years old, but still quite important. Mainly because the Mule is resistant to every Christmas film except recent ones like Muppet Christmas Carol (which involves lots of songs so still not massively favoured) and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I have to go home to my parents in order to watch The Sound of Music or Meet Me in St Louis (the latter has already been on but it was shown on Monday afternoon! I'm still working, damn you Channel 4).

This year I think the Mule should be made to watch It's a Wonderful Life and I should try to watch Christmas Vacation. I've always resisted it because it falls into a category of films and TV programmes that I find extremely difficult to watch. I like horrors, thrillers and naff teen comedies but I cannot sit down and watch a comedy about a flawed character whose flaws create inescapable situations. I have to hide behind a cushion in some episodes of Frasier or The Office. It took me years and much nagging to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles and I've still never managed to watch the whole of Clockwise or The Money Pit (the latter being my bete noir for some reason. Something about losing all that money and the house falling down. It really upsets me). So I shall swallow my fear and watch a film about a man whose vanity and pride cause him to injure himself and embarrass his family in ways that I am sure will be both wacky and funny. Come on, Kitten, you can do it!

Tree Tantrum

I was a little fraught after my long weekend and not having had any time to relax before coming back into work yesterday. MuleBoy phoned me up in the afternoon and must have been feeling quite fraught too as we had a tense little phone call about Christmas trees* before hanging up. When I got home I turned from fraught to very, very upset because not only had he bought the tree on his own, he'd also decorated it! Without me! Once I'd calmed down (a process involving leaving the house, sleeping and eating) MuleBoy offered to take everything off so I could do it again. But my thinking is once it's done, you can't go back because it makes it less special. This is one of the fundamental differences between us, as I have a need to make things special whereas the Mule just wants to get on with things. On my Birthday morning, I had to make him watch and go "Ooh" while I opened presents etc. At least it's training for when we have kids (what offspring do kittens and mules have?)

*If you think that's ridiculous, once MuleBoy phoned me up at work to tell me off because a sock that I had left underneath the sofa had jammed up the vaccuum cleaner. Ostensibly it was to find out where the hoover bags were, but it was really to be annoyed about the sock.

Uh-oh, I've been outed

I've just realised that my naivety concerning the glamourous world of blogging has led to my being found out! I posted a comment on a friend's blog and it linked back to here. So now there is a comment on his site about my blog here which means that people reading his will read mine and all that confidential stuff I was planning to say has gone out the window. So I should possibly not put my ideas about world domination on the blog (although to be honest I'd gone off the idea as it just seemed like a whole heap of work). But mainly, now I am concerned and have been chastised in case people I've written about will read this and cry because I've been a bit mean. I'm mainly concerned about my sister who is a sensitive flower and might balk at having been referred to as insane. Big Sis, you are insane occasionally but also very nice and pretty and stuff so occasional insanity isn't too much of a cross to bear. Although smelling of poo as you do is a huge cross to bear, for you and everyone surrounding you. He he he. Poo is a funny word.

On a nicer note, I have been doing birthday things which have all kicked ass in many ways. I've seen plays and King Kong, wandered around London at 4 in the morning, caught up with some old friends, got ridiculously undrunk despite practically bathing in wine yesterday and all in all had an amazing time, although getting up at 6.15 this morning was rather tricky. I pressed that snooze button about a billion times and got up at 6.45 instead so I am sans make-up (imagine how pretty I look today), didn't make any lunch and had to pick up breakfast on the way in. Can't complain, though, it was all worth it. Thanks MuleBoy

Ouch!

I woke up at four this morning, which hasn't been an unusual occurrence in the last couple of weeks unfortunately. Instead of just fretting while I try and get to sleep again while fretting more because I'm not asleep as I normally do, I decided to completely crick my neck so that I currently have a muscle strain from left arm to left shoulder blade to neck. I'm not sure how I did it but I had a bit of a discussion with the insomniac MuleBoy during which I blamed the fact that the new pillows he bought recently are completely flat and provide no support. He then revenged himself for the ire and lack of cuddles (I kept screaming when he came near, which must have been fun for our neighbours) by falling asleep immediately. As he hadn't managed to get to sleep beforehand, it was definitely done just to piss me off. Well, I showed him. After an hour of lying in pain, I managed to doze for ten minutes! Hah!

We had another rehearsal last night at which Penfold completely dominated the end part by choreographing fights for us. Damn him for being talented.

Going well?

Last night the MuleBoy (stubborn as...) and I had our first stand-up-and-walk-about rehearsal of a play we're directing together. I think this is going to be quite a test of the relationship, especially as I can occasionally forget to let go of being in charge.

Mantra for the day: I must not be an unbearable, bossy, control-freak.

Last night was good, however, and I started to get excited for the first time about this directing malarkey. I think that one of the actors is going to drive me mad though. We started off the rehearsals with the note that we were just going to block entrances and exits and some movements, and we didn't expect any acting. Then this guy, I'll call him Penfold, kept adding little bits of direction to the other actors throughout. I know it's our first time but if we want that sort of support we'll ask for it. He may have to be sat upon forcefully if this continues.

Yesterday, I complained to my sister that I hadn't done any Christmas cards yet (I know, I know - every year I leave it until the last minute!) and she offered to include me and the Mule in her cards. I thought that sounded kind of insane, she has a compulsion to be nice and helpful to everyone and occasionally takes it too far. I had to explain to her that sometimes I just want to complain and don't necessarily need her to provide a solution. I think I offended her but given as my first response was to call her insane, I think she got off lightly.

First ever blog ever

Hello, the world. I feel slightly silly about this as the only people likely to read this are people that I know already and I may not even tell them, so this could end up being one of those unread blogs that you hear about. I kind of just want to talk about stuff. Maybe some stuff should be more private than potentially extremely public but what can you do. It's kind of a whim. If nothing else, I can perhaps improve overall the quality of spelling on the internet (oh Jesus Christ, yes, that's what I want to be known for; the blogger with the ability to spell! It's like an incredibly dull superpower) Anywho, if you read this, please let me know. Be nice, I cry easily.