procrastinating

All that preening about exercising and eating right and I've just scoffed half a big bag of Malteasers.

Oh my God I don't want to do my coursework.

stretching

Just read in a Sunday paper magazine (anonymous because its shameful I was reading it):
"Count your stretch marks and measure them."

Er, no. Why would you do that? What a bizarre thing to encourage women to do. The author goes on to advise that if the marks multiply you should use some pricey cream.

I find it quite frightening, this focus on imperfections. I am vain, and that will never change, but I'm certainly not going to breed despair by documenting my flaws. If I had to choose a least favourite body part, it would be my stomach, every time, but I'm not prepared to do anything more than I already do to change it. Besides, it doesn't bother anybody BUT ME, and that's only marginal.

I've done my time with disordered eating and warped body image, and I've come out the other side in relatively good mental shape. I love how I look and I work to maintain that, but its the way I feel that makes it worth it. It feels wonderful to be fit and eat well.

There are so many positives about my body. Why would I let the negative rule?

chill

There's a bit in the second Bridget Jones book (er, or the movie) where she's discussing how horrible Mark Darcy is. She's in the Thai jail with all those women singing Madonna and they tell her about boyfriends who beat them. And then she feels silly.

I feel silly.

The course I have to do this year I am finding more interesting than last year's. It is just that there is not enough of it to fill my working week. Three hours of college four days a week is hardly full time, and this is the "busy" part of the year. From February I only have to be in three days a week. The homework they give us is mostly asinine (apart from this thing about shares that I haven't got a fucking clue about) and besides, who wants to be doing homework when you're 23?

I'm bored out of my mind. I'm getting all control freak-y about things like washing and going to the gym and keeping my room tidy. This isn't good for me, and it isn't good for my relationship. Here it manifests in jealousy that my boyfriend having a good time, and irritation that my long evenings of nothing can't be filled with him.

One of the things I love most about him is that he's brilliant at keeping in touch. There is no reason at all to be needy. Fortunately I think I've got a grip on myself in time.

But I still feel silly.

things I like about this horrible city

My gym. I like it a lot. I don't want to move away from it next year.
My yoga teacher.
Buses.
Old friends only minutes away.
Ravenscourt Park.
Ravensourt Park tube station.
Long walks along the South Bank.
Borough Market.
The City at weekends, empty of people and full of closed cafes.
Late at the Tate.
The BM.
The reassuring noise of the aeroplanes.
Paddington station.
The beautiful brick Pavilion on the green, sadly disused.
Gloucester Road tube station, with all the moody lighting and artwork.
Whole Foods.
Being able to wear anything at all because you'll never be the weirdest person on the street.
Waterstones on Gower Street.
Hyde Park/St James Park/most other central parks.
Breakfast out.
Chiswick.
Westfield (shhhh).

I hope you're proud, boyfriend.

I will never love London

I went to a fireworks party on Thursday in Finsbury. That was the good part, the wine and the sparklers and the fifteen girls screaming in unison as the boys lit roman candles under a big tree.
Then I stood at a bus stop for forty minutes, watching four buses sail past, the smell of dope from the man smoking a spliff ten feet from me turning my stomach, a memory of a bad night two years ago.

I made a telephone call and bitched about it.
"If bloody Boris had a daughter [just wikipedia'd that and, er, he has two] do you think he'd be okay with her standing on her own in North London for nearly an hour?"
Hadn't heard about him chasing off the Oiks in Camden at that point.

Eventually a friend turned up and we got lost together while he berated me about wandering around on my own at night.

I am rubbish at living in London. There is so much to do but I have no money to do it. When I do have money to do it, I will no longer have any time, apparently.

I have a horrible cold and this is a horrible city.

stuff on my desk

photo of my sister aged 15
blank valentine's card
fitness first timetable
Guardian article about boyfriend
incomprehensible science paper written by above
an "Alternative Personal Statement" composed by friends when aged 17
birthday card from Economics teacher
diary that looks scarily like Gideon Bible
two lamps that don't work
photo of EA on D of E giving the camera the finger
photo of AL in graduation gown
list of "Things What Are Large" produced at 21st birthday party
postcard with bird labelled "Mystic Tit"
calendar with mock exams in orange highlighter
pile of Civil Litigation work I am going to do now