T'eyla Minh

I am conscious that my last entry was bemoaning our house situation back in May, so I should probably update on that. (It's just as well I wasn't doing regular posting actually because the level of angst would have been through the roof.)

I also need to update about my health - both physical and mental - as although much of the emotional fall-out has been obvious from Twitter, nonetheless I think now is a good time to finally regroup and consider just how much of an impact this whole thing has had. I have been incredibly conscious of my own emotional well-being over the past year and a half as a result of the ongoing chronic health issues, which is probably a good thing because being able to reflect on things afterwards is really helpful in seeing that things have improved.

Anyway. First things first. I need to make a new Google Earth home icon.

( House Situation Update )

Yeah, I probably should have updated some of this along the way, but TBH I was not really in the correct mindset to do so and it would not have been quite this objective... Such being said, onward to the health update.

( Health Update )

I'm fairly certain I must have missed something out in all of this, but this is quite long enough already.

Now that things are calmer, I need to start prioritising my cinema viewing as there are at least four things on the list, including the new Tim Burton - that one is non-negotiable even if I don't get to any of the others. :P

I'll try not to leave it so long between updates next time. With any luck I can get back into embroidery soon.

Again, at least it's not about work. I will stop whinging and moaning on LJ soon, I promise. I bloody hate March.

( Weight Loss Moan )

Now for something completely different, if not entirely new.

( Fandom Moan )

Sigh. I am so sick of being tired and angry all the time. It makes it that much harder to care about anything any more, and I've forgotten what not being tired even feels like.

Whinge, whinge, whinge. Clearly, this is why I don't post anything for ages.

( I Can Haz Funkshunal Ikwipmint? )

In other news, Paul is currently out of work again and also struck down with lurgy (hopefully not the dreaded Pig Plague), I'm absolutely skint to the extent that pay on Friday will not even bring me out of my overdraft - though to be honest I've been too scared to check my account balance this week - and starting to feel like there is no way out of this limbo I presently find myself in. I'm basically trapped in a deep, dark pit, attempting to scrabble to the surface and finding no purchase. If someone could please provide a rope ladder or a lottery win, that would be most helpful.

PS: 803am - I keep forgetting to mention this, and meant to comment on your X-Factor entry - given that this year's initial auditions are in the style of Britain's Got Talent and in front of a HUGE AUDIENCE, I'm suddenly very glad I won my bet last year. :P

Edit, 13.16: M has just redeemed himself by complimenting both my hair and my lunch (leftover enchiladas) - because I am that shallow.

Well, that olive branch was obviously too subtle, or I'm slipping off the radar. Though to be honest, after having to sit through inane rambling and/or pathetic whinging for the past few months, I can fully understand why my journal is of absolutely no interest to anyone.

Perhaps if I were less subtle and more outspoken about things which were bothering me, I might get somewhere. But I also might alienate the lot of you.

Can't win either way, can I?

Addendum, 16.47: The thing is, paranoia is like a virus. It starts small and then spreads to the other bits of your brain. So now I'm wondering, after re-reading old e-mails and old comments, if in fact I was just being humoured in my ramblings and there was no real connection there at all. My purpose was initially to offer a service, after all, and friendship was a nice bonus. I never wanted to end up inside one of those banal friendships where the only contact is Christmas cards, and yet...

Gah. Why can't I just let things go for once?

I went to get an eye test this afternoon, having realised things were looking blurrier than usual. I was going to hang on until January, but I don't want the same spate of headaches as I had last time, and figured it was best to get it sorted.

Tests are now just under £20. For some reason they also tested my peripheral vision, which has never happened before... apparently it's fine, though.

I'm going back tomorrow afternoon with Paul to pick out frames. Despite the horrible expense, I will probably end up going for designer frames again. I've had these for four years and they've served me well; besides which, anything under £80 just looks old-fashioned or boring, and after wowing people with my current frames, I would be slacking in my duty to the general public to go for bog-standard boring frames this time around. Anyway, it'll probably be another four years before I buy new ones. I had a bit of a look after the test but nothing immediately grabbed my attention, and besides which there were assistants hovering everywhere, which always makes me feel uncomfortable.

Designer frames would set me back £125, plus an additional £60 for thin and anti-reflective lenses. (Otherwise they look like bottle-bottoms.) Meh. Trust designers to jump all over this particular disability just because it's obviously external... why stop at trainers and jewellery when you can have your logo emblazoned on someone's face, after all?

I had a quick look in Evans at the boots - the endless quest for sensible winter shoes continues - but they were all too high or too expensive or just ugly. Besides which, Evans don't really solve my problem; they fit in the leg but are far too wide in the foot. I've moaned about this enough times over the years and should change the record, but yeah, it's just one of many things which is generally irritating me at the moment, which falls under the general umbrella of "The world is geared towards rich, thin, pretty people and I am none of the above", which... yeah. Self-esteem has never been high on my priority list, but at this time of year it's especially depressing. I am somehow horrifically overdrawn again, also, which isn't helping. I have absolutely no idea where my spending money for EuroDisney is coming from, given there's barely anything in the savings account and I'm completely skint.

BAH.

Bugger off, universe.

Still haven't decided how to pay for new spectacles as yet. Originally I was going to put them on the credit card, but also originally said credit card was only to be used for 'emergencies' and Christmas shopping, which fell flat on its arse. I suppose I should just buy the glasses from my own money and figure it out later. We should be getting some back-dated pay this month* so that might cover at least some of it.

I'm surprisingly not stressing about Christmas yet, but that's because I have a vague plan, the annual leave situation is sorted (I got the only days I wanted: afternoon of Christmas Eve and 2nd January, and then I'm off for the entire following week because of Disney), and I'm doing the majority of my shopping on Wednesday. I'll just be glad when this bloody Beethoven concert on Saturday is out of the way so I can properly focus on the Christmas stuff - we end up having very little rehearsal for it, which is an awful shame...

I brought the heater down from the attic earlier to put in the hall. FED UP of being cold.

This wasn't meant to be so rambling; I intended to do a guess-the-lyrics meme. Ah well. No-one ever plays anyway. :P

*The majority of people in my office also received a random extra £60 a couple of months back, but I did not. Obviously, I do not exist. We'll see what happens on Friday with regards to this apparent back-dated pay, shall we?

So, I'm not at choir. I've been bloody knackered all day and just want to go to sleep, and the thought of not getting back until 9.00pm just filled me with dread. I got home at 6.00pm and lay down but sleep would not come, as the aforementioned story-narrative-thing ("Three Strikes and Out") was going through my head demanding attention. I want to write it, but I don't know if I want to share it... or, well, I DO want to share it, I just don't think I should, if that makes sense. It will contain a lot of things I really want to articulate, but I think it might upset people.

That is to presume, of course, that anyone would read it in order to be upset by it.

So instead of trying to sleep I got up and did something instead. As a result, jackiesjottings, your parcel is now ready to go and I'll take it to the Post Office tomorrow. Completely forgot to package it up last night.

I've been starving all day.

I'm feeling a little ambivalent about the whole choir thing, to be honest. As much as I want to do the Christmas concert, I find myself not enjoying the experience as much as I always used to. Instead I dread Tuesdays because they are long, and by the time I get to rehearsal I'm tired and cranky. Choir used to be something I would make time for, and these days I feel more like it's just taking up that time. After two years, I still don't talk to anyone there above greetings and occasional chats, and even though I didn't join with the intention of creating a new social circle (I have enough of those already, thank you), I do sometimes wonder if that would have made it easier or more enjoyable. Part of the reason I enjoyed choir so much at school - apart from the music making and the actual activity of singing - was because my friends were there as well.

I always feel ambivalent about it at this time of year because it takes me a while to get into the flow of it again after the summer break. I really enjoyed the Mahler and the opera concerts last year, just as I enjoyed the performance at Tewkesbury Abbey the year before that, but I'm usually not so ambivalent as to consider not bothering at all. I'm getting bloody sick of being tired lately, for no apparent reason, no matter how much sleep I get, and I hate it especially when that tiredness is so pervading as to interfere with things I should be enjoying. Except I don't think I do enjoy things really, any more.

There was a point earlier this year when I thought things were getting better... but lately I've just been trying not to fall into a slump. My writing keeps drying up for increasingly longer periods of time; this time it's not because I can't do it, it's just because I'm too exhausted to try. The ideas come rushing at full pelt lately (I had another novel idea on the bus this morning, once again thanks to the Metro) but I end up in this position of "Eh, what's the point" and never bother to take them further.

I should write "Three Strikes..." and get it over with. I think some of this stuff needs to come out of my brain.

I'll stick at choir until Christmas and then see how I feel.

I was going to do this meme, as seen on anotherusedpage's journal, where you take some of your characters and ask them some "about you" type questions... but I started it and then scrapped it when I realised that none of my characters (either in fanfic or otherwise) are actually that interesting. :(

More to the point, all of them are catastrophically whiny. In retrospect, I think they always have been...

Doesn't exactly bode well, does it?

For the record, I intended to use Minh (my Voyager Mary Sue), Mila and possibly Jorel, but yeah. WHINY. Every last one of them.

If anyone is particularly desperate that I fill it out, I will, but meh. Just once it would be nice for the Muses to come up with a character who has some semblance of a personality...

I'm actually getting quite tempted to stop posting in this journal completely, or at least put it on hiatus until I've got something worth recording. Whatever I do post lately is either inane drivel, whinging, or things that were probably better left unsaid.

I'm still reading my friends-list. You can delete me if you want, but please bear that in mind.

Of course, there's always the fact that I'm only posting for my own benefit. Maybe I should just personalise everything instead.

Computer says "no".

We can't physically afford it. There'd be a desposit of about £250 plus the month's rent, and the timescales would be, like, next month.

No time, no money, no support. We can afford the rent, but not the deposit... at least, not at the moment. And the flat's probably going to go to someone else, as it's in high demand.

I don't even know how I feel about this any more. Part of me isn't surprised in the slightest that, as usual, I got my hopes up about something that was inevitably going to fail. Another part is still horrendously disappointed about it. And yet another part is entirely tempted to give up entirely on ever being able to afford anything better than a grotty bedsit over a shop.

I think it's time to emigrate.

As usual, I can't seem to remember most of it, but I'm putting that down to utter exhaustion.  I've been doing mostly 8 and 8.5-hour days this week in a bid to get work finished, so should at least be rewarded with flex if nothing else.  Oh, and more typing from SHAO, of course, because I don't have enough to do already...

So, yes, Friday was spent doing not very much at all...

Saturday: up before midday, which is an achievement in itself.  Had breakfast, then watched telly for a bit, checked email, watched the pilot episode of Twin Peaks and ate dinner, then got ready to go out to see the Capones at the Market Tavern.

Not many Brethren in attendance, really... was nice to see 87wt2gxq7 out and about, at least.  The other bands were all quite good as well, but the only trouble with loud music is I find it sort of difficult to differentiate between them all afterwards.  My ears, naturally, are still ringing.

Some random angst in the evening that was entirely due to me being a complete freak of nature, but the less said about that, the better.  I don't know what triggered it, but it, does, at least, prove that I'm not as better as I thought.  Though it does bode well that I haven't spent the majority of the year in tears so far, as compared to the period between June and December of 2005.  So, yeah.  Better, but not good.

Today was spent, er, sleeping, mostly.  Got up just after 11.00 and had breakfast (boiled eggs and waffle soldiers... an interesting combination, to say the least), watched The IT Crowd from last night, missed American Idol and EastEnders, and then watched the next episode of Twin Peaks; the plot thickens.  As for The IT Crowd, it's looking to be quite entertaining, at the very least...

After that, we had a nap for an hour.  Then I got up, and Paul is still asleep.  Ho hum.

We've set up eBay to automatically bid for the hat, as the auction is American and ends at 2.50 in the morning... as there's only one other person bidding for it, I'm hoping I'll get it...

That's about everything, I think.  I'm still tired.