I’d love a back massage right now, my body is aching from hoovering the entire house after a long day at work. Of course I should have done it yesterday when I had the day off work, but of course I am Queen Procrastinator and I couldn’t summon the strength to do it at that time.

My bedroom is a tip, well my bed is anyway. I put loads of junk on it to force myself to organise it (i.e. hide it all in the bottom of the wardrobe) for the party tomorrow.

My cousin, M, sent me a text message saying that he’s looking forward to all the good food that’s going to be on offer. I’m glad that he’s coming, as he’s a very cool dude and an ally.

Today wasn’t a bad day. I didn’t have a lunch break at work, but I’d brought sandwiches to keep me going. My right eye was and is still itchy from hay fever, and my nose is slightly icky, but I’m not feeling too awful overall.

Walking home from the train station, I found myself walking behind a woman who had an amazing figure. She was wearing blue jeans and a lovely purple top. I envied her a little bit, but also stored that image as additional motivation to aim for my ideal figure.

As I passed the vet’s office a young black guy with an Afro paused at the end of the road in a red car, which was pumping out that classic tune: “Papa was a Rolling Stone”.

An hour ago I was watching this new reality tv show: Mary Queen of Shops, which featured Amanda, a woman who was running a clothes boutique aimed at fuller-figured women, though she seemed to look down on her customers because of their size. Mary, the fashion expert, had to re-educate her not to criticise her customers’ bodies and to think of them as normal women who aren’t catered for by the mainstream fashion industry. It was both sad and funny to watch that clueless woman making such a mess of things, selling the equivalent of tents and sacks to her curvy clientele.

Though she seemed to make a huge improvement by the end of the show, I still got the impression that she wasn’t totally sincere and that she may have been putting on a front, that she probably still felt that larger women were “sad” and “misshapen”. The whole thing made me wonder why she wanted to develop a business for that market, she would have probably been happier selling fitness clothing for size-zeros.

And in other news, a 3G version of the iPhone was announced today, but I still don’t want to buy one at this stage. Allow me to buy it sim-free, or open up availability to more than one UK network and I’d think about it seriously. In the meantime I’ve just bought a new Sony Ericsson K800i from Tesco (I know, but it was a good deal). It’s a great little phone with a very nice camera. Even my dad likes it, plus it was the official phone from Casino Royale…

And why did I feel okay today? I think it’s connected to the exercise that I did last night, but I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

I went to work this morning, but had to come home as I wasn’t feeling well. On and off since Wednesday night I’ve been feeling a tightness in my chest, plus aches and pains in my back. I’d hoped that the discomfort would ease by itself, but it got so bad earlier that I had to call the doctor. I’ve got an appointment with a GP in a couple of hours.

My mother was worried when I got home, but predictably one of the first things she said was that it could be due to my weight. She then mentioned her theory that it could be down to work-related stress… I just told her that I wanted to check it out with the doctor, there wasn’t any point in talking about possible causes before my appointment.

Of course, one of the reasons that I tried to put off going to the doctor was because I’m starting to feel that they won’t take any of my symptoms seriously until I’m slim. I was quite upset after my last appointment with a GP because she didn’t seem to want to investigate any of the physical problems I had; she just told me that exercise might help. I am aware that exercise is important for overall health, but there may also be other reasons for those symptoms too.

I’m seeing a different GP today, so hopefully he or she will look into my symptoms properly. I’ll update this post later with the diagnosis.

1,617,840How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?

Proving that pink isn’t just for girly girls, The Urban Recluse has gone all Hollywood Cerise for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. By a freakish coincidence I discovered that the lovely blog designer who did my original cityscape had just created this fiendishly pink outfit, and I had to have it. I’d been thinking about going Pink for October for a few days but hadn’t found any new designs that I liked until now. The design at the top makes me imagine walking through a magical forest, where anything might happen, which I feel is quite apropos for this blog.

Hope you like it as much as I do, but if all this pink is too much you can use the theme switcher in the top left of the page to switch back to Black ‘n’ White City.

By the way, if you like these blog designs and want one of your own, you might wish to enter this raffle contest for a wordpress theme from Ms Black Martini herself.

It’s 6:44am. I haven’t been up this early on a Sunday for years, if ever. I woke up from my heavenly slumber about an hour ago due to evil stomach cramps.

I ventured downstairs to prepare my hot water bottle for comfort duty and have been reading Jane Eyre to pass the time. I’m at page 461 right now and I’m completely uncertain about where the novel is going now. I will finish it by the end of the day, if only to find some resolution.

I’ve been reading it on and off for the last two weeks, and it is only in the last couple of days that I have been enjoying the plot developments and now, like Jane herself, I’m at a loss.

UPDATE: 1:30pm. I have finished the novel now. All is well.

*Feminine Penance (the monthly curse of fertility)

I decided to jump on the weight scales to check out my current weight, which I haven’t checked for several months. I’m much heavier than I thought I was, much heavier than I’ve ever been. It was a real shock, and at this stage I really have to change my lifestyle to safeguard my health. I still can’t believe it.

I need to take a blood test tomorrow morning to determine the cause of last week’s mystery illness, and the doctor said that I have to fast for 12 hours before the test, so I haven’t eaten or drunk anything since 7:30pm this evening. No orange juice, no tea, no bread. I’m hungry and bored. Water is so boring.

Denial sucks.