However I didn’t fall over and I didn’t puke on my fur stole. Hurrah!

Now I am trying to pretend I’m not hungover so my husband doesn’t look at me with those I Told You So eyes. I hate that look. The look that can only truly be mastered by someone who is not a big drinker. Whose friends sing to him on those special occasions where he hits the big 5 mark (to the tune of My Sharona), ‘da da da da da FIVE CORONAS!’

However, I got my one up on him last year. After a morning of giving me the look, he went to have a shower and so I puked in the kitchen sink and never told him.

Joke’s on YOU jerkface.

Puke.

Nap.

A couple of hours of tennis on Saturday and a mountain bike ride with the fellas on Sunday, followed by an enthusiastic spin class this morning (“Hey team! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Scott! I have two kids! They are my inspiration and the reason I have a smile on my face all day! So let’s try to get a smile on your fac…BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!” Asshole. Monday morning. Fuck. Off.)

Anyway. My stupid back hurts but I’m too lazy to do the stretches I know will help. Instead I will eat sausages.

Also, my sleeping is bad. I promise to tell you about my sleep again next time. Tomorrow say? After tennis…With my achey back… And I think that my new tennis coach doesn’t find me hilarious, which clearly means it’s going to be a lonnnnngggg fucking hour. Like, let me tell you my friends, if you’re gonna spend an hour with me in culottes, you’re gonna wanna find me hilarious.

I shall report.

I can’t imagine a world where I never had a say in my future – Egypt’s ruler has been in place for THIRTY YEARS.

So heads up assholes, you choose not to vote when you have the right? Shame on you, and whilst I’d like to say you don’t deserve to live in a free country and should be immediately sent to a dictatorship to see how you like that (assholes), it’s not true, you do have the right to live in freedom. Everyone does. That’s the point, even assholes who are too lazy to be a part of democracy have the right.

Finally, on a tangent from my first paragraph about taking to the streets, in all the footage I see online or on tv, there are no women on the streets. None, except foreign journalists. Strange, creepy and sort of depressing. Religion and equality, my two favorite casual fireside bees in bonnet. Equality? HA! We are all so far from it that the carelessness with which my generation treats their feminism (‘oh, I’m not a feminist, like I believe in equal pay and stuff but I’m not a feminist…’ ‘it’s just really important to him that I change my last name and you know, I don’t mind…’) enrages me. Fuck that.

Anyway. Good luck people of Egypt, I’m with you.

Update! Not sure if this link will work, but someone has posted a Women of Egypt album on facebook which is heartening, women are there, just not making the newspapers. (no photo credits sorry, just the facebook link)…

I am getting enough sleep, I am exercising, I haven’t given up wine… so it must be the miserable month. It has been forever since it’s been sunny here, there was really only that one week last September when it was nice – the rest of the year was chilly. I feel far from my family and despondent about how impossible it will ever be for GB and I to both be near family. I feel unsure about where my future is going to take me. I feel like getting back to being fit is so hard and my clothes so tight (DAMN YOU AUSTRALIA).

Today a telephone system salesman came calling into work. He was German or Eastern European, I couldn’t quite make it out, very smartly dressed. He was cold calling. Our new office guy told him we had a system and that it was fine. The man asked politely what system it was, nodded and then said ‘Thank you, have a nice day’ and left. He was incredibly polite, not pushy and I felt so sad. I had an image of him going outside and pulling up his collar against the miserable day outside. I imagined him heading into the subway and not getting a seat as rude, fat women with bad hair put their bags filled with polyester walmart clothes on the only empty seats. When he eventually made it home, he would hang his hat and sit at the kitchen table with his shoulders slumped as he wondered how he was going to pay his bills, why life was so hard. Eventually he would sigh and hope that tomorrow is a better day. I hope it is.

So that’s not normal thinking, I can’t cry for everyone or I’ll never be able to leave the house.

I remarked to Jenny that I just want to go live in a village in a beautiful, grey stone house with flowers overflowing from pots. I will bake bread and eat it with freshly churned butter from my neighbour and drink great wine. I wouldn’t mind being fat if I lived in a village. Life would be so easy… But only in my imagination.

That’s all. I’m going to go to bed early so I can get up early, go to the gym and trudge through the middle of the week.

It’ll pass.

“How you like?”

“Uh, I dunno, what do you think?”

“I don’t know you. We just met. You want strip? You want triangle? I don’t know. I don’t know you.”

“Uh, strip I guess? What do you think?”

“…(GLARE)”

“You pull there. NO! PULL! Trust me, you pull this way, I pull that way. Is better. Now do me favor. When I say so, stop breathing. Trust me. Is better.”

“…………..(Oh fuck?)”

“NOW!”

Gasp.

RRRRRRRRRIP! Rippity rip rip! RIPPAROOO! RIPARINO! RIP RIP RIPPY RIP!
R.r.r.r.r.r.r.
I.i.i.i.i.i.i.i.i.
Pah.

Done.

Thank fuck for that.

As I am always delightful, I feel it my duty to help GB find his way in the awkward and often delicate field of manners. He LOVES it. For example, he eats bread (at dinner) like he was raised by wolves. I’ve met his parents, they’re nice and generally unhairy, but I can only assume the babysitter had fangs.

I was raised to tear a small piece of bread roll off at a time, as I was ready to eat it. I would put a bit of butter on my bread plate and butter the roll from there, not going back to the butter dish every time. I do not cut my bread roll with a knife ever, nor do I hold the roll in the air while I butter it, it is ingrained in me that such things are deeply common.

Also, it is deeply common.

Now, you can butter your bread roll however you want. Except with my family in which case do. not. cut. your. fucking. roll.

Let’s just be clear that I judge you and, more specifically, your parents when you cut your bread roll. And I am right.

Don’t worry about it though, we can still hang out if you want. I’ll probably just be here, on my own, at the table with my roll wondering where the party’s at.

The King's Breakfast

Then he made me kneel on a bench and he wiggled and waggled my ankles around a bit and said ‘do you find you trip over a lot?’ … Seriously? There is a medical reason for why I’m so clumsy? That’s FANTASTIC. My ankles are so flibberdy jibberdy that I could go anywhere at ANY TIME. I’m like a ninja. Or one of those big wavy figures that car dealers use outside that have air blowing up in them so they wave and spasm all over the place. Also, if you’re in the area, come to Downtown Toyota for an amazing deal! I’ll be there daily from noon to nine.

Then we stuck my feet in some oasis (like the oasis you put in the bottom of flower arrangements to hold them in place, it’s a really fine foam) and he made casts of my feet. He was fascinated at how high my arches were, and how quickly they collapsed when moved. He even said ‘Wow! They’re like ski hills’ and ran two fingers up and down the arch in the cast we’d just made like his fingers were ski-ing. Things like this add credibility to my assertion that basically, I am doctor.

So in three weeks time I shall have some horrible full length orthotics to stick in my trainers. He has recommended a style of sneaker that has motion control and essentially is like strapping a plank to your foot. A very ugly plank. I will wait to see how the orthotics go in my current, perfectly good, medium support trainers. Having to wait three weeks before I can run again has really put the final nail in the coffin of me doing the 10km run on May 3. I will only have been running for 2 weeks again by that time and it is almost impossible that I’ll be running fit by then. I’m disappointed, not least because I’ve paid for the run AND enlisted a friend to do it with me, so I can’t really back out. I’ll just run/walk it, and try not to be embarrassed at how long it takes me.

Was at the gym 6 days last week. Then drank far too much wine with Jenny and Matt yesterday. Swings and roundabouts my friends. I don’t want to never have fun again (and not drinking and only eating salad is anti-fun, let’s make this perfectly clear), I just have to limit my fun to infrequent. Pinched and humorless folk are fantastically thin I hear.

And that’s it. Back to the gym for me now. After a whole day off I miss the smell that my bra gets after I’ve worked out for an hour. Stink boob. That’s me.

So. I’ve been on hiatus from writing in this thing because I am very lazy. And easily distracted. Squirrels!

Update on Supermodelness:

I was running a lot. Well, three days a week. Seemed like a bloody lot to me. Still not terribly good at it, but I had a black terry toweling sweat band around my head, and I think that counts for quite a lot. I was even following a plan to prepare for my first public run in May. Given I’d never run more than 5km in my entire life, and the 5km run was in Grade 6 AND I came last, I was incredibly proud after my first 5 mile run.

That was a Friday and I gloated to all and sundry for the entire weekend. The next Monday when I hopped on the treadmill, I lasted about 4 minutes before the crippling vice grabbed hold of my right knee and refused to let go. I had a little walk, slowed down my pace (tricky when the only difference between me jogging and walking is the level of flailing about my arms do) and stopped after only half an hour.

My first legitimate sports injury! Hurrah! I guess my knee had been in some pain before but I always assumed it was because fat people should not run UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. This day however my left knee was fine and I knew I had finally reached the ranks of professional athlete, by injury rather than success (but whatever, I can take your scorn, I’m a professional now, I expect your jealousy. Also, I am now sponsored by Kenya, so if you don’t agree, you’re a total racist).

It’s been two and a half weeks now, and I haven’t run since. I do have unlimited physio coverage with my benefits, so went to see a nice lady who took one look at my feet and said ‘oh, you need orthotics’. She did not shout LIKE A TEENAGER at me, but we all knew the subtext.

So off I shall go next Monday to see a pedorthist (Wtf? “Pedorthist” is the most made up name I’ve ever heard) and they will fix me. Truth be told, I miss running. Well, I miss jogging slowly. I have tried to keep up my fitness, using the elliptical which I loathe and doing weights and some classes, but I’m not inspired. I felt so proud of myself for doing something I never thought was possible. And I had the headband. That was pretty inspiring, you know?

Once I have orthotics, my knee bones should stop grinding against my tibia and femuribula (or whatever the fuck is down there) and I should be able to run like Forrest Gump again. It’s also warm here! 16 degrees today! Obviously that won’t last but it’s warm enough to get outside finally, and start my jogging/ having forward propelling seizures in the open air.

I will try to be a bit more regular in my updates. I have so many things to tell you about friends!  I need to tell you about my new hair brained scheme, also about not drinking for a month (that is a boring post, heads up) and how the chubby receptionist at the physio is a total bitch and I am going to fuck her up.*

*The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Kenya. Look guys, Kenya loves peace! Obviously.