My family is truly mad. I am pretty sure anyone who has ever met them knows this, but nonetheless. It is, on occasion, disconcerting.

It is also counterproductive to any sense of practicality one may unwittingly, or more appropriately, pitifully, try to impose.

And when trying to plan a schedule from 3,000 miles and in need of some assistance it is most exceedingly vexing.

le sigh.

torn

I am sick.

I hate being sick.

I hate feeling trapped in my own body, which is on a rampage of revolt and generally trying to exorcise my sanity.

Plus, on that day three, when things are slightly better, and you feel finally ready to maybe think about eating solid food, and maybe going back to work before the month is out, my brain wakes up long before the rest of me.

Still bedridden with paralyzingly numb limbs and slightly queasy everything else, I am tormented by worries about the gas bill, antsy about friday's now impossible deadlines, and riddled with guilt and sadness for everything from a hangnail to how I wish my family had communicated better over the last two decades. It's like being caught in a landslide of unbidden thought-loops that will slowly tear out any sanity not already destroyed by the delirium and cabin fever.

I so hate being sick. It's the only time I can't properly escape myself.

Hello gentle reader.

I feel I have not been myself lately, and I apologise.

I will heretofore endeavour to create a more amenable environment in my trivial updates and impart some small amount of useless knowledge for your edification.

Today:

- The national flower of Mexico is the Dahlia

- and here is a newspaper article (Being Unfaithful Keeps Me Happy) I find by turns deeply sad and hysterical.

Modernity is a joke. May I never be a Telegraph reader.

Tis the season...

8:00: Wake up

8:30: Get dressed in the dark. Misplace favourite bra.

9:00: Tie up wet hair, run out the door, laden with books. Still darkish out.

9:10: It's pissing it down. Dig hat out of bag and commence dismal walk.

9:20: Breakfast detour - run up 3 flights of steps to street level, try not to die.

9:25: Cleverly step on the dry bit of a half submurged flagstone - except that seesaws the stone on it's invisible fulcrum, sending the whole puddle crashing down into my shoe.

9:30: Coffee shop does not take cards. Proceed to unload all of bag onto counter in search for enough change for breakfast.

9:35: Failure. Opt for a cocoa on the pennies found, skip the pastries

9:40: Walk out the door - immediately be splashed a la Bridget Jones by traffic water. A girl passing tries not to laugh.

9:45: Arrive at work to chipper and chatty colleagues. Ignore them until they leave me in peace. Commence tidying tornadoed bookcases.

10:30: Unpack bag of finished books brought from home onto newly cleaned shelves. Discover they are soaked and wrinkly.

12:45: The guy next to me brings in fish pie for lunch, smelling up the whole building.

1:30: Lunch highlight: finding coupon for DangerMouse dvd in the local paper!

3:31: Dusk

Today is statisically the most depressing day of the year for good reason. My most promising thing yet is the dozen cookies I fortuitously bakes last night at home waiting for me.

year

So for some reason, the darkness this January has made me retrospective. More so than usual even. And I am struggling to fit it all together - as if there is some high meaning puzzle-guru somewhere. Which there isn't. But all the same, I find it soothing.


January
New Years in bed
Quit Blackwell
Begin Book Festival
Leaving Do
First real fight
Conquering the Schools Programme

February
Bleak
Birthday surprise
St. Andrews Mini-Break

March
Think about moving in together?
Alnwick day trip
Dvorak Symphony
Rain.

April

Switzerland Easter with Jennie and Chrissy
Bologna - the first corporate travel
Holiday from Hell in the Highlands:
mafia deer massacre
eerie valley, creepy town
out of gas!
to the sea!
our private castle island


(I had to get my diary at this point. The whole summer was a blur.)

May
Goodbye Uncle Richard
Eurovision scarred my retinas (and ear drums)
Flat hunting
Church weirdness

June
Certified First Aider
Taste of Edinburgh festival
First press conference - shaking
Parties in London, home on the sleeper train

July
Alice in Wonderland Party
Newcastle with Quentin Blake
Glasgow Decadent weekend
a month long period
Goodbye to Falcon Gardens

August
Meet Carol & Heidi
Anika and Justin visit
Anika & Edith Head Wear Red party
Festival
Festival
Alan Cumming
Festival
Festival
Festival
Festival
theatre to break your heart
Festival
Festival
Festival
Liam's Dissertation
Festival
post-Fest binge party.
Pack. Donate. Pack. Bin. Pack. Pack. Pack.


September
Move house
Panic.
Change.
Slick new phone
Excitment.
IKEA
Doubt
Faith
Contentment
Beautiful Bath
Mrs Bashore, not Johnny Depp
very very very sick

October
IKEA
Rolf's Birthday reunion
Sound of Music Party
London I
blobel
Mike visits
London II

November
Discover online groceries
Home!
Liam & the Gradys
Grady Thanksgiving
Wii
Kate's shower!
Anika
Mom.
The flight from hell
Deadline stress

December
Cookie Baking Fest
Our party!
Social office events
2 whole weeks of freedom!
Miso the kitten
no Gradys...
Christmas Eve meanders
Christmas calm
Dallas & Team Hooray
DVD heaven
New Year promises

And oddly enough, I highly doubt these events and holidays and parties are the things I will remember. That if I looked back on what I had written - or if I could fast forward, it's the momentous year I became part of a 'we'.

Which has changed nothing, but affected everything. And it's a damn weird thing to pin down. I couldn't even tell you when I fell in love. Or when i knew. Or when I decided. It just sort of happened. And it's here all the same.

Every couple of months, we have this ritual dinner.

Not on purpose even, it just kind of happens. It's mostly a comfort thing, when someone isn't feeling well. It's like being a little kid again. Like movies in bed and dad getting you lucky charms.

We have (well, I have - Liam has fish fingers) chicken dinosaurs - which are essentially giant chicken fingers about the size of my hand, shaped like t-rexes, stegasauri, triSARAtops etc etc. with oven chips (which are not as good as waffle fries or curly fries, but it is still nice) and frozen peas and corn. Just like out of a school cafeteria or your grandmother's deep freezer in the garage.

It is just kind of nice. He is actually out getting me ben and jerry's just now and we are going to watch a movie and cuddle in the dark, sharing the ketchup dipping pot.


I alo find it a little surprising today is also the day my first platinum credit card came in the post. Talk about a day of opposites.

I am exhausted.

Not tired from doing things. Not lethargic from not doing things. In fact, no matter what, all the time, I am tired, irritable, demanding and verging on a breakdown.

It's like what I ran out of was tolerance and faith, not just energy.

As always, our idyllic vacation was half perfection and half the bowels of hell.

A moonlit walk along the thames, kissing as Big Ben struck and it's shadow glimmered in the black water. Whispering and poking fun and the pretentious art in the Tate Modern. Holding hands under the table at the kitch tapas place. Disecting greek tragedy as an art form. It was a respite from real life and a minute of blissful togetherness.

But it was also truly horrid. I don't think we have ever gone anywhere and didn't fight about something stupid. It's ridiculous really. The angry logical discussions and selfish proclamations. It always hurts after to think we have been so stupid. And this time more so, for it's lack of novelty.

We're crawling out of the hole. It is never the end of the world. But I still feel bruised.

bleak

Some times life is just big. Things, for good or ill, feel significant. Heavy.

Liam and I are entering a whole new version of being together, which is a great joy - but if I am honest, also fucking scary. I have never been one for the touchy feely, the true confession of truth. the whole open honest reality of commitment is making my inner demons antsy. suddenly forever isn't just a word. and i am not sure i like it.

I am worried about my sister. I miss her so much. I so want someone to talk to.

My job is hard. I am contstantly being strained to the point of breaking and the idea of beginning another bout of battles makes me want to run instead of thrilling me with promise. It's truly sad to be admitting maybe now I have what I wanted, it isn't what i thought it would be.

Or maybe it's just the dolumpy stress of a wet frozen january in a place with no snow and an ever gray skyline. Perhaps when it is daylight as I walk to work my mood will lighten too - I can't hope to have it anything but the pitchest black at 4pm for months. And perhaps as I begin a new chapter (with a new festival, looking for a new house, and beginning a new year madly in love) it'll get easier. I'll get better at being me.

But, in other news, I am temporarily heartened by the joy of Enchanted- one of the stupidest, sweetest movies I have ever seen. I was skeptical, but ironic disney is truly better than I thougt it could be. And we have been humming and skipping about ever since. It's the perfect cure to the winter doldrums.

Fresh

The beginning of a new year is like a new outfit for the first day of school, the smell of fresh laundry and waking up from a luxurious nap all rolled into one. It holds such quiet promise, such a simple joy.

Right now, it's snowing. Big thick clumps of white gather on my windowsill.

I've not seen snow in Edinburgh in three years and it's the most beautiful sight in the world.

I hope I can hold onto this. That the rest of the year will carry this sense of wonder and delight. That it's not about achievement and deadlines, clouded with stress sorrow and doubt, but the grander things that make life worth living.