Day one, Self Portrait

Because I am both a sheep, and in desperate need of something to keep me posting at present, that may not need me to think in terms of sentences longer than a word or two, I wanted to join in with this meme. I'm not the world's hugest "joiner" but I have a habit of joining things too late, and taking to them with a strange enthusiasm that scares off others with whom I want to jump in and discuss excitedly.

Day one of the photo challenge is a self portrait. Something that shouldn't be too difficult for me, as I take pictures of myself all the time. Now that sounds terribly vain, but the reality is, that if I did not take pictures of myself, very few would exist. Aside from the few times I drag a reluctant Bingley to take a picture of me (that I will usually hate) he is not the type to randomly pick up a camera and say "cheese". We don't have a bunch of those cute facebook pictures of the two of us grinning into a camera phone in spectacular locations. Our honeymoon almost predates digital and we kind of forgot to take any.

This complete absence of photographic proof of my existence from approximately age 13 to 27 did not cause me much consternation at the time. Believing in my dreadful glass shattering visage and having the self esteem of a well squished flea, I shied away from the camera on the few times it ventured an accidental glance in my direction. Of course, now, with my face starting to have tiny creases that don't go away with a good night sleep and a distinct shoulder slumping recognition that my legs will never grow longer, nor that I should never have cut my glorious hair, I wish that I had taken thousands.

And part of my coming to terms with the way that I look,( and no longer trying to bargain my way with the deities that if I drop 20 IQ points can I look 20% hotter? Please?) is that I have deliberately, almost as a Science Project of sorts, been taking photos of myself, almost daily. Often with my webcam, or with my phone. Sometimes with my gigantor DSLR (though this takes mammoth coordination and wrists of steel). And the end product is that I have hundreds of photos which swiftly make their way into the trash can in the upper left corner of my screen, but I have a handful that make me smile. That make me realise that while this face may never be on the cover of a magazine (nor would I wish it particularly), but that it has character and features that I quite like as well.

I see different colours and shades and warmths in my iris. I like the way my strong, inelegant neck meets my jaw and the little points on the tips of my ears. I like the way a good eyebrow wax changes the whole character of my face and have realised that such a high broad forehead desperately needs a fringe. I still have days where I wake up bleary eyed, stab my cornea with a mascara wand and grimace at the pallid smush of over large features in a too small face with just the wrong amount of puppy fat... and the pores that would send many a fashionista howling into their cream pots. But it's my face, and my dodgy pores, and I quite like them. Most of the time.

White bread.

I've been avoiding acknowledging its possibility for approximately the last 2 years. It's always been in the back of my mind, well at least for the last 15 or so years, but as I had no symptoms I realy didn't think it was likely. But these holidays, even though the Possum is still waking once a night I've been getting quite a lot of sleep. And sunshine. And exercise (lots of exercise). And yet I still feel tired. Slightly "off".

Part of that, I reasoned, was because I've been enjoying slothing around in between gym sessions. Baking and eating and consuming far too much cheese. And if I felt a little bit crampy, a little bit bloated, then maybe the occasional drinks I've been having will be contributing.

But the tiredness can't really be fobbed off that way. I know I have a massive sleep debt. I know that the Possum means that I don't get to entirely regulate my own sleep cycles, but it's more than that.

Part of it is assuredly my anxiety at the moment, which, as my fingernails can attest, has been rampant. But that's settling down. I am feeling more human. I am laughing a lot more and more easily. I am finding all the good things in my existence instead of pining after the things I can't have, which I have found do not (obviously) contribute to a sense of well-being.

But again, it's more than that.

My grandmother, who I don't mention enough considering her importance in my life, was an enigmatic, energetic, mentally sparkling woman. She was a ferocious competitor in board games and at cards and was not the sort of benevolent granny who "let you win". If you won against her it was a triumph to remember through the ages. Thanks to her no-one I know will play cards against me, having inherited that sharp and canny way of bamboozling opponents. But no win was as sweet as laying down Canasta against Nana. In fact, I can remember her voice clearly, in one phrase that se used to use while playing my Dad (perhaps the only person on the planet I know who is more competitive than me) at Scrabble.

She was a painter and artist. She especially liked painting porcelain and scattered through the family are her gifts of hand painted plates, porcelain dolls and Victorian jewellery boxes and powder boxes. She crocheted and knitted like a demon also, fingers always busy, never one to sit still. She had a ferocious determination to grow begonias and fuschias and battled against the soil that she insisted on growing them in until they flowered.

I still have a tin of her pencils and paint brushes in the top of my wardrobe. It smells slightly of cedar, slightly of cinnamon and completely of a scent that belonged only to her. A scent that recalls sitting in her rocking chair, listening to her berate the Australian cricket team and brand them all cheats and poor sports as her fingers moved with lightning speed, hooking wool through loops that she didn't even look at to create.

To say that I loved her is woefully inadequate. To say that she was my mentor, guardian and the person who understood me more fully than any other on the planet doesn' come close. There is a spark of recognition amongst the race that knows Joseph, that is unable to be fabricated. It's either there or it isn't. And we were definitely of the same race.

Family was the most important thing in her life. Children and babies and adults coming together to celebrate noisily was a faithful part of my childhood. And at everyone of these gatherings she'd be in the centre, with al of us orbiting around her, drawn in by her remarkable gravity and presence. Sitting around the outdoor tables at Christmas, plates groaning with food, Aunty Gail's slice sitting in tupperware waiting and Aunty Sue's cheesecake beckoning. Rum balls in the centre, all the flavours of Christmas that as soon as they spread on my tongue even now recall that pure joy.

Nana always made her own special food for these occasions too, funny salads and boiled potatoes and other good things. Things that, I realise only now, didn't contain wheat. Because Nana had coeliac disease. A disease that seemed more a nuisance than anything else. It meant that she would only occasionally sneak a rumball. Or a piece of cake. Never bread, because 15 years ago there really wasn't the variety of gluten free anything tat there is now. She was pretty good with managing it. I'm not sure when or how she was diagnosed, I never thougt to ask. Even wen she was diagnosed with the lymphoma that is associated with autoimmune diseases it didn't occur to me, being as I was only 18 and didn't really have a clue what any of it meant anyway.

Until she died. Horribly. 3 months later. I couldn't get enough of information about cancer, lymphoma, chemotherapy and treatments. I researched biology and chemistry in my spare time, wanting to know what it meant. Trying to understand. A path that eventually lead to me sitting the GAMSAT exam and entering medical school. A path that caused me to give Bingley a chance and to start a family of my own. A path that lead me to sitting here, in my little house with 3 children, a husband and a whole bunch of letters after my name.

But it was trying to understand her and how we could have somehow staved off her death that was the real motivator. One of those useless magical thinking traps that we all perhaps enter into when faced with things that we just don't want to deal with.

A few years after she died my sister was diagnosed with coeliac disease. And my two Aunts, who stopped making cheesecake and chocolate caramel slice, were diagnosed too. But with only 1 first degree relative, a couple of second degree relatives and no symptoms I never really considered it.

Then my Dad, who has given blood voluntarily over 250 times was rejected because his blood count was a bit off. So he went off to get investigated and words like bowel cancer were thrown into the "have to exclude" mix, so that we were relieved when we found out it was "only" coeliac disease.

And so now I have 2 first degree relatives, 3 second degree relatives and I am symptomatic. I am not ready to be tested though. I love wheat. I love dense Italian bread. I love lighter, crusty French bread. I love baking. I love kneading dough. I adore pasta and noodles. And did you know gluten is in barley and rye? And possibly oats? Or that half of the thickeners, sugars and syrups in any sort of processed food are derived from wheat?

I knew that, but today, in an effort to just see how I go with a low gluten diet I actually considered all the things I can't have. As someone who primarily eats meat, fruit and vegetables (and the cheese foodgroup), it's not such a shock to the system, but almost ALL the convenience foods are out. No quick sandwich for lunch. No cereal for breakfast (unless it's the prohibitively expensive, cardboard flavoured gluten free variety). No muesli bars. No porridge for breakfast. No up and go when I'm too rushed to make a proper breakfast. No biscuits (not that this is a great loss) or cake.

And of course, after 3 days of eating low/no gluten all I want is bread. I want a baguette to eat on its own with butter. I want cake and biscuits even though I don't normally eat it. I want some dense, grainy bread that crunches between my teeth. I even looked at a bag of jubes (even though the last time I bought a bag of lollies was for the Elfling's birthday party) in the Supermarket today.

Denial's a powerful thing, and if this experiment leads me to further testing I guess I will have to unOstrich a little. But right now I can't bear to think of never again being able to have a guilt free bowl of penne with home made pesto. Or being able to roll out my own ravioli.

But every time this week I've thought of it, and considered abandoning it al for denial, I've thought of the grief of losing someone who meant more to me than all the chocolate cake in the world and eat my banana chips instead. Because what I want most out of life is to be like her. To have meant so much, to so many people not through what she did, but because of who she was.

Rambling

I have an aversion to writing at the moment. A childish rebellion against the "shoulds" of record keeping instead of looking forward to my nightly catharsis. It makes me feel guilty and niggly, the exact same emotion I felt when I knew I was disappointing my parents, but I still haven't been able to muster enthusiasm.

In some moments I've felt magnanimous and deigned to open the link to post a new blog and trailed off, bored, uninspired or simply just feeling narky at the requirement. Which is an unhealthy thing to feel and it always reflects in my writing. The words become clunky, the similes vulgar and the prose flows like rapidly setting concrete. Which is unforgivable as my life is anything but prose at present, but I always write the dream better than the reality.

Things are hectic at the moment as we get ready to move, complicated by the constant night wakings and the joys of dealing with the attitudes and fragile rationality of preschoolers. I had had enough this morning at 5am after being awake for several hours and thrust the wriggling, non-sleeping, babbling Possum at Bingley and asked him to deal with it and please let me sleep... my usually benign husband however SUCKS at predawn gallantry and proceeded to put the Possum in his bed - an action which resulted in his babbling/grizzling morphing into angry wails of protest. Soothing n'est-ce pas? Especially when his hammock is literally a foot from my head. After about 2 minutes of the cacophony it was clear that the snoring Bingley was nto going to come to my aid and I got up and watched morning TV with my eyes hanging out of my head.

By 3pm this afternoon I was absolutely ragged, and glancing at myself in a shop window as I picked up bread while the Elfling did ballet, the Monkey running in circles around my feet and the Possum again squalling, I was embarrassed to be out in public. With my bloodshot eyes, undone bra (really not a good look to have lopsided boobs), haphazard hair and mismatched clothes I could have auditioned convincingly as a troll at any dirty bridge near you. I was also in a FOUL temper as I drove home with the girls having a whining argument in the back seat. I had a target for all my tired, bottled up petulance though: Bingley. Bingley who gets to run out the door every morning at a ridiculous hour leaving me in the chaos. Bingley who had not saved me in my moment of distress in the predawn hour. Bingley who impregnated me 3 times! Blast him.

I started plotting my ice queen passive aggressive steeliness for the evening, what I was going to say/not say etc (oh yes, I can be incredibly vindictive with my adored one, if one is taken to the land of hysterical tiredness). How I was going to be aloof and cool and not be anything like the sweet little wife he is used to coming home to... Right up until I pulled the car into the drive way and saw the giant Roses Only box on the doorstep. Red Ones AND with chocolate... Touché Bingley, touché.

So here I sit now, still needing to write about milestones and happiness and rainbows and bitching instead. It's sad but true that I write so much more easily when vexed. The Possum is not himself and I can't work out if it's just because he is due for his weekly ablutions or if he's unwell, or if it's just one of those post-newborn serendipities. The problem is that for every fit of pique, of genuine outrage, there is an eye scrunching smile and a dopey cuddle that takes the wind out of my sails and reduces me to a quivering puddle of goo. I do wish he would poo though.

I've also been feeling fidgety and in need of a creative outlet. I read voraciously at the moment and crave the clever and the beautiful and piquant and the erotic when it is captured in prose. I love blogs and secrets and lies and reading the innermost thoughts of others - like Post Secret and Melissa and Mary's secret blog (though no one is submitting any more... Come on people, surely you have a secret! At this rate I'll have to write something!). I'm also tinkering with the ideas of writing something else, something a little less self indulgent than a blog and something more along the lines of proper fiction. And maybe, um, seeing if other people would like to read it (please don't shoot this shattered little ego monkey down in flames just yet!).

Anyhow, that is quite enough rambling for tonight. I'll try and get my mojo back, even I'm beginning to miss me a little bit.

All formal like...

Well based on the comments and e-mails I've got apparently y'all seem to think that I think things out further than "have to do this, off we go weeeeeeee" which happens to be my default setting.

But I was thinking about it after reading them (and feeling guilty about my headstrong without direction comments) and thought I'd actually best set some real goals instead of just a wishy washy thing. Not to knock the wishy washy, because the goal there is simply "be healthy", but I feel maybe I should spell out ezackly what I'm doing in case you're silly enough to follow my example.

First up, food.

Food is hard. Everyone has to eat, and no matter how many times you do Optislim at some point you have to put real stuff that you chew into your mouth. We've all seen the healthy food pyramids which are strangely devoid of chocolate, KFC and icecream, but we've developed this mentality that treats are a necessary part of life. Here is my new theory... because life is stressful we feel the need to treat ourselves very regularly. It has to stop. Now. Seen those 5+2 ads on tv? Now be honest (because honestly what you do is no skin off my nose) but do you actually eat it? Do you know what a healthy diet looks like?

Not just low fat, not just low chocolate, not just no soft drink - but do you know how to eat healthfully? Honestly? Maybe you can put together one day's menu, but a week? Be honest with yourself if not with me.

Toast with a spread is not a particularly healthy or vitamin dense breakfast. Half the fortified cereals in that aisle from the supermarket are crap and full of sugar. Breakfast should be one of the main meals of the day and needs to be packed with vitamins, minerals and low GI carbs and protein to get you through the day. And it (breakfast) needs to be eaten. I hate eating as soon as I wake up, so I eat breakfast about half an hour later in the morning when I actually feel hungry. Yoghurt with museli and chopped up fruit is great (watch the sugar and fat of your museli though if buying pre-prepared) and should easily get you through to lunch. On supercold mornings I also love avocado on dense grainy toast or boiled eggs.

Which brings me to the next point - no snacking. This is when people tend to eat biscuits/cake etc. The mid morning sugar dip is often when people have a bit of a break, make themselves a nice warming tea or coffee with a few heaped spoons of sugar and "treat" themselves to "just one" biscuit. If you've eaten a decent breakfast you shouldn't need much around mid morning but if you find yourself starving (remember as well that the hungry growly feeling in your belly is also telling you you're burning off calories) then try fruit. Fruit and vegies. Water filled ones with high fibre are best.

If you're still feeling hungry after an apple, drink water. I find hot water satiates better than cold, and in winter I love a slice or two of fresh ginger and a small squeeze of lemon. A lot of people can not tell the difference between hunger and thirst. How many people honestly drink the recommended 2L of water a day? Unless I'm exercising I know I don't, even though it's my beverage of choice. If, after all of the above you still feel hungry, go for a walk, hang out some washing, do anything besides sit and watch tv or similar. Like a smoker going cold turkey you need to learn some new habits and getting up and about is obviously a double benefit.

You've heard that weightloss tip to carry around a bottle of water with you at all times? Think of it as your Nicorette inhaler. If you feel like you must have something in your mouth take a sip. Don't add cordial, not even the "diet" ones unless there is no other way that you will drink water. I still disapprove but it's better than nothing =p

No softdrink. At all. It's full of acid that corrodes your teeth, empty calories if you buy the full strength ones and additives if you buy the "diet" ones. The bubbles and acid wreak havoc with your digestion and can lead to feelings of bloating and heartburn. If your belly is already heaving you will not be in the mood to eat healthily (even if it will make you feel better) and it's easy to "treat" yourself again. If you're one of the people that has a 2L bottle of softdrink in the fridge most of the time throw it out and do not buy it again. There is NO NEED. Unless of course you enjoy flatulence.

Lunch time coming up. Time to eat a good whack of your vegies and protein. This should be probably your main meal of the day. Avoid thinking of bread as the main part of your meal, ditto rice or pasta. Fresh fruit and vegies are plentiful in Australia and cheap if you buy in season. Even cheaper again if you grow your own. Actually go to a fruit store and look at the produce instead of chucking it into your trolley in a rush. Smell it, touch it, think about what it is. As a hangover from my vegan days I love salads, and I will throw whatever looks bright and colourful into a bowl. If you can't see at least 3 bright colours in your meal you need to add something else.
I think the reason salads get such a terrible reputation is because people don't know how to dress them. There are cheap "lite" commercial salad dressings, which are fine, but I prefer to make my own. Aside from anything else it always tastes better when you get to choose your own flavourings. Salads are also awesome when you add your favourite herbs. I have a never ending love affair with mint and Vietnamese styled salads so chuck it and chili in with everything. Lemon juice, salt, pepper, a teaspoon of good mustard and a teaspoon of good olive oil for skin and hair and you have a fantastic base dressing.

Protein in a salad/salad sandwich/wrap is pretty easy - boiled eggs, lean chicken or pork, cheese, beans, lentils all work and require very little preparation. If you're not up for making a salad dressing buy tins of tuna in sauce and mix them through. Add lots of greens so you have a large meal in front of you, filled with fibre. Then look at your large bowl and contemplate this - there is likely to be about half the calories in that large, colourful bowl as there would be in one standard Mars Bar. You'll notice there aren't really any processed carbs in that lunch, and that's typical for me, though I often have a lavash bread wrap with the above crammed into it. I doubt in either case though you'll be feeling hungry for quite some time.

Afternoon tea. 3pm is the killer, your sugars are dropping, you're starting to feel a little bit tired/weary... if you're at home you can distract the kids with Playschool while you have your cuppa or if you're at work you can duck out to the vending machine for confectionary goodness. Assuming you actually ate your big lunch and chewed it carefully and balanced it right, you shouldn't be feeling starving right now, just in need of a little sugar spike. Again fruit is your friend, as is one of my favourites - chopped up raw vegies with tzatziki or similar. Good grazing food but still full of vitamins and minerals. If nothing else I really want you to look at the food you're about to put in your mouth and think about what it is and what it has to offer you.

Dinner is much the same as lunch, but try and eat before 7pm if you can, unless you're in the habit of going to bed quite late. Don't let eating be the thing you do right before bed as you have very little chance to digest your food. In winter this is hard but avoid making most of your meal carbohydrates, especially pasta or rice. They're not hugely nutrient dense foods and they can make you feel bloated and heavy. I'm not anti-carb by any means, but I think we rely on them too much as they are quick, cheap and easy meals. Although pretty boring, the standard meat & 3 veg of generations past actually makes much more sense.

I don't eat dessert often, but occasionally have a massive sweet tooth after dinner. I've found yoghurt + muesli is great but if I need decadence this is my new favourite which I justify by riding extra hard the next mornign - I melt 4-6 chocolate buttons (dark is best but white also very tasty) in the microwave until lovely and smooth and melty which I dip assorted cut up fruit (strawberries are the definite winner) into. It's a tiny amount of chocolate, but is so nice to savour, as opposed to gorging myself on a cadbury bar. Note this is not every night but an occasional treat.

Now at this stage I'm sure some of you are shakign your heads and saying "all things in moderation". But I am challenging that and saying that some things do not need any moderation at all. It's like telling an alcoholic that they can get plastered in moderation, or a smoker trying to quit that they can have a pack every now and again. If you are overweight, then you do not need any of the "bad" foods, and they will give you very little. At best they will lift you up for 30 minutes before crashing your blood sugars and making you feel tired, grumpy, irritable and depressed. Does this mean I will think you're evil if you have chips for dinner one night? No, not at all, in fact we had pizza on Tuesday night. But it was a lazy choice which I freely admit, and it could so easily have been substituted with a low fat curry from our favourite takeaway. I'm not beating myself up for it - but I do have to think about it, the number of calories consumed, and how much extra work that I don't particularly want to do to keep me on the path.

When you're conscious of what you're eating, even when it's not nutritionally sound, it tends to be easier to moderate. The biggest issue I have with "everything in moderation" is that so few people seem to understand what a moderate amount is. Eating one treat a day is too much. Eating a treat because you've been working hard is a bad idea - food shouldn't be a reward, it should be a fuel.

Perhaps the most salient piece of advice I can give on the food issue is that you have to find something else to treat yourself with. Hot bath, a facial, a wax, a sleep in on the weekend, a massage from your partner, sex, a haircut, a run, something that can make you feel good without repercussions. My favourite of all is probably flowers, something about the scent reminds me that life is so worth living and I want to get as many years as I can. We only get one shot at this.

OK essay and ranting over - I'll be back later with the exercise/fitness post. I also haven't forgotten to post stats, but have to work out some sort of table widget html thingo so that it looks neat.

Lungs

I saw a lot of these today - mostly confined to xrays and CTs, but one set I got up close and personal with... Sitting in a bronchoscopy theatre watching them thread a black snake down someone's throat so that we could get a glimpse of what literally lies beneath as Mr 88 choked and gagged on his own mucus.

Lungs are funny creatures, wet, spongy, fun to squeeze in a dissection lab. There is absolutely nothing that feels the same, though it is somewhat similar to the sensation of squeezing out a stiff sponge. Lungs if they're healthy are kind of pink, and sit in well defined tiny bunches of grapes around branches of bronchi(oles) that track back up into the smooth hollowness that is the trachea. THey're moist, as you'd expect them to be, but patent or open, and mostly just look slightly shiny. The pinkness is a healthy glow or should be, kind of like the inside of a baby's mouth as you follow the contours down with the scope.

The lungs I saw today did not look like that.

Imagine I took these healthy but delicately membraned lungs and stood on them - with shoes that were covered in fragmented glass. Then for good measure I tipped some sand down the trachea and shook it up for a while so that they got some internal dermabrasion. Lather with mucous inducing smoke for a while and then rest. The result is not pretty.

When you can't see your lungs it's pretty easy to take them for granted. Which is kind of stupid really because knock them off and you're fucked because well, humans haven't perfected intracolonic gas exchange... The human body however anticipates our antipathy and is an incredibly clever invention. Knowing how vital the lungs are, we actually have a surplus for what is required for just general slothful living. A redundancy plan that is set up for emergencies. So if for example you decide to inhale a peanut, you may not feel too flash, but you should be able to keep on living (unless you're allergic) because it's likely to drop down into your right main bronchus leaving most of your lungs to operate business as usual.

Also, if you happen to live in a dusty area and hence sandpaper your lungs everytime there's a duststorm simply through the crazy act of breathing, you're actually going to be ok so long as ou keep a proportion of your lungs working. And if you're unlucky enough to get a growth in your lung, you can have a whole lung removed and aside from looking a litle lopsided you should be right to keep on going.

The problem arises with this redundancy plan in that because of all the back up, we can't tell taht our lungs are compensating. So when you have your boozy smoke filled nights out, you can't see the permanent damage you're doing to your interstitium and you probably can't feel it either aside from the fact that you're hacking up a bit of mucus. So you spend you glorious adulescence smoking (even though you fully plan to give it up when you have kids and settle down etc) and rolling your own joints and hey, you feel foine. But like the ads say - every cigarette is doing you damage.

Now for some people, Christy Turlington springs to mind, you only get a couple of years worth of heady living before it comes back that your lungs have had enough and just can't cope with the deception any more. But for the vast majority it happens in their late 50s, early 60s. For those that grew up and stopped smoking when they got married, settled in the burbs and got respectable add 10 years to those ages. Suddenly, through age, accumulated shitting on them and the fact that they're clogged up with mucus, your lungs don't work properly any more and there's not enough of them left to cover up this sad fact. Your cilia - the little hairs that line your airways are screwed (especially if you're still smoking) and so the mucus that you're producing in abundance (another coping mechanism if you're a smoker) just sits there and can't get out. Gradually it builds up, sometimes blocking off a bit of lung altogether until it collapses or becomes infected.

Because less of your lungs can process gas exchange, and because they're now less compliant due to damage, the blood pressure goes up in the lungs and your heart has to beat harder and stronger to keep up. Your right heart gets larger and stiffer, at first, like the lungs coping, until it starts to fail as well. Now not only are you drowning in your own mucus but your heart is getting tired as well. You start getting fluid build up in your peripheral tissues making you look bloated and if you wear socks the indents will stay there for quite a while to the fascination of medical students. We call this cor pulmonale. You become a bag of fluids that aren't where they should be.

So you start a cocktail of medications to try and remove the fluid (all with fun side effects), and we put you on oxygen so that it's a bit easier for your remaining lung to get some oxygen into your body, maybe via the ever attractive nasal prongs to start with, but as we go along and both lungs and heart start giving up you may be moved onto the lovely CPAP/BiPAP which forces your lungs open (so they don't collapse down on themselves) as well as deliver oxygen. You'll most likely be in hospital at this point, swollen, struggling to breathe and drowning in your own secretions. You will literally gasp for air. Every cold will send you to hospital. Every cold could be the one that knocks you off for good. On one of these trips to hospital you get exposed to MRSA which is Methycillin Resistant Staph Aureus, which means that everyone who comes into your room gets to wear a gown and mask.

The best bit: this in and out of hospital; this drowning/gasping sensation; this lying in bed watching terrible television and waiting for the revolting food that you can't smell (which is good because it means you can't taste) to break up the monotony; your vistors dressing up like you're a pile of infectious pus; this can go on for years. About 12 in my grandmother's case, longer in my grandfather's. Years of drowning yourself, sleeping on 3+ pillows, waking to cough green brown sputum into a cup you keep beside the bed. Occasionally you get blood too, because coughing that much is really irritating. Or sometimes it's because everytime you get well enough to get out of bed you pull your IV trolley with you outside so you can suck back on some glorious tobacco smoke. The effort of walking outside turns you blue though, and you struggle the 20m back to the hospital entrance, sitting down to "catch your breath" before struggling back to bed.

Then you lie back on a table as someone sticks a snake down your throat to confirm that after 10 years of drowning, you've developed a cancer and you've probably only got a few months to live.

But hey, you've got to die of something right.

Zenn

Aside from the deathflu of last week I’ve been back at the gym lately. As in: actually planning to go and happy when I’m there, which marks a significant change from a month ago where I dragged myself in, had a crap time while I was there and went home despondent and feeling like consoling myself with a kilo of chocolate. I understand how people get really fat I assure you – because it’s lovely and comforting to eat (so long as you’re not near a mirror).

But I’ve been going semi regularly again and enjoying the burn. I’m not doing anything inspired at the moment, mostly just working on the cardio fitness because that’s the area that I lack in the most, and also because it has the side benefit of being one of the fastest ways to lose weight. I’ve snapped out of denial again and realised that while I may be within the acceptable BMI range for my height, it is not “normal” or healthy to be carrying as much fat as I’m carrying, and much as I would love to be all Rubenesque about it, the truth is it makes me feel unhealthy even without considering the aesthetics.

The miraculous thing is how quickly my body responds to exercise – further confirming to me how much I need to do it. Although there is a substantial enough layer of insulation at the moment, you can see how exercise is shaping and toning the underneath into a much nicer figure. To put it indelicately, my arse is higher, my waist is better defined and my collarbones are framing my torso better. And even without that I’m feeling stronger. It actually gives me a rush to be able to run on the treadmill and not feel like a gallumphing elephant, or to finish the cross country program on the bikes with my thighs burning and still make it to the finish line.

One of the big shifts for me has been feeling less stressed as well. Obviously this has a lot to do with the fact that I’m not doing insane uni hours at the moment and have just come off a cruisy week of holidays but I’m feeling zen. I’ve been turning off the computer a lot more, facilitated in part by finally getting my EQ2 wizard to 80 (level cap w00t), but also the fact my house is marginally organised and that I’m just feeling good at the moment. I have phases where I withdraw a lot from LH while at the same time being quite needy (unsurprisingly coinciding with massive work stress) and it’s nice to be feeling unlike that at the moment.

Anyhow, in true Jennstyle this is rambling and long and all over the shop but in summary, I’ve been going to the gym, I’m happy, and life is good. Going to celebreate with a hot deep bath and Mr Darcy.

Oh and resolution whatever it was to throw out all my Size 14 clothing? On target – everything I buy now is Size 12. Just wanted to record that :)

The sexiness of ageing

I was thinking this week, as I wandered around *doing* lunch, the odd bit of shopping and pampering, of how comfortable I am these days in my own skin. It's something that has evolved slowly, and with setbacks along the way, but I felt I needed to write about it. I often write in here when I'm speeding, what I call Phil, or when angry, overwrought or cantankerous, but not so much when I'm happy. The problem with this is that a casual reader may get the impression that I am a narky, neurotic, anxious nutcase who ought to be committed. The fact is that here is where I come to blah, and one does not often feel the need to blah about happy things. And honestly, I am the happy, serene, calm dreamer about 90% of the tiem.

But I digress. Part of this thinking has been stimulated by conversations I've had with a friend that have made me want to write more of the happy and funny things that go through my brain instead of the black and oily. Because like begets like - if I'm talking about being happy, writing about being happy and acting like I'm happy, then almost always I will be feeling happy. It's how I pulled myself up by my shoelaces once upon a time and have avoided chemical mood regulators.

And there is a point to this. There have been a couple of posts I can think of in here that may make it sound like I have the selfesteem of a gnat - a gnat that the other gnats gang up on and tease at lunchtime because of his big... feet. When, in truth, I am actually pretty comfortable with myself and it's coming out in little ways.

Once upon a time I was defined by my hair. Long, thick, waist length, almost ebon hair that tumbled down my shoulders and back in a glorious sheet of wavy silk. It was the first thing people noticed and the way they would describe me "Oh you know, Jenn with the long black hair". I hid behind that hair for years... believed it to be my only redeeming feature and loved the double whammy that I could literally hide behind it, hide all of my depressingly ugly facial features and most of the body I hated as well.

Let me describe that body so you can understand how ridiculous I was. At 17 I weighed in at about 55kg. I was 170cm tall. I had probably a kg of hair. I was how shall I put this - relatively thin. But if you'd asked me I would have pulled at the slightly rounded smoothness of my belly and pointed to a skinfold disconsolately as I wished I had the self control to let my eating disorder reach diastrous proportions. Yes I actually envied hospitalised anorexics. I was a D-DD cup skinny long haired emo long before emos even existed. Crazy stuff.

By 19 when the lovely husband and I were first lusting after eachother I got a sudden spurt of confidence helped along in leaps and bounds by the fact that he truly thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world. Of course I didn't believe him, but I figured I'd go along with his deludedness and we had/have a lot of fun. One thing I've never been in the er bedroom is selfconscious, and in large part that is because of the way that he makes me feel. The fact that we have a past history of *no one* and well, even better. So years and years of unselfconscious sex added on to the general awakening and I started feeling a lot more confident.

In recent years I've also been less obsessed about my "unfortunate" facial features, or my imperfect body. Pregnancy helped a lot. I have never felt as beautiful as I did when pregnant. I loved looking at my belly as I flopped on the couch. I would happily stare at myself naked in the mirror hoping to remember all the details of the perfect curvature of my back, hips, belly and butt, the way my swollen and heavy milk filled breasts looked above. With the Monkey especially I gained very little weight, but softened and curved in all the right places to become almost a caricature of femininity. My green, patchy and bloodshot face however did not ever really become a point of selflove.

Gradually as well though my confidence in myself as a person has grown. I know I'm likeable, funny (if you get me lol), clever and articulate. I know I have the ability to draw people in and have them want to divulge all their secrets to me while at the same time making them laugh and feel comfortable. And in my downtimes I've felt a little disconcerted by that, wondered if maybe my only ability was to be the listener, as if my story was not interesting to others, but lately, I've decided that's bollocks. I am interesting, I am funny, and as I age, I'm also getting sexier.

And it's all about the confidence, the ability to feel secure in myself and right now I am. I have hips that are too broad according to the media, and boobs that are only the right size if my name is Typhany and I live with Hugh Heffner perched above a disproportionately small waist. My legs are too short and my arms too wide with hands and feet that are ridiculously small and out of proportion. I have a nose that is too big and a chin that is too small and eyes that are big and wide with lashes too long and childish that don't match the tiny mouth with its thin upper lip and soft lush lower lip. But you know what? None of that crap matters.

I'm cheeky and cheerful, friendly and fun (to borrow from Slinky Malinki), I chase the Gleam, I know endless amounts of ridiculous trivia and your TP team will never lose if I'm on it. I'm competitive and lazy, intellectual and love dirty jokes, am strong and flexible, fearless and terrified. And it all adds up to me. Completely flawed, in a way that any natural diamond that ended up in my hands would be, but still precious, and each year I grind one new perfect facet, so that soon, the sparkling that I know is there will be visible to everyone else.

It's very unAustralian to like yourself I know, even worse to actually talk about it. But I've had a run of the Phils lately, and being able to stand up and say - "Hey, I like me" feels pretty damned awesome.

Red roses

According to most of the quotes I looked at this week, an hour's worth of cbt/therapist time is about $80-$100. Get smalltalk out of the way and that's a pretty damned short amount of time to work out your issues...

I bought approximately that amounts worth of potting mix, seedlings and various soil additives this morning and spent 2 hours at least this afternoon digging, replanting, potting, fertilising and generally just getting dirty. My fingernails are filthy, my jeans which I rolled above my knees have great big dirty handprints over my thighs and arse, I have potting mix in my cleavage and probably on my cheek. I hurt all over from lugging gigantic terracotta pots and digging up recalcitrant weeds in the garden. The girls pottered around with me, brandishing their 94c trowels from a large corporate small business destroying corporation, helping to pat soil around tomato plants and digging holes for the new herbs.

I feel damned good. Therapy be damned. Sunshine, hard work, a new red rose, the smell of oregano on my fingers... life is good.

Elemental Therapy

Oh FFS. I just lost a whole post. And I'm in such a shitty mood I'm not reposting it.