A very boring week. Because I write about those now too. Apparently.

Because it is school holidays, the children had their annual visit with their grandparents and Bingley and I sat on the couch and wondered at the silence. For a very short period of time anyway before trying to fill it. I still had to work all week, and weekend, but we managed to do some other things too.

The first night we went and saw The Hobbit and drank slushies that gave me headspin and ate popcorn until I couldn't feel my lips. It was good and I enjoyed the Hobbit very much. I am thinking of taking the Elfling for an encore as I think she'd like it but it may be yet just a little scary. We'll see. Plus the idea of a night out with just her is appealing.

After the movie we walked around Southbank for a while and sat down at a Spanish bar to eat tapas. Fun ambience and a jug of tasty Sangria mixed with the sultry night as we people watched and the bougainvilea bower swayed listlessly in what was left of the breeze. After dinner, having eaten too much, we wandered through the park to the beach where hundreds of others were still swimming and I peeled off my shoes and pulled up my jeans and waded in tipsily, wanting nothing more than to dive right in. The only thing that stopped me was that my underwear was sheer, otherwise I would have jumped. Bingley was much more sensible than I though and promised we would come back the next night.

So Monday, after work, when I was overtired and overworked and underpaid, I got changed into my riding gear, we snapped our new $10 LED torches to our bikes and we rode all the way to the city, across the Goodwill Bridge and back down into Southbank to the pools. Unlike every other day of this new year, it was actually blowing quite a bit, with the wind racing along the river and losing all of her heat. Remembering the strong pull of desire from the previous night however I forced myself to strip off my slightly sweaty clothes down to my bikini and jump into the water that was actually blissfully warm. Lapping at shoulders as we bobbed around watching the city lights and listening to the sounds of everyone else splashing. The wind as it blew across the surface raising gooseflesh and causing me to shiver so much that it was not quite as long as expected before we were back on our bikes and riding home in the night.

Bingley and I have never ridden our bikes together in Brisbane before and it was a revelation. Wide, well maintained bike paths that snaked under and over bridges that seem so much bigger when you're whooshing past on your own steam. On arriving home my knees and shoulders hurt, but the grin of self satisfaction and spontaneity and doing something fun and active was elixir enough to fall peacefully to sleep not long after.

Wednesday night I stopped at Ikea on the way home and bought a new bookshelf. It was very big and heavy and getting it into the car I used all of my grade 10 Physics to actually lever it in without breaking something. We then had the fun of sitting on the floor and putting it together, which is probably the real reason we own so much Ikea furniture - it's just a really big lego set.

Thursday we went out for dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. It was ok.

Friday we had a big fight. I cried. We made up. I slept badly.

Saturday we woke up and the sun was shining and my room was full of light. I was snuggled up in my blankets as the airconditioning rumbled through the vents. After finally climbing out of bed and into the shower, we made our way to GoMA to the new APT exhibit.

Side note - I am lucky that I was brought up in a family that appreciated art and took the time to take children to museums and galleries and to explain it as well. Some art doesn't need explaining. Some art is just pretty and nice to look at, but art that speaks to you other than just being pretty - learning to appreciate that is a true gift.

Anyway, the Asia/Pacific triennial art exhibit at the Queensland Art Gallery is one of my favourite things to experience. The last exhibit in 2010 was spectacular and there were pieces there that made my heart hurt. Some that made my eyes sting and some that pulled my stomach out of my chest .I loved it. Loved experiencing it. Loved visiting it on my own. Loved taking others with me to experience it. The stag of globes still rates as one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. So of course my expectations were high, and I take disappointment badly.

I was not disappointed.

From the first moment of walking in, I knew I would not be disappointed. Some things of course I just glanced over politely, missing, or not caring about their meaning. Others had me spellbound, sitting and watching, sometimes nose right up to the glass or the paint or the wood, just to see every last tiny detail. To try and work out how as well as what and why.

Here are some of my favourites, and reasons why you should go too.

I liked these. I empathise.

This is techinically spectacular and utterly unnerving. So incredibly beautiful and so ugly at the same time. My phone has done nothing to capture the beauty of the colours or the technique. 

String theory. I followed each line to its completion. I loved the wobbles. String theory needs wobbles.

The yellow room 

Black and white. Texture and light. I was wearing a red dress and the reflected light from me gave the painting colour. I was profoundly moved by it.

Terrible picture of a stunning series by Michael Cook. Amazing.

This is a photograph taken of the sky in a mirror. The mirror is made from polished meteorite. When I realised what I was looking at my heart jumped a little. So spectacularly beautiful and so simple - seeing the sky from the sky. 

Large installation piece of cities that raise to they sky. Worth looking at close up to see all the little details. 

I usually am not much interested in the short cinema offerings at these exhibitions and wander out after a polite few minutes of trying to look interested. This one was not like that. 9 minutes that sucked the breath from my chest. I know it won't affect everyone like that, but it's worth sitting down for just to appreciate the cinematography. 

Whimsical Japanese print. Ethereal.

Farsi. I love that the room bent the more I looked at it to become a 3 dimensional thing. 

I am not sure why this moved me so much. It's massive and it is beautiful. Part of a larger series by an Indigenous artist. One of the bags reminded me of the Giants in the BFG. They seemed perfect for snatching up little children. 

One of those spectacularly beautiful wow creations that you don't need to be a critic to enjoy. I wanted to visit there in the clouds this temple. Live there. Home of the air nomads. 

Parade of the tiny glass animals. Intricate, refractory and flowing like water. 

Menacing shapes in the art gallery over the water. I loved the reflections and the menace and the beauty all mixed in together.

Cattleya

I woke, unable to remember if conservation of energy was the first or second law of thermodynamics. It raced around in my belly, sending spirals of nausea in a complicated intricate loop before Bingley sleepily reminded me that it probably didn't matter either way. I lay in bed for a bit longer, thinking over the study of the day before, sticking it down again as if it were peeling off the walls of memory in long curly strips. I watched the dawn shadows on the ceiling and walls and the sun rose in the lightly grey morning, the curtains soft white and whispering as the house breathed in and out.

I feel overwhelmed but somehow at peace. There is no more that I can learn, no more space on the walls and so my job now is to keep all those recalcitrant, hand drawn diagrams stuck using more and more glue every hour that goes by until I'm sticky and gritty and tired.

I climbed out of bed later than I intended and poured a glass of water, sipping it slowly in the kitchen, the cool morning breeze tickling my bare belly above my pyjamas that were falling off my hips. At Bingley's insistence I cut a wedge of red papaya and scooped out the glistening seeds and carried it onto the new boards of the verandah and sat on the ground. The papaya was only just ripe, orange red and firm but releasing juice between teeth and over wrist. I scooped the flesh and watched the sky. Breathed the fresh, slightly damp air as it snaked up the hill and across my clavicle, teasing the unkempt hair and tickling it across the angle of my jaw.

The tension slowly uncoiled, the wound spring losing the obvious strain; the ache in my shoulders from holding my muscles so tight receded. I relaxed back into the wall and watched the birds fly in and out of the trees, listened to the hum of traffic unseen below and the helicopter across the sky. I saw with a tiny leap in my heart the beautiful purple orchids that have burst into bloom in my tree and took it as an omen.

The orchids belonged to my grandparents and I've had them for 12 years. How I have not killed them I am unsure, but they live still and they flower when they want, unaffected by season or care or attention. And somehow always when I need them most, when I need my grandmother's voice in my ear. Sometimes she encourages me. Often she admonishes me. Sometimes she talks about something completely unrelated. But I love that she's still there, keeping me sane.

I had a moment last night, in the lamplight with glowing skin and tumbled hair, breathing slightly unsteadily as I moved, of wondering at the sanity of repeating the branches of the external carotid artery in rhythm. Of finding the humour at an inopportune moment and spasming with laughter as I traced the path of the opthalmic branch of the internal carotid artery across Bingley's eyebrow. Leaning forward to kiss his nose as I giggled before arching my back and repeating Superior Thyroid, Ascending Pharyngeal, Lingual, Facial, Occipital, Preauricular, Maxillary, Superficial Temporal as my hair tickled my back.

I am a complete dork, but one who still has her sense of humour. And thanks to a burst of purple cattleyas, a teensy sense of hope as well.

Tublist

It's cold and the wind keeps lifting the curtain and tossing it, revealing the steel coloured sky outside. I am curled up in bed, the feather doona tucked under my chin with my chilly fingers creeping out to type. It is not, for all the world December in Queensland. It could be Autumn in the highlands. Next to me I have eat pray love splayed on the bed where I have been tucking in indulgently.

It's a polarising book. I have had friends that have panned it, and I see why - there is a level of self absorption without humour wrapped up in earnestness which is at times saccharine. But it appeals deeply as well. The recommendation which had me reading it in the first place gives it amnesty from its failings because I want to see what they saw. And about a third of the way through, what I see is me. I see that great desire to slip out of normal life and to just experience. I work very hard. Ridiculously hard, and the idea of just stepping out of that and doing something for me resonates as surely as the love of handmade pasta.

I am not like the author. I am perhaps more like her sister, the pursuit of everything driving me more, but I empathise strongly with the emotions she occasionally skips over. I know that fear and I know that passion, but in me it is more tightly curled. I do not give easily, although I always try to give generously. I never actually give myself. Well, normally.

I know friends that have never travelled alone. Who always travel with a friend, or a husband or someone. Because travelling with someone is creating your own private memory that you get to share. A reflection on all of those times that exists in more than just a few synapses and takes on a life of its own, living and breathing because if more than one person knows it then surely it cannot just be imagination. And I understand the appeal of that. Brussels for me exists for that very reason. But I also feel a deep seated yearning to travel on my own.

The pyjamas I am wearing at the moment are soft cotton in that silky style that Bingley knows that I love; and I am not sure if I love them more for that, or the satiny bow that holds them to my hips. Or more (and I know this to be the case) for the fact that they came in a little buttoned bag with a diamanted Eiffel Tower on the front. It is very childish to love something so much for its branding. The cheap marketing attempt to appeal to the cliche of Paris. But I want to live that cliche.

I had the opportunity many years ago to go to Paris. It was a short train trip away and I was on my own. But what stopped me was that it was not quite ready yet. Paris meant something to me that I didn't quite yet understand. But that one day I would, and would appreciate the stalling. I have of course always wanted to go, in the same way I have wanted to visit Rome and London and Prague and Copenhagen. And all the other towns that I pored over in my atlas. But in the last year there has been something else, a desperate craving as if there is something my soul needs from there that I must satiate.

Perhaps it is simply turning 30 next year, and cliches about epochs and must dos and bucketlists. But I have so many things on those lists that they are not so much buckets as bath tubs (the tublist was once a fond topic of conversation with a likeminded friend).

We were chatting one day at work about had we always wanted to be doctors, after I revealed yet another incarnation of what I had wanted to be when I grew up, Mathematician, Interpreter, Archaeologist, Physicist... A conversation that spawned when I tried to discuss relative time and the jimp worthy time dilation. I felt it tingle up and down my nerves as I explained how two clocks will tick at different speeds depending on the movement of the clock through space relative to the observer and he shook his head and declared it impossible while laughing that I was lit up like a Christmas tree. And he pointedly said that I had wanted to be an awful lot of things when most people settle on just one.

And he didn't say it admiringly. Or as if it was a good thing. Or a bad thing really, it was just a statement of observation. And I thought it summed me up nicely - a haphazard molecule of attraction that wants to be part of everything, but quite happily spinning alone in its mixed metaphorical nerdy universe.

But what this little molecule wants most right now is to go to Paris for her birthday, and wear a grey coat and a red scarf and long black hair with flowers in it and take a sketch book and smudge charcoal on her cheek without noticing. To drink mulled wine from a street vendor and speak rusty French and find a boulangerie. To create a little ephemeral bauble to hang each year on the Christmas tree of memories so that when the lights are all on they sparkle in the darkness.

Flannelette

I've thought about it a couple of nights now, guiltily, because I would normally never do such a thing. And as the nights have gone on I've wanted to more. Because after coming home from the late call outs, it's often the last thing I want to do, when normally it feels so good. One of those passive stress relievers that starts the instant it touches my skin.

And tonight, my last night on call here, my last night of working in this crazy little town with some adorable people, some stoic people, some unhappy people and every other type of people there is, I decided that when my phone rang I didn't care. I got in my car to drive the 100m to the hospital in my pyjamas. And saw a patient while wearing my hoodie, my singlet and my favourite swallow dappled flannelette. And I did not care.

As I curled up in my chair with my knees under my chin and sorted out some ridiculous regime of medications I was comfy. The soft fabric against my skin soothed the prickled hairs on the back of my neck from the callout that I tried to remind myself was just as valid as any other.

Another night of being at work or working for 14+ hours. And it strikes me as odd, that I'm not only feeling relief that tomorrow night I will be sleeping in my $1000 a night getaway for Bingley's birthday, but sadness too, because I have done good here. I know I have. I have helped, I have worked hard, I have got my job done and I have done it well. I have filled in a million bits of paperwork, put in at least 100 sutures. Removed at least 10 suspicious skin lesions. Removed a tick. Treated asthma attacks. Treated anaphylaxis. Treated chest pain that was a heart attack. Treated chest pain that was reflux. Treated chest pain that was a muscle strain. Treated chest pain that was a panic attack. I have treated 2 day old babies and 97 year old ladies. And everyone in between.

I have put fluorescent drops in eyes and watched them glow under blue lights. I have injected antibiotics and put in cannulas and set up IV lines. I have strapped knees and I have glued eyebrows. I have looked in too many ears to count, at least 100, maybe twice that number. I have listened to swooshy heart beats. And mechanical valves. And systolic murmurs and mixed murmurs. I have frozen off warts and keratoses with liquid nitrogen which I got to suck out of the big pot of it in the treatment room. I have swished urine dipsticks and watched a lot of negative pregnancy tests show up. I've done pelvic exams and pap smears. Listened to so many stories of people's lives, been the first person that some have ever told about their childhood abuse and the first to try and get them help.

I've annoyed people when I wouldn't give them antibiotics for a cold, and annoyed even more when I've refused to renew temazepam prescriptions. Upset some when I suggested alternatives to opioid medications and outright refused to prescribe pseudoephedrine. But I've been listened to too, and have mostly felt that people walk out of my room getting the best treatment they could. I have held no judgement for the staggering number of STIs that I have diagnosed, and sympathised with the fears of those that come in asking for it. I have given whooping cough vaccines and prescribed a lot of antibiotics for those who have come in contact with it.

And my overwhelming impression, even having worked at least 60 hours this week already, not including the middle of the night phone calls for advice, is that I love this. And I have never been more sure in my life that this is what I should be doing. I was born for it.

494

My keyboard, because it is part of an exceptional gaming rig, illuminates so that when I'm sitting here in the darkness, in a little bubble of electronic light, I can see the keys. This is very handy because before I worked out how to turn on these subphalangeal lights I used to type sentences that looked kuje thes whisc was very unfortunate. (And was breaking my backspace key - segue, do you use backspace or delete? I am a staunch backspacer but so many people I know use delete, which I think is weird, possibly because my little finger can't reach the delete key).

It also means that on the nights when I want to totally immerse myself in what's on my screen I can, with no ambient light to distract me aside from the ghostly glow off my hands and arms as I tap away at the keys.

Some of my favourite writing has come from darkness. It's ghostlier, lonelier. IT inspires me to think about what I'm writing and to look into my own experience and thoughts instead of relying on my vision. And that's something I enjoy very much.

The other thing the illumination is useful for is the very thing for which it was invented - namely, gaming. That is, staying up late and playing online roleplaying games... Nothing is as likely to get me the polite stunned gaze as the admission that I game. That is, assuming people have ever even seen game used as a verb.

Gaming seems to conjure up images of adolescent, tumescent boys without girlfriends who needed something to sandwich in between their rabid downloading of free porn and is often viewed suspiciously. Those with slightly more idea of what it involves will tell third hand stories of a friend's auntie's cousin who lost his job and wife and had to be surgically removed from his chair after three months of World of Warcraft.

So where does a 29 year old, employed, wife and mother fit in? Well research will tell you that I will fit in quite nicely. Although traditionally women gravitate more towards the Second Life/SIMS type games, they also play the combat games too. I like to believe that all do it solely for the enjoyment, but there's obviously an element of notoriety as well, as any female who's ever joined a vent channel in an all male raid will know. It's the easiest way to meet men you've ever seen.

I play because I've always played computer games. From PitFall and RiverRaid on our old Commodore 64 I've loved strategy games and RPGs. When we first got together 10 years ago Bingley and I used to spend many a broke afternoon playing Diablo II together, levelling our characters and finding new loot and relaxing in the same way that others will in front of the latest movie. The difference with a TV and a game though is that you get to interact. It's a choose your own adventure book that you can watch like a movie.

A few years ago now, Bingley started playing Everquest, I think while I was just starting medicine. The concept fascinated me, a regular computer game where you have to finish quests and find things to get to other things and defeat bosses (pretty standard format) but where you could play with other people over the internet. People from all over the world would be logged in to this little world, and you could chat to them while slaying a dragon and wearing plate armour.

The childish imaginative side of me loved this to bits. It's a dress up party that's totally opt in or opt out. The game we play now has so many facets that there truly is something for everyone. You can potter around your house and decorate, you can make things to sell, you can quest for shinies, or you can group with others and conquer ogres and trolls and mythical beasts. And you can chat away at the same time.

I've met people from Norway, Sweden, Italy, New Zealand, England, Denmark and all around Australia from this game. After a stressful day at work where I'm wound up like a spring I can log on, blast away some gnolls and skeletons all the while chatting to an IT guy in Adelaide and an Engineer in Denmark. And I love that. It's almost totally replaced meaningless tv for me these days, because I love that interactivity. It's msn with dragons.

And yet the nerdly tag still follows me around, questioning my interpersonal skills and wondering if I've got a family sized box of cheetos next to me while laughing with a little snort and squinting through my coke bottle glasses. When the reality is I play mostly stretched out on our King lounge suite, with music in the background and my well adjusted children in bed.

Some people like to spend the evening with a glass of wine - me, I'd like a fabled set of spaulders with a spell reuse proc to increase my overall dps so I can top the parse thanks.

For fellow nerds, just in case you haven't watched this cult tv show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Pwnage it cracks me up. And Bingley cracks up at the fact that I can follow the dialogue. Apparently it's a turn on to have a wife who can use pwnage in a sentence.

The astronomer

I want to redesign my blog template, but as a Libran am paralysed by the indecision of choice. I hate unbalanced blogs and though I love the pretty blogs with lots to look at, which I appreciate most are the blogs with writing and if there are vast vats of text I prefer simple and uncluttered. It's like I'm after the balinese pagoda of blogs. Simple, elegant, relaxing and conducive for writing.

But I want something more personal, more me. Plain navy is part of my personality, but so are splashes of red. And light and dark. I don't like the way that the text box is too thin for the page, and I want to play with fonts. But again indecision. I'm sure that what will actually happen is I will have a spurt of determination and then you'll all be lumped with something irritating until I change it back.

*vaguely distracted by Beauty and the Geek "makeover" sneak peak on tv*

I had something meaningful I wanted to write about tonight but instead I'm distracted by crap tv and seriously cringeworthy crap tv at that (I am absolutely not watching ladette to lady).

*segue does Channel 9 have any other programming aside from Two and a Half Men?*

I want to write about reading, and to read about writing at the moment. I am going through an introspective phase and the need to isolate and create is very strong. Luckily this coincides nicely with my upcoming work trip and a part of me is getting really excited at getting to just be me, and not having to do the mundane bits of life for a little while.

I'm going to read my Emily books and I'm going to lie in the silence some nights and love the fact taht it is silent. I'm going to listen to the wind and play with her, and feel myself as part of the air.

And some nights I will curl up into a little ball, and wonder at the coolness of the sheets next to me, instead of warmth, and I will lie awake and wish for arms to hold me instead of the pile of books by the bed. And I know that occasionally I will revel in my aloneness, while others I will make bargains with the gods to make it all over soon.

And some days I'll just do what I'm doing now, which is crash out on the couch having only half undressed from work clothes and watch terrible tv after having eaten half a bowl of baked beans for dinner and look forward to dreams.

(Like Harry Potter comes out in 10 days!)

Nebulous

It's coming up very quickly to November, and as I've slumped in the writing department again, with little to no chance of a sojourn off on a sunny writer's jaunt to get back in the groove, it's about time for me to sign up for NaBloPoMo again. Last year I managed to do it, just. And it was very good for me. I miss writing. I love writing. When I write regularly I finish a post, press send, and exhale. It's like All that urge that's inside me to commit *something* is satiated. Even if all I've done is post a picture. Or a brief whinge. That very *somethingness*; that urge to link myself with the ability to put words together and make them mine (even, or perhaps especially, if they're not meaningful or interesting) is so important to me.

I'm sitting here at work at the moment, sitting Indian fashion on an uncomfortable chair and surfing the internet. Tired from a long shift and a long week. Looking forward to a full weekend off to be with my family. Sitting next to me here however is a photocopied piece of paper to add to my mental file of reasons why I am here. My report card from this term, looking awfully similar to the report cards I had in primary school. Columns of tick boxes with lots of different categories.

Clinical skills, Knowledge Base, Clinical Judgement, Communication, Personal and Professional Skills, Teaching, Time Management... It goes on. Usually my reports are very good. I have had one singular report that barely passed and it dented my ego and sense of self right down to the core. But in the main I have had veyr complimentary reports, the last one, for Surgery was so complimentary that I actually received a letter for my resume from the director of clinical training here. Which swelled my head and reminded me of a tiny 11 year old girl with waist length black hair who bounced home with her report and the knowledge that she could do *anything*.

But today's report is perfect. It could not be any better unless it came with diamond encrusted tickets to Paris. I am slightly embarrassed by it, thinking of the times when I know I could have done better, or worked harder. But I'm a tiny bit proud too, because I enjoy my work and I'm passionate about my work and about the patients I look after. The comments in the "free text" bit made me blush, but they're about me, and recognition of me and I find that hard to not knock down.

I am not perfect, I have so many areas to improve on, and I know that the path ahead is not going to always be easy. But right now there is a little fire inside of me, that burns so brightly and with so much heat that I can feel the flames lick along my veins. I feel irridescent, hopeful and so excited for what lays ahead of me. And if you could see my eyes you'd see the flames too, as the golden tongue of the Gleam sings.

Rhododendron

Whenever I'm feeling turbulent the one guaranteed thing to calm me down is green. Grass, trees, plants, flowers delicately bursting from the sepal. Living, breathing organisms that speak such a soft and lyrical language that only those with pointed ears can hear.

It's physiological my response to foliage. My heart rate immediately slows, my breathing deeper, my skin alive. And today I needed it.

Bingley and I went to Bunnings to spend obscene amounts of money on boring things to rebuild a wall and a fence, but as ever I wandered into the nursery section to gaze wistfully at the roses. And while there I picked up a cheap punnet of herbs. And then another. And then another. Until my trolley overflowed with scented leaves and delicate blooms. Inhaling lungfuls of orange blossom and lavender. Jasmine and roses. Rosemary and lemon thyme.

I somehow restrained myself from the grandiflora magnolia and the hydrangeas and the stunning liquid amber (having nowhere suitable to plant any). But did bring home 3 variagated varieties of azalea in deep fuschia pinks. And a lot of seedlings and a passionfruit vine.

I spent a happy couple of hours once I came home gently transplanting seedlings into pots and fertilising and mulching the soil. Chatting away to my new plants, gently holding stems of fragile seedlings and apologising for the trauma of uprooting them as I cradled them gently into the hollows in each pot. Laughing at how I must seem - singing to herbs, and stroking petals and leaves as soft as the skin of a trembling bottom lip.

I will be devastated tomorrow if the possums have ravaged my new babies. My experience in this regard has been so traumatic in the past that I brought in my roses tonight and am hoping that the large amounts of dinner that the Possum helpfully left over the floor of the verandah will keep our ravenous invaders away from my tomatoes.

I want to sit in my garden and be surrounded by perfume. To rub mint between my fingers and let the oils stain my skin. To cook with lemon thyme and to make Christmas puddings from my own oranges.

Mash

I blocked out a bit of time tonight to indulge in some writing, so of course I've been sitting here with my laptop on my lap staring off into space for 40 minutes now while my nose gets steadily colder and my nipples feel like I've accidentally stuck them in a pencil sharpener. It makes writing something meaningful somewhat difficult.

I think about writing all the time. My internal monologue is incessant, and I hear my own voice as I compose in my head like a self involved 90s melodrama. Sometimes I put words or a concept together and think I ought to write it down so I remember. But I never do, and where there should be a folder in my brain with a lot of neatly filed ideas, there instead lies a trove of random procrastination instead. Half started compositions with a handful of beautiful phrases that don't make a blog in themselves.

There are the half written thoughts about the Possum and his impossible cleverness and cuteness. How much seeing him walking around nude before his bath with his chubby pale legs looking strong and competent instead of the world's tiniest zombie drunkard makes me feel happy/sad.

The dreamy thoughts about the exact colour of the twilight dark and the light of the single star beneath a curved moon that fade rapidly into irrelevance and fancy.

The sad thoughts about confrontation with death and the smell of a body that is dying. The desperate ways those who work with death deal with it, from complete nonchalance to alcohol to denial to sex. THere's a reason all those medical shows are filled with gratuitous fucking.

The motivational thoughts of the way that skin feels when heated from effort and the air blows over it but doesn't make you shiver. The way that walking home in the dark feels on my skin and the way the shadows dance on the footpath. Simultaneously contemplating climbing the wattle tree that I have to pass to grab a gold encrusted bough to take home while wondering whether I'm being followed along the poorly lit path (and if my stethoscope would hurt if I whipped it across an assailants face having no fingernails at the moment with which to protect myself). Choosing neither and tripping over the gutter in high heels because I was watching the moon.

Half swirly thoughts of trips to Europe that get bogged in Bastille flavoured croissants and Aegean blue.

Witticisms about life and pithy commentary on social occurrences that get distracted by the startlingly bare hindquarters of my neurotic cat who Lady Macbeth-like is determined to scrub himself clean.

But instead of any of these ideas growing, and being sharable, I shiver and pretend that I'm not so cold that my nose is nearly dripping and that my life is actually far more glamorous than it is. And give you descriptions of my nipples.

F is for Fail

I have lost weight in the last few weeks, without actually trying. I stopped caring what I ate, went to the gym when I wanted and drank what I wnted and hey presto, weight loss. I still have a way to go, a depressing way to go, but I can at least fit into some of my old clothes. Including some of my favourite clothes, not just my fat day clothes.

So this morning, in a sunshine and lollipops mood, I felt like wearing one of my dresses. I have a collection of beautiful dresses (mostly red) that I adore. Almost all of them are impractical for breastfeeding, but I don't care. I selected my favourite spotty, 1940s style fitted dress, so very fitted that it snugs in on my curves without causing a single lump. It skims in and out and then has a floaty skirt that ends a few inches above my knees. It's got just enough of a slip so that you can sort of see a hint of leg, but it's not completely sheer. As you may be able to tell I adore it. It also has a deep V-neck, which is supposedly flattering on a large bust.

Anyhoo, I pulled it out this morning and put it on and after a bit of contortion realised it fit. I could do the zip all the way up the back and not one of the pearl faux buttons along the front were straining. I felt pretty and feminine and *normal* as I did my hair and danced around the house.

What I had forgotten however is that I had fed the Possum literally minutes before I got dressed. A big morning feed... One of several that the Possum has on any given morning (he clusterfeeds in the morning). But I was completely oblivious to the issues that this would cause.

After dropping the Elfling off at school, I noticed I was involuntarily tugging on the deep V of my dress to pull it up a bit. I was very absent minded though, and assumed it was just the fact that although the dress is pretty demure, it's a litle bit dressy for school drop off. And headed off to the shops...

About half way around Coles, I realised that my hand was almost glued to the front of my dress, trying to pull it up/trying to cover he heaving mass of glandular tissue below. As I walked around, every time I saw a baby, every time the Possum made a slurping sound as he munched on his fist, I would get a tingle from my collarbone to nipple and the gigantic exploding bosom would heave. And let it be known, that at 9am on a Tuesday morning, there are a lot of babies in Coles.

By the time I got to the checkout, the faint blue lines of veins were becoming visible. As I bent over to empty the trolley, the poor pubescent checkout operator looked stoically into the mid distance and turned an unbecoming shade of puce. The man behind me was very helpful and started up a polite conversation with my cleavage. It began to get painful and they were still growing. It felt like someone somewhere had a bicycle pump with which they were inflating a voodoo doll. By the time I grabbed the fruit from the Greengrocer and headed back to the car I figured that I would never need hire a jumping castle for the kids next birthday party, I would just need to delay a feed for an hour.

I finally got home a few minutes ago and managed to peel off my dress, desperately hoping that the Possum would oblige in the deflation efforts. But alack and alas, the usually ravenous booby boy had fallen asleep and snorted at my attempts to subtly woo him back into consciousness for a snack.

Anyhow, lesson learned. No more dresses, for the time being at least. And out come the F cup bras. How I have (not) missed thee.

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.

Salad

I keep starting new blog posts and then not finishing them, forgetting to save and then exiting. I go to write funny little anecdotes that I want remembered and completely forget to type them out. And then I sit here with the white box open begging me to FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY type something, and my mind goes blank. So here is a mish mash of stuff that is swirling around in my brain.

On Friday I went to our local fish and chips takeaway to buy dinner and went to the bottle-o while I waited for my order. While there taking 2 imported 6 packs of bière to the counter for LH I tripped over an errant case in the middle of an aisle, head first into a rack of red wine. Because I was born under a lucky star I broke nothing except my pride - quite a feat when one is lying on a hard floor looking up surrounded by alcohol bottles clinking away beside me.

On Thursday the Elfling asked if she could stay home as she was so tired, and had been having a hard time with the long kindy days. So we did, playing around in the sunshine, watching movies and basically not doing a lot. We then went out for dinner where she ate a few spoonfulls of dinner before stuffing herself with icecream and jellybeans.

I rode to work this mornign and only got off to push for 2 hills. One which I will always push for and one which I am hoping to master by year's end. It took me even less time again today and my fingers were 20% more frozen. I call this progress.

I had the most eclectic collection of patrons in clinic this morning, they got kookier and more bizarre as the morning went on. From the hoarder, the one with the strange affect, the hobbit and the liar they were all some of the most interesting persons I have ever met. Just goes to show that diabetes strikes everyone.

There is a lady sitting across from me at the moment chewing the zipper on her jumper. The rasp of teeth on teeth is grinding along my nerves like chalk on a blackboard.

I love having a shower in the hospital before I start the day. There is something so refreshing about it and it's not the same as having a shower as soon as I get out of bed. This makes me happy.

I have already started trying to bargain with myself so as not to have to ride every day so have implemented a rewards/bribery scheme with LH. If I ride/go to the gym 4 days a week I get to sleep in both mornings on the weekend. If 3 times, I only get 1 morning on the weekend. Less than that and he gets the full weekend worth of sleepins. May I say that this is the best bribery ever. I don't know what my weight is atm and I don't care, but I do care about sleep. I have erotic fantasies about sleep. I am a shameless sleep whore. And so he has struck gold with the "Bribe wife to do what she wants".

The only problem is that the rewards seem tipped heavily in my favour. Riding is getting heaps easier (ie I'm getting fitter), I am probably losing weight - as above haven't checked so have no idea - and I get to sleep. Pretty much win win situation. I've found that riding is heaps easier to stick to than going to the gym as well. While I love the gym, I prefer going during the day and my days are made up of going to work. They don't combine so well. But I have to go to work every morning and riding (even with shower) is now as fast or faster than catching public transport and driving. So I don't need to make a "special time" for it, it's just my "getting to work" thing.

Which makes me think that in future weeks adding the gym on top is maybe not a bad idea. Tonight I'm thinking of doing all my measurements again, including weight and posting it on here for me to be embarrassed by. I then have 16 weeks until we head off into the tropics and I have a sneaking suspicion that I need to lose about 8kg. Half a kg a week. Now being as I've come down hard on other people's obesity on this blog, it's only fair that I see that I can conquer it myself. And all you who've been tuning in can be my judge and jury, though I'd love it even more if you were to join me.

If "now is not a good time for you" then I challenge you that you're just making excuses because there will never be a good time. I am broke, I have 2 children under 4, I go to uni fulltime, I have to study, I have a husband to look after and a house to keep clean (with his help). I have a lot on my plate. You probably do too. But being unhealthy is not a choice for me, so I need to keep it up. Hope you do too.

Back later with the dreaded Olympian stats.

The Monkey continues to be blase about her near escape from serious injury and spent her day today climbing with abandon, stopping only to put her tooth through her lip before jumping up again at full sprint. There is a REASON I am not carded at the bottle-o any more, my children think independence and daredevilness is a religion.

I have been quietly going to work as has LH, and the ELfling is at the beach with Mum and Dad. I hope she's having a nice time, but I suspect that the undivided attention combined with the beach as well as her general sense of adventure is keeping her well occupied. Dad's mobile is flat so I can't contact them right at the minute and I'm missing my biggest girl.

It's awfully cold tonight, and I'm tucked up with my laptop to warm up my belly as I download etax forms ready to submit... reading blogs and sniffling slightly in the cold. My legs are spasming slightly from both the punishing I gave them this afternoon at the gym and also from the cold.

I"ve continued with my gym regimen and am enjoying it. But remembering why it's so easy to slip into denial. I missed a few days last week and the temptation to just stay home and eat puddings is strong. It really is the getting there in the first place that is my biggest mental stumbling block. Once there I have no difficulty pushing myself hard - I've added back and abdominal exercises to my weights and cardio routine - but the mind games I play on the way home from work every day are ridiculous. Especially when every afternoon as I get home with my mind worked out just as much my body. I feel so relaxed and happy. And yet every afternoon I try and think of an out.

I just wish the results would come more quickly. I'm stronger and fitter, but superficially, I wish that would show as well.

Tuesday

I'm at home today, suffering from the joy that is endometriosis armed with nurofen and panadol and carbohydrates. I had a lovely weekend past and have just started a new placement so should be there learning the ropes, but lying down with a hot laptop on my belly wins hands down today.

Saturday was spent having a family picnic up in the icy mountains before a bushwalk and obligatory fudge purchasing. The girls had a lovely time running around with rosy wind slapped cheeks and exploring hollowed out trees in our path with the Elfling desperately searching for fairies. The Monkey was so rugged up against the cold her arms stuck out like the Michelin Man but she had great fun running after the Elfling and being generally adorable.

Sunday we didn't do much besides take in turns sleeping after the Monkey had a terrible night.

Other than that I've been going to the gym, going to new hospital and trying to pretend to be smart again and devising up some fancy looking spreadsheets to track my gym habits and weight/centimetre loss. I'm a visual creature so I like having things in neat lists and graphical format. Much nicer than having the obligatory "fat photo" pinned to the fridge. Though if the carbohydrate cravings keep up it might become necessary.

I will add pictures (of graphs not me) once I have made them look nicer. I will also link my exercise timetable for the stupendously bored and/or nosy. I am trialling a block colour format so that my life can be increasingly colour coded. I am an ubernerd.

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 :)