some thoughts from October 2003:

I should have an affair to get over that affair that never worked out.
Shall I go shopping with my overdraft this weekend or should I just go straight to the pub?
Maybe I'll throw another sickie today. I hate this job.
I wonder if my boyfriend will come home/get a job/stop fucking other women.

some thoughts from October 2005:

Check me out with my wholemeal homemade wraps for lunch.
Hey I got paid loads this week, I can afford to buy some bathroom cleaning products.
Boy, am I ever glad I threw out everything I owned on the weekend and reduced my next house move to three (count 'em!) three box files and a holdall full of clothes.
Hmmm, I should maybe stay til 6 and catch up on all this paperwork ...
... or I could come in for 8 tomorrow.

Class last night was okay, though what I'd written was a bit pants and I knew it. We had to write a monologue, and I'd cannibalised something I did ages ago and it could have been a lot better if I'd not written it in a panic on the train in the morning. I know, I said I wouldn't do that, but hey. Leopards, spots, you know. But we did get to split into groups and my group got the room with food in - huzzah! I ate approx. one million crabsticks. We didn't dare open the wine though.

Next week it's dialogue we have to write (we're doing character development.) Our tutor suggested we read some Hemingway short stories last week and this week she mentioned 'Hills Like White Elephants' so I thought I'd give it a go on the train this morning. Luckily I have a boyfriend with the sort of bed that you can't get to unless you've navigated five or six towers of books so I'd already got hold of a copy. There is a possibility I have waited my whole life to write that sentence. Anyway, dialogue, Hills Like White Elephants and so on.

I read it on the train this morning. I cried a little bit, although whether I was crying because of the subject matter or whether I was crying because Ernest Hemingway had written what I was planning to write for my homework 77 years ago I'm not sure. Way to go Ernest, what am I supposed to turn in now? So I need a new idea.

Also, a woman got on at East Dulwich and made several mobile calls in various degrees of tears (it was a very miserable train, our train this morning) because (I listened all the way to London Bridge) she had thrown out the man she lived with (although I didn't ascertain why) and although she knew it was right it was still a shock. I got a proper look at her as I was getting off the train. She was wearing  a wedding band. And instead of feeling terrible for her (although to be fair I did wonder if I could sneak a note into her bag along the lines of 'all men are bastards') I was thinking, hmmmm, this could work, one of those conversations. I'd better write it down.

I am blue. I am very low and I'll tell you why. It is because I have been reading and writing. I don't like my mind very much and I don't much like going in there and maybe I should just stop. This is one of the reasons I gave up uni and the whole reason I give up pretty much any writing project I start. My life is great, I've got enough money to see my friends once in a while and eat out and have a couple of pints. My boyfriend, well, see above. I'm healthy and I (whisper it) quite enjoy coming to work. Why am I putting myself through the wringer for something that isn't going to make me any money and is, quite frankly, a bloody load of hard work? Maybe it's just because it's three hours work on top of a full day at work and I'm waking up in the dark and going home in the dark and what have you. I don't know.

But anyway I feel like shit so don't talk to me, okay? I'll be alright in a bit.

... I'm at work being yelled at by:

a) my colleague who's just come back off hols (I don't blame her, I'd be the same.)
b) the photocopier engineer for breaking the photocopier (hello? I called you - I didn't break it, you tit!)
c) lost first year students who thought they had a lecture at nine (it's at ten! TEN!)

When with the quickest of phone calls I could actually have been:

a) still in bed,
b) with my lover,
c) probably eating a fried egg sandwich.

I could cry, I really could. Being responsible sucks.

I reread my old Octobers the other day (I really love myself way too much - what do you do for entertainment? why I read my diary, of course...) and am pleased to report that I have lost one stone and three pounds since 2003. Look, slow and steady wins the race, alright? By 2008 I hope to have reached a healthy weight for my height and to have stopped wheezing quite so much every time I turn over in bed.

I put this down to 1) moving to London and having to walk everywhere 2) eating a hell of a lot better than I ever did before (and never eating after 7 cos I can't be arsed to get back out of bed. Bedsit living rocks.) 3) general increase in happiness and 4) coming off The Pill. I was, in fact, so pleased I went and bought a belt. I actually need a belt for my trousers now. Quite a big belt, but anyway, check me out.

I've been doing such sensible things like making my own lunches (saving money and eating well), coming to work on time (ahem), walking to my writing class, considering (hell, give me a break, it's a step) considering braving the swimming pool (it's a two minute walk from my house. Not 'a two minute walk' - actually one hundred and twenty seconds away from my front door.) Such sensible things.

Then on Thursday I lost the plot and since then I've skipped meals and eaten terrible meals and replaced meals with lager and all sorts of shenanigans. So I shall compile a list of shame and never do it again (why that's a healthy relationship you've got with food there Emma. Why thank you, dear Reader, I thought so too.)

I've eaten:

My dinner (soup with bread) followed by a bit of my friends dinner (veg and rice) followed by one (admittedly, mini) chicken burger at half past midnight
Banana, yoghurt, cereal
One packet salt and vinegar crisps
Gigantic bowl goats cheese tortellini and pesto

Full English (eggs, beans, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns, fried bread, two slices white bread)
(Admittedly not very big) bowl cheapass pasta and pesto and tomatoes
One slice greasy Leicester Square pizza

Double fried egg sandwich
Four (four!! Well, they're so small...) Mars Delights
Gigantic ham salad sandwich
Half a pizza, more salad

Yoghurt, cereal

Which, okay, is not that bad, especially when you factor in all the exercise (well, I say exercise - I danced a bit at London Loves and my boyfriend spent the weekend with me) but when you consider I also drank the following:

one small bottle orange tango
one pint semi-skimmed milk
approx. two litres pure orange juice
approx. one gallon lager
two glasses white wine
approx. half a litre of vodka
approx. one family size bottle lemonade
and a mouthful of gross out pineapple pop that turned out to be 'pineapple flavour' and made of just water, sugar, and neon food colouring. Bleeeurgh.

I think I have every reason to suck my teeth and shake my head sadly.

But I did, as per, have a lovely weekend. If I saw you at London Loves, sorry, I was drunk.

This was also the weekend I cracked the funniest joke in the history of the world on the platform at Streatham station (seriously, there should be a blue plaque there - I'm still laughing now. Though obviously I can't retell it as a) you'll pull a face and b) you had to be there) and the weekend my boyfriend learned how to dance like a horse by watching some shrink wrapped go go dancers.

Or something.

Life is sweet.

If you find you've not done your writing homework (write some dialogue) on the morning of the class do not, repeat, do not think 'hey, me and my boy are funny fuckers. I will just transcribe one of our more interesting conversations.'

Because during the critical feedback you will discover:

"I love the guy, I could really picture him."
"I liked the way he revealed a lot but didn't say much."
"Yes, he was great and very funny."
"A real case of still waters run deep, I thought."

"The girl needed a slap!"
"Yeah, I felt she wasn't as well realised as he was."
"I thought she was far too flippant when he was trying to be serious."
"She didn't seem as adult as he did, she had some growing up to do."

Harrumph!