Body

The other night, looking in the mirror, I had a revelation:
Yes, I may be heavier than the societally accepted ideal, but I'm lucky to be an hourglass shape with awesome curves. I'm happy with my body.
Then the following morning, faced with a closer inspection of dry skin etc., I decided I needed renovating from the ground up.

My body image, as I'm sure a lot of you will relate to, is like using a trampoline that is also a functional set of scales: I'm up and down way too often to get an accurate reading. Some days I feel like this:

Did somebody order a Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

And others, I feel like this:

Did somebody say fudge cake?

And that, as near as I can tell, is totally normal.

 The thing is, beauty comes from healthiness and happiness. If you've got both of those, the rest is just taking care of yourself... I've been realising more and more lately that the 'healthiness' side of my life needs a lot of work. All pizza and no exercise makes Jack a fat boy. And Anna a lazy girl.

I don't want to be the slovenly kind of person who never does anything because it's too difficult.

Anyway, I've finally liberated my poor bike, which hasn't been ridden in a year and a half. It's been to Punk Bikes for some TLC, so I just need to get on that, in every sense! At least if I'm actually doing something, whatever shape and size I am, I won't have shame about it. Being ashamed of your body is ten times worse than having a few extra pounds.

Recap

I really have been neglecting you, haven't I. I'm very sorry about that. I think it's because my life is full of people now, so I rarely feel the need to reach out to the internet.

It all changed rather abruptly; I moved in with a friend from uni and his housemates, and suddenly it was as if I'd pushed off downhill in a shopping trolley. Sometimes the road steepens and sometimes it levels out, sometimes the road is especially bumpy, but I love the ride. And extended metaphors.

There's a lot of things I can't write about for privacy reasons. This blog is connected to my real identity and pseudonyms wouldn't protect the anonymity of anyone who knows me and my my friends, so to a certain extent I've had to curtail my desire to write about my experiences.

Let's see, what shape is my life right now...
I work in retail, in a job with great customers. It doesn't earn me much because it's only around two shifts a week. I'm also working as a volunteer for a Cardiff-based publishing company! I've mentioned that, I'm sure, but it's great and exciting and scary and stressful all at once.
Every week we have Drunken Sunday, where loads of our friends come over and we talk, drink, laugh and generally make merry. Drunkenness entirely optional, of course. Sometimes I'm in the middle of everything, flirting outrageously and loving the attention, and sometimes I sit in the corner and just smile because I feel so lucky to be there.

I am, you know. Very lucky. My friends are passionate, interesting, talented people, and easy on the eye to boot! Truth be told, sometimes I feel unworthy. The ol' self-esteem is kind of at an ebb right now. So it goes. I've gained a bit of weight over the past year due to not cycling any more (some helpful person put Ben's 5-digit lock on my bike, so it needs some trial-and-error codebreaking and an awful lot of TLC before I take it back out on the road). It shouldn't matter, and it's not like I think I'm ugly, but every time I see my body I'm disappointed and low. Such a shame. With a bit more confidence, I'd be having a lot more fun!

I am having fun though. Trying new things, going on adventures... On Monday morning (after two hours' sleep and a Drunken Sunday), I went up Garth mountain with my friends. Admittedly I was, er, bringing up the rear - as I say, I'm not in great shape at the best of times - but I made it up eventually and thoroughly enjoyed the whole day. And the night was just magical. It's rare to feel that close to a group of people.

I hope you're all well, and again, I'm sorry for the rather lacklustre attempts at blogging lately. You deserve better. I'll try to up my game!

Love,
A x

Round-up time

I haven't really updated people on my life in a while. One of the reasons I started blogging was so that old friends could check in on me and see how I was doing. With that in mind, this is what I've been doing lately:

I've started that photography course! The first day was on Tuesday. It was fun, explained things nice and clearly, and I've got high hopes for the coming few weeks. At on point we were left to roam the streets for a while taking photos with a particular theme in mind, and this was a LOT more fun than ambling about by myself! I took this one during that free-range half hour:

We're going to get some dark-room time at some point, which I was very excited about until I actually saw it. Red lighting is possibly the creepiest lighting imaginable.

I've been getting to the gym more regularly, which is already making a difference. I still feel fat and wobbly, but at least I can do sit-ups now! No kidding, I couldn't do one the first time I went. I plan on getting better, especially now that the gauntlet's been thrown down...

Oh bring it ON. I know what Gavin's thinking now. He's fearing the moment we get to the gym, I lie down, and say (with a glint in my eye) "How many can Rich do? HOW MANY?!" From what I know of Rich, it can only end with one of us dead. So if you know Rich, you might want to say your goodbyes.

I went to this thing called Trydan today. It's pronounced "trudd-en," for no good reason other than that it's Welsh *shrug*. Crazy language, I'm telling you. Anyway, it's basically a Cardiff social media café (nerdy people talking), and it's fantastic! I finally got to meet @carlmorris, who is a lovely and very interesting chap. I'm thinking of getting on the Wiki and suggesting that we introduce board games to the process... we meet at the Juno Lounge, which conveniently provides board games! Must check that out. I'd love to run a connect-4 tournament. Or Chess Wars! Amazing.

Right! the other thing I wanted to do was catch up on all the "interesting thing of the days" that I've been steadily accruing and forgetting to share. So, with apologies for the link bombardment, here we go:

Tweenbots. Little cardboard robots that need human help to get to their destination. I like to see it as evidence of basic human goodness.
Freakangels. I'm nothing short of ashamed that I haven't posted this before. It's a stunning online graphic novel (worlds apart from a webcomic). The art and story are superb, and the fact that its creator is a mad bastard should not dissuade you from enjoying it. It may even enhance the experience.
Datamancer. I've written about steampunk before, and Datamancer's breathtaking computer mods have come to epitomise steampunk design for many. I mean, c'mon, look at this laptop. It's a thing of beauty!

Run. I posted a link to this on my Twitter, it's a simple and addictive flash game. I can't finish level 50, and that knowledge will gnaw at my soul for all eternity... click at your own risk!

Alright, I think that's your lot, hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon.

Blank pages

It's a constant source of frustration to me that my idea-times and my blank-post-open times never quite seem to coincide. I try to keep a text document with which to share my inspirational nuggets, but once the ideas go in there, they have a nasty tendency to wither and die, once again forcing me to post a guilt update consisting mostly of links and pictures. (Not that there's anything wrong with links and pictures; it's just that you're unlikely to think to yourself, "My word, that was a well-written link. And those pictures! Why, that's the equivalent of 3,000 words! Truly, this is something I must share with all my friends and facebook friends.")

One of the reasons for this is that I only open up a blank post with which to fill with my genius at ridiculous 0'clock in the morning (which for the uninitiated is after bedtime o'clock, but long before maybe-this-counts-as-getting-up-early o'clock), a habit that tends to cause every original and creative brain cell in my skull to shrivel and whimper softly to themselves.

Part of it is that I'm just out of practise. I haven't been writing as much since I started struggling with uni work, favouring instead the relatively easy point and click of my beloved camera. I'm not saying that photography is easier than writing; merely that it's about a million times easier if you have no idea what you're doing. Which I don't.

On that note... I'm planning to go on a photography course, if I can get my butt in gear. And, with a similar butt-in-gear proviso, I also intend to take up dance classes. That is so unlike me... I've spent the vast majority of my life trying to avoid any and all forms of strenuous physical activity, possibly explaining why I haven't flunked out of Starfleet Academy (surely the best euphemism ever). Fnarr fnarr, etc. I don't know what kind of dance classes to take, but I confess to being intrigued by the possibility of pole-dancing lessons. I hear you've got to have great muscle tone, which I do not. I never succesfully managed to climb the rope in those dreaded PE lessons in middle school. Perhaps I'm setting my sights too high and should just chain myself to a treadmill until I'm thin?

Yes, that's another thing that's been on my mind lately... excess blubber. I can no longer dismiss it as Christmas weight, or hope that if I just ignore it it will go away. The temptation is not to mention it to you lovely people, so that nobody will notice if I fail to lose any of it, but maybe a bit of pressure is what I need. Besies, it's high time I took up some form of exercise.

Besides, what is 2009 if not a blank state? I should make of it what I will.

And with that metaphor I segue seamlessly back to my starting point. Did you see how I did that? Ohyeah. I'm good.