And just like I say, nothing good ever lasts
24.10.06, 8:30 pm

Argh, just sit still for five frickin� minutes and bloody well write. The herbal jollies make me so damn restless, and even now I�m sat down I�m still energetically bouncing in time to my music. Okay, I�m calm and relaxed and it�s time to talk about the new boy. Except my God, I�ve just this minute had an email from Michelle telling all us kids that she was in a car accident on Sunday, where she was sat stationary in front of a huge car transporter and a big Mercedes fell off of the top row and shunted her car from behind. She�s been left with bad whiplash and is amazingly lucky, because if the transporter had stopped any closer then the Mercedes would have landed right on top of her and probably killed her. I�ve just texted her and told her that I love her, because mush was definitely appropriate there.

I only got 5 hours� sleep last night, due to my brain just not turning off until 3 in the morning, so today and tomorrow are pretty much now a write-off. Totally unfair, but what you gonna do. Which reminds me � today officially marks 6 months of the ME. My, doesn�t time fly when you�re tired! I still hate the bastarding life-sucker with every fibre of my being, for the record, and will totally kick its ass once I figure out how to. Until then I�ll just continue to bitch about it to you lot.

Through blind luck alone I managed to make it into work, but I�m still going to chalk it up to a yay-me moment. Now, part of my job involves stripping the soft tissue off of mice spines before I x-ray them, in the fume cupboard because formalin is no one�s friend. It�s pretty unglamorous but not bad, until today when I moved onto the samples that still had the entire rib cages attached, and found that some had pairs of lungs behind them. Mice lungs are so weenie! That is the only non-gross thing I can say about it. I hope they don�t all have lungs� work becomes distinctly unfun when things remind you that you�re working on a fluffy animal and not sample 22.2L.

Okay fine, share time. This new guy that I�ve been going on numerous dates on� well I think we�re just about officially in a relationship. And man is it scary. God, what am I doing? The answer to that is: setting myself up for gut-wrenching misery and horror. My record-sheet for relationships is not healthy. I won�t bother going into details because we all have better things to do with our time, but trust me that it�s not fantastic. And it's because I am the most unsuited person to relationships ever. No really, I am ridiculously independent and have huge problems with sharing upsetting stuff and always believe that people will just up and leave one day.

I�m being really flippant; it�s actually causing quite a bit of inner turmoil. We went out for tapas last night (I ate a whole deep-fried baby squid including tentacles) and it was lovely and good, and then I got back into the flat and started feeling all unsettled and worried. He is a truly lovely guy though, and we have masses of fun. And he calls me �gorgeous�. The only person ever to have called me that is Paddy. But I'm still fretting.

The other secret that I�ve put off admitting is that the ME is making my anxiety gig come out of hibernation. I swear it�s like poison, quietly slipping inside your system and spreading. I had got to the point where it didn�t affect me anymore, but obviously my body now behaves differently and I�m losing my control again. The ME makes me not good with temperature changes, any kind of exercise, standing up too quickly, and the anxiety gig has just jumped all over that and dug its claws in. I actually visualise it as a little creature with claws, scratching at my back and whispering things in my ear. Obviously it�s not as bad as it was before, but� erm, some kind of dismissive it�s fine comment. No I�m sure it will be fine; it�s just some days it feels the complete opposite.

I have done the rubbishiest job ever of explaining the whole new guy stuff. Part of the problem is that even I don�t really know how I feel, and I have so many thoughts that all conflict and generally crash around my head banging into each other. One good thing though is that I finally feel like I�ve moved on from Paddy. I�ll always carry a torch for him, but he doesn�t make me miserable anymore. That�s something at least.

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