Thursday

The majority of people I interact with on Blogger already follow Danielle at Sometimes Sweet, but for those of you who don't, I recommend you click your way over to a blog called 182 Days, which Danielle recommended the other day. This is the blog of Danielle's friend Crystal, who has ovarian cancer. She's only recently started, but I had a quick read through just now and I adore her honesty.

"The cancer card refers to me being able to rock my baby smooth head at my apartment office and write a late rent check with no fees (true story). There are some perks to having cancer. I swear to God people like me more now that I have cancer. Sometimes though, I pull the cancer card in shitty situations. Like when I’m fighting with the lover and I just scream “I HAVE FUCKING CANCER DAMMIT!” Not cool, admittedly, but all it really means is “I HAVE WAY BIGGER THINGS GOING ON AND THIS FIGHT IS RETARDED!” We all have bigger things going on, and maybe if we treated everyone like they had cancer all the time the world would be all kinds of warm and fuzzy."

On a slightly related note (cancer) I went to a funeral yesterday, for the mother of a girl I would definitely call a close friend. Unfortunately, as has happened with more and more of my friends recently, we no longer live in the same city, so I haven't seen her in a long time. I really regret how little time I have spent with my friend in the past couple of years- it's never been impossible to go and see her, but the little things just continually got in the way. The circumstances surrounding the death are incredibly tragic and I just wish I had made more of an effort to be there for her. I'm old enough now to have worked out who my true friends are, and I need to damn well be there for them, as they've been there for me in the past.

I really want 2011 to be a year where I have my priorities in order. Especially now that I'm in a job I adore (have been there over a month now and things are going wonderful!), I can easily leave work at the door at the end of each day, and focus on other things that are important- friends, family, artwork. As good as things are, I really do feel a little miserable about the fact that almost all my closest friends have moved to different cities in the past year or two. I'm making it my mission to keep in better touch with those people, but also to work on friendships with people who are still here in town. Step one? Already have drinks and dinner dates planned for tomorrow (Friday evening) with two different friends. Seems this goal will be much easier to achieve than my New Year ones!

So far I have managed to take my medication ALMOST every day, but that's about the extent of my success. I don't have scales, so the weight one is a bit impossible to measure at this stage. I sort of just envisage waiting until my next rheumatology appointment, and seeing what the difference is from last year's number (not pretty). However, in saying all this, I have definitely improved my fitness just by walking up and down Plimmer Steps a couple of times a day, and walking to the shops etc. I'm embarrassed to say that before I switched jobs I used to have to stop half way up the Steps to catch my breath, but now can power up quite easily, even with bags of shopping. So, even if I haven't actually lost kilos, that's a definite improvement! I still eat a lot of shit food, however much less than I used to in the height of winter... I don't feel disgusted with myself anymore anyway, so that's the most important thing... right?