Heh. My mother is coming next Wednesday so that she can help support me now that I'm depressed. (Well, she hasn't said that this is her plan but others have spilled the beans.)

A notion as endearing as it is hopelessly misguided.

At least I managed to talk her out of moving back to the UK on a semi-permanent basis in order to "make things easier for me".

On a happy note I finally finished The Hiding Place . It's a wonderful book, if sad.

There are some very termendously pleasant ways to start a day, especially a day off.
Sunlight springs to mind. Or breakfast in bed.

On the other hand a phonecall from my mother is not generally one of them, especially not when a)I haven't had enough slep or b)the conversation is going to be about things I could do to improve my physical well being and reduce the cellulitic content of my thighs.

Picture the scene:
There is a ringing noise. The ringing noise continues. Nina flails around madly trying to locate source of ringing noise and appease it. Nina has only slept for about 4 hours and has no glasses, which is why she initially mistakenly attempts to answer the remote control. After more trial and error the correct phone is picked up and answered

N: G'mhn?
Mother: I thought I'd catch you before you went off to work.
N:'s m'duh hoff
M:Oh wonderful, you can go to the gym then. I'm just ringing to tell you about these new water-aerobics exercises which will really help to tone you.

Mother then proceeds to describe these aquatic contortions none of which I retain because the sliver of my brain which is actually conscious is probably playing the alphabet game.

M:Did you get that? Make sure you keep your knees straight. Do ten minutes of that and then ten minutes of swimming and you should be doing it for at least 3 hours a week.
N:Mmmhmmmm.
M: Blah blah leg twists blah blah. blah blah knee raises blah blah left elbow blah. If you do this you could really lose a lot of weight, and really reduce the size of your bum and thighs.
N: Splendid. (mute rage)

End of phonecall.
Nina contemplates throwing the phone against the wall, relents, throws pillows instead. Shrieks incoherent remarks of wrath in several languages.

Really, I hate that. It irritates me so profoundly that I get incoherent with ire.

For fuck's sakes, why can't people just leave well enough alone? Yes, I'm not skinny but surely there are more important things in the world? And why is it that an otherwise intelligent, capable woman fails to perceive that her strategies for getting me fit have never been anything but counter-productive?

I'm doing so much better with not hating my body, and leading some semblance of a balanced life that having to explain over and over again that for me having a reasonable diet and walking to work is actually hard enough, that this is not a sign of my immaturity and that I'm doing the best I can. I get so tired and angry but if I do give in to my urges to shout at her it just tends to make things worse.

So I breathed, and vented my anger by kicking cushions and when I felt calm enough, I rang my mother back, and had a gentle conversation and reminded her yet again that it was wonderful that she knew these exercises but that right now they were not useful to me, however that it was a huge relief to know that |I'll be able to ask her if I need tips and information.

I did well, and I'm proud of myself both for managing to get my message across in a calm way that doesn't make her defensive and inhibiting own impulses for self-destructiveness.

The rest of the day was an improvement; mostly just lazed around the house reading and not doing exercise and met up with sparktastic in the eventime.

Today on the other hand has been all good, despite or possibly because of the fact that I'm on sizeable doses of painkillers for my elbow/wrist/hand. But I went to work deeply motivated and managed to get a lot done and now I'm enjoying my lunch hour in a leisurly and guiltless way.

Also because people here are nice to me. They smile. They offer cups of tea. They call me endarments and don't make impossible demands and say *thank you*. It's all most pleasant and such a nice change from Edward whose main interactions with me consisted of mocking me and/or my country and who somehow seemed to be labouring under the impression that his brash insensitivity was really boyish charm.

I feel like my mother bitches a lot about what a difficult personality I have, and how much of a headache my character is. She certainly mentions it more than once in the coursee of daily conversation.

And frankly, that's mostly a heap of shit. Because my character is pretty-damn-fucking-marvellous thank you considering how much self-restraint I exercise and how much work I put into it.

But now. I'm still the difficult, rebellious person with unreasonable emotional demands, dictatorial tendencies and emotional overreactions. And sin of sins, I don't *gasp shock* eat right , or exercise enough, or nurture my ovaries with adequately warm clothing etc.

And it makes me angry.
Or rather, it made me angry, because now I'm just stoned. Hip hip hurray for mind altering substances.

My mother has left, and I miss her. I feel like I am 12 again, or 9 and desperately afraid that in the wake of losing one parent I will lose another. Desperately afraid that I will be cast out into the world, adrift. I want and need something, which I'm not getting but I cling to her anyway in the hopes that something might change.

It's a desperate, despairing holding on, not the yearning for somebody but the idea of them.