Occasionally when I'm feeling weepy and unsure about what good my life on this earth does to anybody, all I have to remember is the state of Z's shoes and trousers before we started going out and my Life's Path It Opens Up and Shines Shinily Before Me.

It has always been a source of mystery to me how a man who displayed such exquisite taste in buying clothes and presents for me could see no problem with clothing himself in apparel that looked like it had been extracted from dumpsters and sewn by cats. The jacket of his one suit nearly came down to his knees and he owned one pair of trousers that was not:

a) baggy and misshapen
b) too short
c) too tight in the wrong part of the leg
d) designed for the riding of motorbikes
e)from the 80s.
f) from the 80s and the time when his waistline had been smaller by 4 inches or so
g) part of a tracksuit.

Z's trouser choices made me cry as much as his baggy collection of baggy t-shirts (although his shirts with the holes in the back from where he had been practicing archery IN THE HOUSE, that made me laugh). Along with all this, Z owned one pair of shoes that were not trainers or biking boots and he wore them day in day out to every occasion from job interviews to hikes in the countryside (he did this with a feeling of pride since "their endurance and versatility is exactly the reason I bought those shoes"). We come from the same country. I am as fond of footwear constructed with communist endurance in mind as anyone else. But I was also convinced it was time to expand his range.

And because H&Ms exist in the world and make things shiny and good and because Z is an essentially cheerful, easygoing person who wants to please others he let himself be steered into Brent Cross on more than one occasion during our years together and he purchased lovely fitted things of his own free will.

And then with my underground Resistance movement of throwing out stuff that looked like shit and replacing it with stuff that didn't, slowly, slowly his wardrobe reached a level of Perfect Acceptability meaning the only thing truly left to tackle was the hair on his head which grows incredibly fast and assumes alarming shapes. (And aside from you know the odd occasion where I accidentally amputated a sideburn or two while learning how to wield hairclippers thereby forcing Z to walk around for two weeks with band aids on his face in an attempt to disguise this, the Hair Taming Experiment has gone pretty well on the whole; nowadays Z has even found a local barber he is in perfect understanding with, and I'm pleased to report there have been no more sideburn casualties).

But the true revolution came in the field of shoes. And I knew I had helped make the world a better place when Z bought not one but TWO PAIRS of lovely and sexy and appropriate and smart-looking shoes. Of his own free will no less. And using his own eyes and aesthetic capacities! And without making any comments along the lines of: "Now I'll be able to go to construction sites and ballroom dancing!"

And then yesterday I reached the pinnacle of my joy when of his own free will, he bought lovely shoes over the internet. And the angels, they sang. And the unborn children they bounced as they surfed the waves of their mothers delight. And the Ninas, they rejoiced.

And the cobblers, they sat up with alert expressions. Because - Mystery the second- I am starting to suspect that Z's feet actually have secret titanium extendable claws in them, a bit like Wolverine's hands since that man he makes cobblers cry. Or you know laugh, as they extract blood money from me every six months to repair the sole, or shake their heads in mystery as they contemplate holes, HOLES! that have been gouged into the shoe's inner lining.


In other news this has been a week of Exciting Things. I started having contractions on Sunday (painful, but few and far between) which I breathed through in between finishing off various handwritten pieces of my coursework. And then on Tuesday I handed in the said coursework and there was FREEDOM, and then on Wednesday it was chiller's birthday and my waddling to the pub was rewarded by the presence of lovely peoples and chiller's glorious shiny hair.

In other news:

I am exactly 38 weeks pregnant, which means I have been lugging this child around for 35.5 of them and the last time I was pain free enough to have sex is but a distant memory of happiness and heady, innocent summer when dinosaurs entertained themselves by roaming the earth.

I saw the midwife today and she confirmed that the baby's head is nicely descending into the pelvis (3/5ths down, woo hoo!) and we worked out a communal plan of action for Getting This Child Out Of Me As Soon As Possible, Thank You, Using Natural Methods Or Black Arts, At This Point I DOn't Care, Whatever Works.

Over are the days in which I shall weep over the lack of adequate maternity trouserings. For the Universe, it has taken mercy upon me and led me to a secret maternity section in H&M and there I have discovered trousers that did not make me weep with frustration, but with JOY.

Even black trousers! Professional looking trousers evidently not made by gnomes for gnomes! Trousers that appreciate leg length, trousers whose bootcut hems doth effortlessly reach the bottom of my ankle!

The importance of this discovery cannot be overestimated, since the Presence Of Good Trousers is instrumental to my quality of life. On occasions it is the only thing that stands between me and hermitude, and certainly it's been a powerful factor in my new-found enjoyment of pregnancy despite annoying foot-swellage and ligament pain. (Although apparently nothing entertains small children quite as much as me lurching around the office like a zombie on account of tendonal agony).

I have to say, the outward belly is remaining much more compact and manageable than I dared hope despite bullying and re-routing all my internal organs.

( Two shots of the 23 week pregnancy belly )

The baby continues to enliven my working days with backflips and kickings and elbowings and the occasional rendition of Riverdance on my bladder. Although the last is not nearly as delightful as the others my bladder is a bladder made tough by long car journeys and dreadful en-route toilet conditions of childhood and it endures with fortitude. (If this doesn't give me the pelvic floor of Steel I don't know what will).

The past few weeks have been a tense emotional no-man's land between my attachment to the baby and my anxiety about pregnancy loss (founded on nothing beyond my mother's history of miscarriages and my own 'I cannot think of joy and butterflies without also thinking of disaster' imagination) but as the baby reaches its point of viability I am enjoying it more and more.

Five best pregnancy moments so far:

*The day I found out.

*My 13 week ultrasound when I saw the by-then humanoid baby wriggling and jumping and sticking its tongue out at me.

*Feeling the baby move for the first time - a curious sensation as though a giant moth were beating its wings inside me.

*Waking to a pool of sunlight, then progressing to sleepy snugglings and Z reciting a weather report to my stomach.

*Just now - the cat watching my stomach intently and gently sniffing and batting at the baby flutters under my skin.

(Sixth favourite moment - the expression on the faces of the gathered health workers as I drank a glass of champagne at a leaving do yesterday)

Hello!
Lookit! today_i_wore
I went and made a community!

And because I know lots of you share my interst in clothes/picture taking go join it and post pictures of what you are wearing. It's not about passing judgement on style (although if someone wants to ask style advice that's ok), or shape or anything, just a bit of fun. Because I know I can't be the only one who would enjoy doing this.

Hello Internet! This is what I look like today:

and if you are bored/would like to please me you too ought to take a picture of yourself in your work loo/other handy reflective surface and post it in the comments here.

Today we had various BigWigs coming to visit the office where I work, including various members of the W.H.O. (my favourite was a lady from Bolivia who came in national dress and gave me the opportunity to exercise my pidgin Spanish) so this morning I was making an unusual effort with my appearance (which included, but was not limited to application of facecream and the brushing of the hair).

Cue:
[Z: You look very pretty. There, see, I do say it. If I was a bigwig I would decide to give your organisation moneys immediately. Also, to sex you.
N: Then I could sue you for sexual harassment, and sell my story to the papers, and get a book deal, and get myself invited to the next Celebrity Big Brother]

And speaking of books, I read one which struck me as marvellous - In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Durant. I'm not a big fan of the historical novel, generally speaking - it's quite a hard genre to carry off in a way that holds my interest without getting bogged down in too much period detail but still using language which strikes me as period-appropriate. Also, as a bonus, to sprinkle the thing with sex. Sarah Durant's novel not only manages to do that, but it also includes the sack of Rome, and a narrator who is a dwarf. Lushly written, it absorbed me from the first and kept me going with its intrigue and suspense and rise and fall of its plucky courtesan.

And before that, here are some of the other things I have been up to:

1) Making an effort to be nicer to my relatives.

2) Going to my course seminars, so that I could expand my braine.

3) Getting fitted for a bra, and discovering that like all the other women in the world I have apparently been wearing the wrong bra size my whole life. There was me thinking I was 36C but the somewhat-stern-looking lady who groped me pronounced it to be 34D and that the bit about the bra straps digging into the flesh of my back was all for the good cause of hoisting my rack as near to my face as possible. I did break down and buy matching underwear she reccomended (I'm really not very good at being assertive when faced by stern-looking people who call me madam) and will wear it at some point I'm sure when I feel like having my bosoms hoisted in their lacy, lacy prisons.

Height of Comedy:

A spanish soap on the telly that's dubbed into Russian [with the Russian in question having to be spoken very very very fast to keep up with the Spanish] and where all the character's voices are done by two actors: a female for the ladies and a man for the guys. Actors who do the dubbing so faithfully that they never bother changing their voices for any of the characters.

It's so mad I adore it.

Height of Irony

You'd think that years of this would have taught me a lesson, but I'm still trying to find a correlation between the TV listings in the day's paper and what's actually ON telly and there still isn't any.

Height of Sadness

1. I have managed to locate and dig out my childhood sled [a big plastic blue thing in the shape of a concave seal - largely impractical but all the more adored for it] but THERE IS NO SNOW IN SIGHT. I feel a little how I imagine Z felt last year when he went to Canada to ski only to find it in the midst of a heat wave.
I could just WEEEP, people.

2. I have learned of a number of good filthy jokes I would love to share with you all, but alas I think they're intranslatable. Obviously you must all go and learn Serbian forthwith.

Height of Stupidity

Poking myself in the eye with my glasses just now. I should have come into this world with a warning label printed on my bum.


In other news The Mad Screaming Downstairs Lady is still Mad and Screaming although she's now also added Incoherent Incantation to her repertoire. I cannot imagine how hilarious it must be day in day out for her family.

Today my hair is very well behaved, actually. The Roots of Evil are continuing their advance, but my hair is sleek and bouncy and super brown and shiny.

Today my outfit is big fluffy blue slippers, wee pink socks, dark blue jeans, a black cotton vest and a long sleeved red shirt. I was very much in a red mood.

I would post pictures had I not forgotten the cable that connects camera to the computer in Z's house in London because that's the sort of thing I do.

I feel like my relationship is all full of good energy and happiness now that my lover has bowed to my nagging wisdom and superior sense of aesthetics, and renounced the paths of wickedness tracksuits in my presence and we're whirling through happy little spirals of joy and mutual affection.

It really was a big deal on so many levels.
1) I was finding it difficult to feel attracted to his sloppy incarnation.
2)The fact that he took on board that it bothered me and stopped doing it and now wears proper trousers when he sees me just because it makes me happy thrills me very very deeply, which in turns makes me very positively disposed towards him which in turn has meant the re-ignition of my appreciation.
3)I think my waves of happiness are beaming out and warming him so he's being happy, which makes me happy and so on.

Poor Z has had a terrible run of bad luck and been the victim of credit card fraud for the third time in like 5 months so he's in a sad state of penury overdraft and because he's poor we've just concentrated on doing things that are either free or cost as little money as possible. Basically this has added up to curling up on the sofa, watching DVDs and I was going stir crazy.

But yesterday he came over and we went out to a drink to one of the local pubs. It was a beautiful evening and we strolled beneath white and pink flowering cherry trees and I told him about one of my favourite memories from last year, of when I was coming home from work after a summer thunderstorm of unusual intensity had shaken the blossomss from the cherry trees so that literally whole streets were covered with pink and white petals as though the city were having a wedding in itself.

And we held hands and kissed passionately on street corners or really whenever the mood of appreciation hit, and afterwards sat outside the pub with our drinks and a little bowl of spiced olives and shared a cigarette. [I reason that since I cough and wheeze when I don't smoke I may as well smoke and then at least cough and wheeze with a purpose]

And we talked and laughed and the evening air was soft and just perfect and I felt completely, utterly filled with joy to the brim of me, because it was all so lovely and we must do it again. We're too young not to be going out, even if it means sipping one drink for hours.

I do feel like new life has been infused into my relationship and for that I'm very glad. I didn't like feeling distant and restless and unhappy. And now, I'm enjoying things again. I'm loving having him around, his presence in the bed, the warmth of his belly against my spine. I love the fact that I'm important enough, or he cares enough to make an effort for me and I love the little half-rituals we have developed. Him smoking by the open kitchen window, or sitting down on the edge of the tub to scrub my back while I'm in the bath [Z: "How do you do this when I'm not around?" N: I don't]. I also love the fact that I'm comfortable enough with him to let him do the latter despite the fact that sat in baths in full light my body is displayed in some of its least flattering angles.

I need to be wooed. I've realised this about myself. I need to have an infusion of both Neptune and Saturn in my relationship, and without some magic and charm I feel emotionally dead. And the fact that he is willing to make an effort for me [and keep making it] is a really really big deal.

Big enough to feel that my heart is filled with blossoming cherry trees and light.

The other day I took miss_newham by the hand and led her down the paths of righteousness Oxford Street, in search of clothes that do justice to her figure, and today I felt elated to learn that she had been shopping of her own free will. My goodness.

And then in a lovely twist of fate, I got taken in hand by my very own fairy godmother (posing as my aunt) who took me shopping for suit jackets in Zara, which was a surprisingly pleasant experience because their prices are much more decent than I realised (I got a lovely wrap cardigan for £15). My aunt is an amazingly stylish and beautiful woman so shopping with her is invariably a beautiful experience. Especially because now I have a lovely black courduroy suit jacket that curves in where it should and goes out where it should and by these beauties of tailoring reveals the fact that I have both breasts and a waist. Clothes that fit seemed to be a bit of a theme in the day - I found a perfect shirt - sheer and flowey and it fits just right which is a rare enough occurence, and I'm dizzy with delight. Unfortunately, these magnificent strokes of luck did not extend as far as finding decent bras, but I shall leave that battle for another day.

And now that I do have clothes which fit me marvellously, I'm giving away the ones which no longer do, so heads up London persuns who want to try them on.

I've gone past 40k. And now I'm tired and I'm not sure I want to finish NaNo, or write anymore. I know there is still time. I know that I could do it. But I'm just having trouble summoning up the motivation.

What Not To Wear is a Virgoan wet dream I think because it combines two elements often so beloved of Virgos (and people with Virgo Ascendants, ahem): self-improvement and practicality/usefulness. Even their site is practical as it offers style advice relating to body shapes etc.

Although I occasionally cringe at thier slightly confrontational style (and the fact that they chuck away loads of people's possessions, Cancer really quakes at that) I love Trinny and Susannah and thier work. What I love most about it is that they are essentially so pragmatic, so useful. They don't send people on these mad regimes to transform thier body shapes instead they work with the bodies that people have and help them look better in a highly realistic way. They work with a person to find something that is right for them and my GOD it's amazing. The women they work with are not small or conventionally pretty, which is why I adore the program. It's very much about humans and flaws and oh dear lord they are magicians. The changes in people are unbelievable. E.g. a woman who wore nothing but football shirts and terrible jeans and had orange hair and looked to me like a particularly unattractive dyke (and I know lots of cute dykes, so I know it's not compulsory). Frankly I was stunned that she was heterosexual and wanted to go out and meet men because the vibe she gave out was pretty asexual, and extremely impressed at her transformation into this where I think she's very pretty.

And I love clothes and I love shoes and I love transforming people, I love bringing out the potential of people. In the best of all possible worlds I'd be a hairdresser and a shoe/clothes designer who was a psychotherapist and an astrologer and Tarot reader and a writer and I'd do all that at least semi-professionally. So many interests, so little time, so much beauty that can be expressed in the world and so much in me that burns and begs to be created.

Sometimes I half-wish I could bust my head open just so all the visions trapped there could spill out across the world and be made manifest.

I do analyse and pick apart and I do notice people's clothes a lot, and I very often cringe because very often people don't seem to have a good eye for clothes, and for what suits them.

I'm not a fashionista, and nor do I dress up every day but I think I do have a pretty good eye for what suits me and what doesn't and I also find it fairly easy to see what suits other people.

Of course it is all superficial, and I'd be the first to admit I have a vain and shallow streak (euphemistically dubbed *a feeling for beauty*) and it does give me such a profound pleasure to be able to help someone feel good about themselves, feel sexy and attractive (without looking cheap). Literally it makes me glow with pleasure.

The emphasis here of course is on people who need and want that help, I avoid the trap of badgering the general population unless it happens to be my mother. Occasionally I toy with the idea that I never outgrew my Barbie Doll phase, and that's why I enjoy playing dress-up with people although I've managed to move past the urges to chop their hair or draw on thier faces with crayons.

First off warm greetings to the very pretty nanji who has re-surfaced from whichever wilderness she vanished in. Happiness and joy. Welcome back my little astro whizz. :)

and now onto more mundane events...

I went clothes shopping. :) Partially this was because my clothes were either too big or falling apart and partially because my family was willing to pay for it. Loot includes one pair of trousers, two t-shirts and a long-sleeved top.

Few things make me as happy as finding really great troosers, and these ones fit like a dream and do their best to play down the unappealing features of my legs while accenting leg length. Trinny and Susannah would be proud of me.

The T-shirts are pink. I've been in a pink phase recently. I tend to think and respond to colour a lot and pink to me has come to mean a mix of femininity and assertive attitude (depending on shade of pink), and I've been wearing it quite a lot of late.

After recent slumps I feel very good. I seem to be entering a rock-chick phase, unusual for me but a pleasant energy buzz.

I had a vivid dream about that. I was onstage and I was singing Janis Joplin's *Piece of My Heart* and some other songs I don't remember but I was very cool. In my dream my voice surprised me because I discovered I had this profound, husky, resonant voice somewhere inside me and I just let it out and had wonderful fun with it. The best part of the dream was I remember my attitude in it, very confident, didn't care what people though, I owned the stage.

My body clock is still fucked, still having trouble sleeping and thinking, but at least I have been working quite a lot. Good week in terms of clients, some very good readings which I am very deeply pleased with.

I'm finally getting to the stage of my Tarot career when I think, Yes, I'm good.

It's a great feeling.