Dressing up to go out for half an hour when your body mass index is 17.9 and you have no money

When I dress down somehow I feel more down. If I go out looking fabulous, then I feel fabulous.

I hate to go out wearing just a t-shirt and baggy jeans, I feel like I look shabby and drab, and I feel dingy inside. I don't want to smile because I look like a scruff and I don't want anyone to see me looking so unbearably hideous.

Going out wearing a fabulous fitted shirt, and fitted trousers though, makes me feel like I'm worth a million dollars! It's true, when I feel I look great on the outside I feel good about myself and about being seen, and about whatever it is I've gone out to do. So even though today I only went out to pay a quick visit to the bank and town hall, I dressed in nicer clothes. It was only for half an hour, but so what? I feel like it could be seen by some as pointless, but for me, it's really important to look good. I mean, some days you don't have time to sew a button onto your favourite shirt and match a scarf to it before you go out, but those are just days where you might be a bit closer to the verge of tears while you're walking behind ridiculously slow people on a narrow street in the rain. That's life.

That's why it's really not much fun being -low- on precious £££. My hair is getting too long, it can only sit flat on my head, but I can't afford a haircut. I want to look good for job interviews, but the more unemployed I get, the more unemployed I'm gonna look. I can wear clothes that look nice, and fit me for the first interview, but for the second one, they have to get a bit baggier because I only have one shirt and one pair of smart trousers that actually fit me.

I'm 5'10'' and weigh about 125 lbs. That gives me a body mass index of 17.9. And apparently, that means that I am underweight. (Who knew[??]). My waist measures about 26 inches all the way around, apparently, that's not healthy. The point is, though, that it makes it difficult to buy clothes. 26 inch waist (and regular leg length) trousers for adult men are a fairly rare sight, usually, I have to conform with 28 inch waist trousers, and even those are hard to find sometimes. Tops are even worse. The only size that actually fits me is XXS, XS is too big. Once I was out clothes shopping with a friend and I had found some nice trousers and the assistant wanted to recommend me a t-shirt to go with them, so I told him my size, and he came back with an XS t-shirt. I don't think he could believe that an actual person could be too small for an XS t-shirt. I was, and am.

The result of all this, is that the vast majority of my clothes are too big for me and this can make me feel bad, the point being, that I want money to buy new clothes, that actually fit me, so I can feel better about myself. So many people say they want to be skinny. Just be careful though, cos shopping for clothes as a person as underweight as I can be a real chore. Yeah, I know, boo-hoo, poor guy is too skinny. Well, fat people aren't the only ones with problems. If you will permit me to quickly rant, in society it's generally looked upon poorly to bring up the weight of an overweight person, yet many people feel perfectly comfortable drawing attention to an underweight person's weight. While now I would not be offended at all by somebody bringing up my weight, because I am comfortable with it, just know that it can hurt to be called "too thin", just as much as I imagine it would hurt to be called "too fat."

SCRAP THIS DIET!!!

Gosh that diet was the worst thing I ever did (I'm exaggerating, I like to be dramatic)

I scrapped it a couple of weeks ago. I went to the doctor to get some prescriptions, cos I was not getting any better. If anything, I was getting worse. I obligingly removed my clothes for my (new) doctor and he basically took one look at me and told me my skin was infected. I got lots more prescriptions, and he really conveniently prescribed me 1000g of Doublebase and Epaderm (the two main emollient creams I use for my skin) which means paying less. I also got some antibiotics, Eumovate (moderate corticosteroid cream) and Dermamist Spray. Woo. The scene in the pharmacy was something like this...

So yeah, plenty to be getting on with. The steroid can really keep the eczema under wraps, but it's not something you can use in the long term because it thins the skin. I would really just like for this to go away. I'm really sick of greasing myself up every night before bed and then lying my greasy body in my greasy bed. It's just really not convenient and really not comfortable. Not to mention the morning greasing and the constant itching. My hope at the moment is that it's just gonna disappear on its own now that I am less stressed?? It's a long shot I guess, nobody really understands eczema unfortunately, so there's nothing I can do. I just have to deal with it, that's life! Luckily I have a pretty good one so I'll manage.

Oh yeah, the scrapping of the diet. This was the most fun I've had in a while. I left the doctor's and marched straight to the supermarket and went on a shopping spree... I have the receipt here...

• 4 Chocolate éclairs
• Chocolate fudge pudding
• 500g fresh tagliolini
• 1 ball of mozzarella
• 2 boxes of cubetti di pancetta
• Pitta bread
• 3 100g bars of cheap dark chocolate
• 1.2kg mature cheddar cheese
• 5 Munchies cookies
• Double cream
• Chocolate sauce
• Chocolate chips
• Tuna 
• Orange juice
• White bread
• Lloyd Grossman tomato & parmesan pasta bake sauce

And I got some fruits but that's not important. I was in heaven. Ate the whole ball of mozzarella. Ate the éclairs. Ate loads of chocolate. Heck I was beasting bread and cookies while I waited for my bus. Cooked a cheesy, creamy, tagliolini alla carbonara inspired by a Giada de Laurentiis carbonara I saw her do. All in all I was a happy boy. BUT I did learn things from the diet. I eat tons more vegetables now, and it's actually really fun!!!! Also I love steaming vegetables. I have a fruit smoothie every morning, and I love it, it's such an esay way to get fruit in. Unfermented soy products FTW (shout outs to tempeh and tamari sauce). Basically I eat a lot healthier. I still eat a lot of sweet things, but I eat a lot more fruit and veg than I ever did, and I feel much better in myself. ANYWAY, I will blog more about food soon kbai xoxoxox

I am on a diet.

[If anybody says to me "You don't need to go on a diet, you're skinny" I would like to take this opportunity to cordially remind you that going on a diet is not the same as trying to lose weight, that a skinny person is not necessarily a healthy person, and that skinny people don't always like to be reminded of how skinny they are, in the same way that fat people don't like to be reminded of their fatness.]

I was thinking of writing in my journal, but it's late and I don't wanna get out of bed to get it. And it's part of the reason I started this blog anyway, so I could write 'journal entries' without having to write in my journal.

I'm hopeful and optimistic about the future. We all have our own path to follow, and we all have to be the best person that we can be. And that's just what I want to do. I've been making major improvements to my lifestyle recently.

I recently changed my diet. This whole year so far I've been severely affected by severe eczema, which in January manifested itself stronger than ever before. It was stopping me from sleeping, I was itching constantly. I eventually made it to the doctor who gave me some creams which have been a great help in masking the symptoms so I could sleep and go about daily life easier without constantly scratching myself. They make going to bed uncomfortable, because I have to be covered in a really greasy emollient, but it's better than waking up with unbearable itching. Anyway, I recently read about a diet plan on a lady's website which she says will help naturally heal eczema:

A natural cure for eczema requires not only avoiding food allergies, but also following a complete and balanced nutritional program and including exercise, relaxation, social harmony, contentment. In short, a lifestyle in line with natural living - are necessary for complete healing of eczema through natural means.

I'm nervous about the exercising part, because when I get too hot I have a full body outbreak of the most severe itching, which is not a pleasant experience I can tell you (especially when you're with your friends in the middle of a busy nightclub and you have to walk 15 minutes to get home!). I'm going to give it a try though and go back to doing some Jane Fonda, I hope to exercise, or at least do stretching every morning. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent, I wanted to talk about the diet:

• I've had to stop eating a lot of foods I really love. I am a huge consumer of dairy, so it is really difficult for me to stop eating cheese and milk and the like.
• I used to have a bowl of sugary cereal with milk every morning. Now I am not allowed dairy or processed grains, and breakfast is raw fruit. (I have an apple and a satsuma)
• I am discovering the virtues of fermented soy products (unfermented soy is a no-go). Tamari sauce is amazing, and I am very much enjoying miso soup with its seaweedy goodness. I hope to soon discover the many uses for tempeh.
• I eat vegetables every day. The recommended diet says you should have vegetable juice for dinner every day, but I don't have a juicer and I really don't think I could do that, so I make meals with lots of fried vegetables, sometimes just dinner, but sometimes lunch too.
• I like meat, but haven't been eating it for a while due to the fact that I haven't been able to afford it. This diet recommends avoiding meat so I haven't really had a problem with this.
• Hydrogenated oils are a no-go, so I am currently searching for coconut oil or ghee to do my frying with, but I've been so far unsuccessful.
• I have a cucumber in the fridge and I'm still not sure what to do with it.
• White rice and white flour pasta are off limits. Luckily for me, brown rice tastes just fine to me, and I have been able to find wholeweat penne, fusilli and spaghetti pasta, and I don't even notice a difference in taste.
• High glycemic foods are off-limits. This includes, besides white rice and pasta, cakes and pies. I had recently gotten into the habit of baking myself cakes for consumption throughout the week, because I have a really sweet tooth and it's much cheaper to bake your own chocolate muffins than it is to buy them. That's stopped now, and I shed a tear every day for the empty box where I used to store muffins T_T
• Other things I can't (or rather, it is recommended that I shouldn't) eat include: pastry, yeast (so most bread), crisps, salt, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, food colouring, and synthetic vitamin and mineral supplements.

So in synthesis, I've had to stop eating a lot of things which I loved to eat, and am currently searching for alternatives to them (gotta be really careful with my chocolate now, also I NEED CAKE), I read the ingredients of all the foods I buy, but I feel really good about eating so much fruit and veg, and it is much easier than I thought to do.

Buses, Babs and the lengths I will go to for a reasonably-priced can of good quality hairspray

My hair is naturally straight and it is extremely fine, so au naturel it is a depressingly flat, shapeless mop on top of my head. I'd rather look like I am sporting a bird's nest to be honest. Hence I can't be without a comb and good hairspray. So anyway last week I ran out of hairspray, I use Tresemmé freeze hold, swear by it. But money is tight at the moment, could I afford 'fast drying', 'extra strong hold', 'professional quality', 'humidity resistant', 'climate controlling', 'used by professionals' hairspray? I didn't feel like I could justify it, so instead bought a 70p supermarket brand can. Bad idea. To my hair it was like Magikarp's splash... no effect. I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed, used half the can, and it did NOTHING. NO-THING. Tresemmé it is then.

The supermarket nearest my house (Sainsbury's, like 20 minutes away) carries it, but would have me pay £5 for it! Pah! I had seen it just days before in ASDA for just £3. SÃO, it was decided. I spent my afternoon getting the two buses to ASDA, to get a can of hairspray. Nothing else. And I don't feel like I wasted a single moment in doing this.


Anyway, normally when you signal a bus driver you want him to stop they'll indicate to show other vehicles, as well as your good passenger self that they are going to stop. Did the driver of the number 12 bus do this on hairspray afternoon? No. No he didn't. He didn't at all. So I signalled again at which point he was close enough for me to see him gesturing impatiently towards the bus door, was he trying to tell me it wouldn't open? Perhaps he wanted me to come and meet him halfway?? Upon the bus's arrival, I noticed the door was open, as if I should have realised that and stopped my irritating signalling -.-


Catching the bus is always sometimes interesting (even sometimes the waiting is interesting, not too often though). A regular topic of conversation in our house is the people on the number 7 bus, who we both know well from all the times we have caught the bus. We've started giving them nicknames now (well, those people whose names we haven't already found out), the nicknames began just last week as I was discussing a terrifying bus ride with "Babs", her kids, and her sister's kids running riot. It was decided that this woman's name should be "Babs" for some reason, she is loud, has loads of kids, and me and my housemate see her everywhere. When I think about the many, many hours I have spent traveling on buses, I think that it's nice I get to derive some form of enjoyment from all this time spent sitting down being ferried around the houses.


The bus drivers can also be a good topic of conversation. Also last week, one started driving away before I'd finished getting off AND I NEARLY TRIPPED. But I didn't fall over, luckily. My housemate says I should have, then I could have sued Stagecoach. She's probably right. Agck. Then the next day when I got the midnight bus home, the guy driving it looked about 80, srsly, he looked like he should have been at home tucked up in bed, asleep, like 6 hours before. His glasses were from the 1970s!!!!!!! I am not lying. And don't get me started on the ones that drive away when you've barely gotten on, though they're actually not that bad here. In Spain it's like they're really angry at you for making them stop, they're always in a serious hurry to get somewhere.


So who else have I seen on the bus, I hear you ask. (I feel like my blog is turning into a blog about the people I see on the bus D:) Well, last week I also saw a guy with wispy green hair. It was the grossest colour you can imagine. Green tinged with yellow. And wispy. It was wispy, and it made me sick. The day before I was on a bus with one other guy, with a decent haircut, but a really miserable face, and as he made his way down the gangway to get off, he did a pull up on the rings for standing passengers without a perfect sense of balance to support themselves at the front of the bus. I was like ¿¿??

WHY ARE YOUR JEANS COVERED IN ZIPS PLZ??

So today when I was walking home i saw a guy I guess you'd call him a punk? (I didn't know that term was even still relevant in 2012?) He was wearing these pants that were covered in zips, like all over. You know the ones I'm talking about? I can't even find a picture of them online. HOW DO THESE PEOPLE GET HOLD OF THESE HIDEOUS PANTS? It's a fashion I don't get. I mean the zips have no function. They're just tiny lil zips. Do these people have some kind of skin condition that means that tiny specific patches of their skin need air at certain times? Is that what the zips are for? So they can unzip different slits of their trousers at different times and let their skin breathe?? Don't they make special breathable cotton or something? Seriously though, I realize that fashion doesn't have to have function. When I put a scarf on to go to the supermarket in the middle of summer in the south of France I don't to it to keep warm, I do it to look good. But tiny zips all over your pants...... just leaves me all like "¿?"

Earlier in the day, whilst I was waiting at the bus stop I saw a guy who looked like an English version of famous Mexican vlogger Benshorts. (he's famous to me anyway...) I totally wanted to just stare at him. I mean, I suppose I couldn't really tell if he really looked like Benshorts cos he was wearing these (really nice) Police sunglasses. Do you ever wonder if people notice you staring at them?

When we finished for Easter holidays a few days ago I went out and had fun stayed up late and played Populous. There is something DEEPLY SATISFYING about engaging in tribal warfare involving magical shamans. The triumphant feeling you get as your shaman cries out the incantation to cast a volcano in the middle of your enemy's settlement is incomparable. I can't go out dancing anyway at the moment due to [mysterious] CERTAIN MEDICAL DIFFICULTIES [/mysterious]. The plus side of that though is that I can leave a shop (the chemist) with a bag full of goodies without being wracked with guilt the way I would be if I actually bought that Ybarra extra virgin olive oil, or those DKNY shirts, or that Calvin Klein underwear, or those cardigans from H&M, or a whole collection of scarves from River Island. The other great thing about the chemist is I love the people that work there. They're this group of really nice ladies. It was good cos today I got to sit around cos they had a computer fault so I had to wait from any time between five and fifteen minutes. In my head I pretended that I was part of their little group even though they don't know my name and we've never had a real conversation, although today was progress in terms of conversation as I got told I would have to wait and I got to ask how long, I felt like I was almost part of the inner circle.

So yeah, I was also reading Tomb Raider vlogs yesterday. I actually took a break from working. Feels like I've been doing nothing but translate and write essays and prepare presentations and translate and write about translating and read and translate for the past three months. Egh, DUH. Cos that's what I did for the past three months -.- So yeah I was reading these vlogs and wishing I could just sit and play Tomb Raider. Or be Lara Croft. One of the two. We'll find out which one soon.