Dear Diary,

The difference a compliment can make.

I woke up this morning and I felt so pumped by...a nice comment from a woman.

A woman I dated last year, who I sometimes message from time to time, received a pic (because I sent it to her) of me at the gym, a muscle pose (I do those now...). Juliet said to me that I was so hot looking that she would 'totally jump me'.

Which genuinely made me blush.

Okay, so, I carried that energy in me for the rest of the day.

Cut to - 4pm, I'm in a rush to finish work and leave for the gym.
Cut to - 5:30 -5:45 pm, I'm in a rush to the gym to the gym class, I've finished the programme at the men's group and now I have tuesdays free. I spend it now doing body attack classes
Cut to - 6:35 - I fuck my knee up doing a tuck jump. Ah I feel so embarrassed now. My knee is fucked and I can't do gym tomorrow.

I've spent the rest of this evening sitting down, be it at my desk or on the sofa. I ordered some cod and onion rings to salve the pain. I discovered a new fish and chip shop that Uber Eats delivers to. Oh yeah, I do a lot of deliveroo and uber eats these days.

I kept talking about how to cope with life being faced paced a few years back.

My life is finally fast paced, I'm a permanent staffer at a news organisation and I'm organising the rotas for Christmas and dealing with some HR issues and internal politics.

In the midst of all my work I feel like I have a struggle inside: a struggle to find myself, some authentic sense of self that I feel like I used to have, or is diminishing. I guess that's a myth (implied: a falsehood), but myths do have power.

Tonight I'm watching a documentary series on 'The 2000s' (Jesus Christ - really?) and I am reading through some stack of newspaper.

In so doing, I am reflecting on the importance of writing on physical paper. Yes I'm on a blog here, but I feel I am rediscovering myself through writing on paper. There's something satisfying about burning through a ream of paper full of ideas, there's a pregnancy and immanence of ink on paper, that I just do not have via computer or phone. It also helps me think differently, which helps my life at large.

I am spending a lot of time working on developing myself. Perhaps that is my sole activity outside of my job.

Time to get back to the paper.

Onwards.
(my fucking knee god damn)