Dear Diary,

I used to run a blog, from the perspective of being a philosophy grad student.

Now I just haven't posted in ages.

I've thought about re-starting it.

I had this idea of myself as some kind of public intellectual, a future academic, a future talking head.

A few people I knew from uni and from other circles have become talking heads. It's quite nice to see them on the telly.

I've not ended up in their path. I have however, worked and do work with people who are public intellectuals and talking head, which is very cool. Very cool to know of their existence and for them to know of mine.

I've been soul searching over the past few days: thinking about my fears and my future.

Sometimes when I'm at parties I realise: there's someone who I don't talk to or don't bother to talk to, the more I don't bother to talk to them the more I realise I have a problem with talking to them. I feel like I have a problem with doing small talk or introducing myself or just finding conversation with people.

It's difficult. I need to feel in my mind that ability to feel safe with a person and in my mind know what they might want to talk about. To an extent that requires me to 'read' a person. Some people I can't read. With many people I feel like I see them as versions of myself. Today I asked the picture editor how his trip to Canada was. Pic Ed said it was great. I asked a follow up: what were your highlights? PicEd spoke of the eagles, the woods, the air and the snow. Really sounds stunning.

Last friday I went to comicon. I felt so good. I stripped off to my vest and did some muscle posing with Thor's Mjolnir and Aquaman's 'quindent' weapon. Loads of people on my facebook and instagram loved it - including my colleagues (and my bosses!) That felt weird. But also: it was positive energy. Everyone who saw it had a laugh, I had a laugh, we all had a chuckle. It just felt unadulterated niceness.

That gave me a bit of energy. I spontaneously decided to go on an OKC date on the saturday last week. It was below average but I am glad I tried. Sunday I did the big gym routine: 5 hours, 4000kcal, utterly punishing, but I also felt like I really achieved something. I also felt like I cleared out some cobwebs from my mind. Today (Monday-Tuesday) I can really feel the consequences of it. There's like a purity to my mind after doing lots of gym and pushing myself.

I also need to learn how to relax and rest and do self care kind of things.

I left work early, after things started to get busy and I realised my work load was...a bit much.

When I got home I slow cooked some meat (bought earlier from the Waitrose deli). I did a bit of reading, watched a lot of streaming tv today and I said to myself: okay so it's 8pm now. I propose that I'll sit at my desk from now until 2am to just work flat out on various things ('life admin'/planning).

I barely scratched the surface but I'm up to date on my data entry.

Oh boy I realise how much shit I set for myself.

Let's talk about other stuff:

• Mum and Dad: they are okay, but we had a worry about a family friend tonight who was 'missing' for a bit. This guy has bipolar and a while back he started to lose a grip on reality and they had to put him on some serious meds. Turned out that he was in a local cafe until 11pm and didn't realise that was 'unusual behaviour' that worried his wife
• Finances: I need to work more on this but I'm starting to seriously fund the Mortgage savings account. I've put some things into place (money here and there) to get that savings up. I now realise that I have significantly less 'disposable income' now that I'm really saving the fuck up
• Mortgages/housing market: I'm looking for a one bedroom in the area where I grew up. It will cost about 1/3 of the house that I currently live in but do not own. I see some flats that I wouldn't hate living in: one bedrooms with a reception room and a toilet. I think that will do for me. I've started to notice that flat that fit the bill are going down in price. Case in point: a one bedroom I saw for 280k on the shop front, turned out to be 260k on the website 5 days later. I might be able to afford something in the under 300k range.
• Work: My job predominantly involves rota planning. However I'm really behind on the admin side lately. I really really need to catch up. I finally tidied up my desk and that helps my motivation. I'm working on work life balance at the moment. Leaving early helps; the clocks going forward (and earlier sunset) does not. 
• Mental health: If I'm honest, my anxiety manifests in ways that are entirely unrelated to my mood. This makes admitting mental health issues a bit more easy. My body and my brain are highly strung. It says nothing of me as a person. We've gone really far in mental health. I need to get more done about getting better.