10:58am and the day is basically over.

(Warning: this entry does not bring out my good side.)

I can tell today is basically not going to go anywhere. No plans, should therefore be reading or something - The Secret History, or the book of Russian poetry I bought a few weeks ago, or something out of the pile of Books I Have To Read For School. I've come to terms with the fact that I probably won't get round to reading Caesar because he's intensely boring and I can't get through a page without wanting to sleep, even when I read it aloud in the slightly nasal voice I always imagined Caesar would have (don't ask me why). There's other things as well, a pile of books Mr L gave me, and a tonne of books to do with my individual assignment for history that I promised myself I would read and maybe even take notes on. OR I could do something else. I could write a poem! I started one last night, but then realised that as I was writing it the only thing that was going through my mind was whether or not it would sound good read aloud at open mic, and it hit me that I was deliberately writing a very open-mic-ish poem, and I wasn't sure whether I liked this and got confused and stopped and watched All About My Mother instead. That's a point, I could watch a film. Or I could call someone. Or tidy my room. Or get dressed.

There are a million and one things I could be doing, but no, instead I'm spiralling into a pit of self-diagnosis on Google, reading articles I don't understand about voltarol emulgel, biting my fingernails, calling my dad in Russia ("Do you know if aromatherapy can help?" "No." "Oh, OK. Um. Bye then.") and basically driving myself up the wall and let's not even go into what I saw on Google Images.

There are some days when you wake up and you may as well have "I AM A NEUROTIC MESS PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME" worn as a sign around your neck. Today is one of those days.

It's just...(OK, I don't want this blog to be a whingefest and I promise not to go on about this too much, in fact I will shut up as soon as I've typed this, but) the last time I wasn't injured in some way, be it the Back Pain Of Last Summer or the Ten-Month Foot Problem or the current Random Knee That Really Has No Business Being Strained, I Haven't Done Anything That Could Possibly Have Led To A Strain, For God's Sake...well, it was May 2006. I've been in some kind of pain - yeah, OK, MODERATE pain, I'm aware that I'm not DYING, thanks - for over a year. And it's getting boring.

I'm bored of worrying about which gel to use when, or if such-and-such a pill is going to have funny side effects, or if wearing a certain pair of shoes is going to leave me unable to walk by the end of the day, or, or, or, or, OR.

And yes, you may point out, "But Annie, have you not noticed that the more you worry about this kind of crap the worse it seems to get? That actually about half the problem seems to be that you could probably get a First from Oxford in Making Mountains Out Of Mole-Hills, that NOBODY ELSE is as obsessive as you are about it, that the real problem is not voltarol emulgel's inability to fix your knee, or the fact that your back might - MIGHT - be getting worse again, or anything else, but that you choose to sit here and panic about stuff that hasn't happened yet? Annie, don't you think it's time you got a grip?"

And you would be absolutely right.

And it wouldn't make any difference.