Hmmmmm pizza

First pizza today for the first time in ... I dunno how long !

That's crazy ! A confirmed pizza addict who hasn't had pizza for so long it's gone from memory ? Quick ! Better check outside to see if the porcine aviators are making a midnight flight.

So ... What's happening ?

Personally, I'm getting better and worse. The skin's improving, although I'm definitely not out of the woods yet. There's a few patches that like to stay bad. Places like ankles where socks and shoes tend to rub. Crazy thing is, the soles of my work shoes are starting to wear out already and I've not even recovered from breaking those in yet ! There's a few other bad patches too but on the whole, when I give it chance, it's gradually fixing.

Yey me.

My head's in a much better place than before Xmas too. I was badly drained mentally and worn out. Now ... the crazy is happily coming out again. It's a state of being where if a snag hits, I can bounce and work my way around it. It's a state of mind where I can (mostly) ignore the pain from a very unhappy knee and a rather sore back. Yep, my back feels like it's had concrete poured down the spinal column and my knee has been close to collapsing under me a few times this week.

But ... the state of mind helps me battle through instead of letting the injury dominate.

It does help having people around me who help out that state of mind. I've gone through some weird phases at work where the atmosphere has been very strange. I've not known who to trust, not known whether what I say to one person about another would end up being passed on. I've known people who have been spreading malicious gossip about my friends. I had management that had no consistency or logic in how my priorities were set. Sometimes those priorities would shift every day in a week and without any consistency with what had come through.

That's what tends to really mess me up. (The person in question has gone now, although his conduct on the project caused a massive amount of damage, with your's truly being used as a conduit because our colleagues in other organisations started refusing to talk to him).

Oh my - this post is going in a completely different direction to what was intended ...

Anyway - from being quite possibly on the verge of a nervous breakdown 18 months ago, my mental state has much improved and some of that is because I've had confidence placed in what I can do and consistency in what I'm asked to do. I will say though that the work stress had nothing to do with my skin problem erupting, that actually really started after that certain person got moved on.

What was I looking to talk about ?

I've had an account on an online dating site for quite a while now. I have a fairly detailed (yep, tis a wall of text) profile on there. I haven't talked to many people on there though because :
There's a few special people at work I've had my eye on for years
The skin thing put a severe dampener on thoughts of engaging with anyone on there

I have been quite curious about how people present themselves on there however. A profile on an online dating site should really be something where you're selling yourself to the outside world. It should present you as someone of interest. Things I've noticed :

Profiles so bare they look like a blank canvas. Opinion ? They're boring ! The reason I have my eye on certain people is because they can keep up with me on my mad days which means they have their own brand of crazy/interesting/intelligence.

Pictures of people in their 20s that look like they're in their 50s. Ouch. There's a few people who have done an incredible amount of damage to themselves and use pictures that are seriously unflattering.

Aside thought - I can see the beauty in everything and anything. Even if you convinced you're ugly, I will see and cherish the hidden beauty. Everybody has it, even if they can't see it themselves. That said though, there's a few people who are otherwise beautiful who find a way of marring that beauty, commonly by treating everything they touch with absolute disdain and lack of courtesy.

Pictures ? There's pictures of people in full on Thunder Face Scowling. That's one example of beauty being marred by attitude. Would I look at the profile of someone who's chosen face tells me they're likely to henpeck dominate everything I do ? Nope.

Smiles ! For all the Thunder Faces, there's SunSmileys. I spot some pictures when I'm scrolling down and get caught by the twinkling smile or the eyes. And then I torture myself by saying to myself "Why don't you say hello ?"

A smile or an eye twinkle can be a wonderful thing. It can transform a face that would otherwise be seen as plain into a stunning example of beauty.

There's the booze fuelled pictures. Ok, it's an example of how they get their kicks but some are ... Let's say I'd want to hunt down all the copies and destroy them ;-)

Girlie pictures with a bloke in. I tend to block the people who put these in. When I do find someone, I want them to be someone who will give me as much attention as I give them. And I can be extremely single minded. I'll stay up unable to sleep thinking about people. I'll worry about the potential anorexia case at work. I'll hope that a miniwave isn't a symptom of depression weighing someone down. I'll be on tenterhooks for confirmation that someone got home safe after a team night out (the particular example came after the Jo Yeates murder, the person shared a lot of physical characteristics and I watch too many TV things about serial killers - I was worried). Anyway, if there's a bloke in the picture with them, I take it as a sign that there's someone else who'd be involved.

Anyway - online dating. Not taken it further than actually looking at the pictures. That's another thing that's been on hold while I repair and get healthy again.

But there's also knowing a few people who share their own type of beauty with me daily at work. And that includes the one who I put in a state of confusion by being transfixed by her smile. Hey ! I do the Meerkat-Look-Up-And-Grin, they can't help themselves and smile back and this one doesn't realise how dazzling her smile actually is.

Wonder if she'll come along at a leaving drinks scheduled for a couple of weeks time ? Hope so. And I hope that I'll be in a state that lets me come out and join them for a while.

PS My pic on there got taken at Lords cricket ground. It was very sunny, I had that Grin out and I was wearing decent clothes. It shows my general size and shape and ... I think it's a good pic. For me at least ... I don't photograph particularly well !