The Self-Esteem Dalek

Well...that's it then...

Don't know what hit me early this week, it was like being slapped in the face with an Exhaustion Shovel. My week, which had been going quite well - walks down the Trail etc - suddenly got a reverberating CLANNNNNNG!!! in the face that lasted three days.
Felt like I had no energy whatsoever, like I couldn't move, and being conscious was too much effort.
Which made its presence felt in what was, ultimately a reasonably minimal weight-gain on Tuesday - up a pound and a quarter - but of course when you were 18st 12.75, going up a pound and a quarter has symbolic importance, because what you actually do at that point is look 19 goddamned stone in the face again.

Seemed to get some of my mojo back yesterday, but none of it really translated into exercise as I did a day in Starbucks.
Tonight, I've been hit with a Self-Esteem Dalek. In fact, I've probably been hit by a self-esteem Dalek Supreme.

Tomorrow, d and I decamp for a long weekend in London. I'd booked us a hotel, but last night, d went looking and found us a different one, with a pool.

Yes, I realise this is macho bullshit, but that didn't do my self-esteem much good and I had a sulk about it, mainly because I spend my life in a state of constant overthinking and - despite blogging appearances to the contrary - actually constant underspeaking, meaning the only place most of the thinking plays out is within the walls of my own skull. I had naturally overthought the choice of hotel, whirring factors in my brain like little neurotic Nijinskys...and when I say the factors...OK, let's just do this as a thought-experiment.
Old or new?
Conference or townhouse?
a) Charm - townhouse.
b) Likelihood of many stairs, no lifts - so conference.
Location - distance from train station for Monday morning.
Location - distance from West End for returning from show.
Facilities:
a) Room size
b) ratings for cleanliness
c) option for hypoalergenic bedding
d) view potential
e) potential shortness of walking distance to eating locations
f) potential gym/pool availability
Price
a) Not so expensive that it becomes a financial worry in terms of "can we afford this? Really?"
b) Not so cheap that it gives off the message: "Hey, it's been ten years, beeatch, the romance is gone!"
Ambience
a) Not naff corporate schtick, but also
b) Nothing that says "I'm shallow and just wanna stay in bed the whole weekend"


I'm paraphrasing, and cutting the factors down just a little so you don't think I'm COMPLETELY insane, but imagine all these factors whizzing round the inside of my head for a week and a half, further complicated by Customer Reviews - thank you, hotel comparison websites, for that little bit of additional choice-related hell, and you begin to get the faintest glimpse of the kind of shit that goes on in my head every...conscious...second of the day.

Last night, d found a hotel that I'd discounted on both of the location criteria, canceled my booking, and booked the new one. And it's better in lots of ways - did I mention the pool? Also happens to be a shedload cheaper, and have breakfast thrown in. But as is the way with men all over the planet (even my ego won't allow me to think I'm in any way special), in trying to consider every conceivable factor to get it "right", I'd got it, if not exactly wrong, then less right than was possible, simply by not being in the brain of the person I'm trying to please. d of course owns that brain, and so with a handful of clicks it was done - better place, cheaper room, job's a good 'un, sorted. But suffice it to say, I did have a good old proper sulk about it last night. Did you catch the bit where this kind of crap is going through my brain every conscious second of the day?

Anyhow, tonight we went out for dinner with Ma, who's newly returned from a mini-break of her own and it was good to catch up but it meant that we didn't begin packing for the mini-break till late in the night.

Did I mention the new hotel has a pool?

Haven't been in a pool for quite some time. d had dug out one pair of my swimming trunks - the ones from a point somewhere along the downdrive of the Disappearing, where I was losing.
I can't even get them all the way to the top of my legs.

That, ladies and gentlemen, that right there is the Self-Esteem Dalek. That little bastard shot me alllllll to fuck and drove me here to moan and bitch to you lot, in the hope of exorcising the damn thing before morning, cos I can't take the Self-Esteem Dalek on our break with me, I just can't.
So at some point tomorrow, we're going to have to spend precious minutes or even hours of our time away together looking for Really Huge Fat Bastard Swimming Trunks again.

Shhhhhhhhexy, no?

Turning my back on the Self-Esteem Dalek now, and going to try and freakin' sleep.