Finally Friday

(I promise next week I won't be so cheesy and alliterate all my post headings...! Just feeling a little uninspired this week.)

So, this morning I was 121.4 - it's looking unlikely that I'm going to be 120 by tomorrow, but I'll do my best. Last night I went into London to meet some of A's friends with whom he's setting up a business on the side of his "normal" job. I was really nervous about going because one of the people there was this Turkish girl, we'll call her T, whom I'd never met before. She's an interior designer, which to me is probably the most attractive job a woman can have, and combined with my impression of her as really exotic and beautiful and witty and gracious (ok, I may have fabricated parts of this impression - there's only so much you can figure out by Facebook stalking...), I was just dreading it. I thought it was going to be really uncomfortable,  that I would feel stupid and ugly and insignificant next to her, that she would blow A away with loads of creative ideas for the business, and he would find himself regretting marrying some dull academic like me. (I know, I know, did someone say paranoid..?)

Anyway, she turned out to be quite nice, and quite normal. She was pretty, but not a Giselle-esque goddess, and she had some good and some bad ideas. She didn't seem to be any more witty or engaging than anyone else I'd met, and A didn't even seem fazed by her. I'd had a bit of a nervous meltdown in the street just before going to the shisha bar where they were meeting, and A was pretty unimpressed by that. After meeting her I was left feeling pretty sheepish about my paranoia, as usual.

She left early so A and I and the other guy, we'll call him Y, and his girlfriend, K (anyone else getting confused..?) went to this *amazing* restaurant in Camden, called Gilgamesh. The whole thing - walls, ceiling, furniture - was elaborately carved wood, and they had this huge spiral staircase... it was just beautiful. Plus the food was amazing. It was kind of Thai/Chinese, and we shared 3 dishes between the 4 of us, so I think I didn't do badly. I did kind of insist on one of the dishes being steamed greens, and then when the waitress suggested we get some fried rice I asked her to bring steamed instead, without really checking that the others were ok with that... but they seemed to be.

It's unbelievably frustrating to me that other women have this effect on me. Well, not all women. When Y unexpectedly invited his girlfriend K that wasn't a problem at all. It's only if I've known for weeks in advance that some other girl is going to be on the scene, then I stew about it all that time and build her up into this paragon of perfection in my mind, and convince myself that I'll be total shit in comparison. It's such a destructive thing to do, but I don't know how to get over it :( I should probably ask the CBT therapist for some help, but I'm so embarrassed about it.

In weight-related news, food and exercise are both going reasonably well. Tonight I'm having dinner at my mom's house - it's my parents' 33rd wedding anniversary but my dad's in Germany on business, so I told mom I'd go have dinner with her so she's not on her own. I'd planned to cook for her, control-freak-style, but she wants to cook, so I'll have to try not to sabotage my efforts too much. I've been really encouraged by some of your blogs, so keep writing :) Thanks for all your lovely comments, and for the tips about making toning exercises more interesting - I'll try some of your suggestions out this weekend and see how they go.

I hope you all have a fun and restful weekend and keep edging closer to your goals!