The Back is Back

I have a bad back. Bad enough for it to stop me sleeping, and even painful enough to go in search of a massage to relieve the pain. It worked for about 30 mins, but it hurts once again. I am now dreading my flight to New York. Planes are uncomfortable enough when you are feeling 100%, when you're not they can be total hell.

Dread is an unusual thing to feel with regards to flying, because usually I love it. I'm one of those people that actually likes airports. I like to wander around them. Watch people embarking on one of their saved for family trips, resented work travel, or emotional reunions. I also enjoy the limbo like quality. People can't phone me, I can't really be asked to do much, and there's no pressure to be a 'good person'. You can hardly exercise or eat well, so it's a welcome relief to just pootle round shops, read Vanity Fair and drink rank airplane wine with lunch at 11.00am.

And one day, one day, I will get an upgrade. ARE YOU LISTENING BRITISH AIRWAYS? No, thought not.

Vampire OCD

Having watched the first few episodes of HBO's new drama, True Blood, I am now a fangbanger too. In that I'm a fan. I don't actually think vampires do exist, so I can't really be a bona fide groupie. Yet. As it's not yet out in the U.K. a brief explanation is needed. 1) It's an Alan Ball of Six Feet Under fame project, 2) It's based on a series of books that are way better than Twilight, and 3) It's great.

Unlike other Vampire related series on TV or the printed page there is none of this no sex rule. So, consequently, True Blood, and the books themselves written by Charlaine Harris are very sexy. Having read the first Sookie Stackhouse mystery and passed it on to my Mum, who loved it too, I have ordered to next 5 in the series. Being a bit of a Vampire aficionado I personally think that both the TV series and the first book are great. It's not that I don't love Buffy - I do, I do, I do, it's just that True Blood is set in the grown up world. Not high school. Being 30 I now feel quite uncomfortable getting my kicks from Vampires as analogy for teenage hormonal quandaries. Plus Bill is fit. Angel always looked like a bit of a meat head.

Reaching Critical Stuffness

It has come to the time where I have realised that whilst I have the capacity to acquire more, my one bedroomed flat no longer agrees with me. Every conceivable surface is taken up. My clothes don't fit in my wardrobe or rails, shoe boxes lie everywhere and books are piled high despite with 16 x 16 foot of book cases that is chock a block with them.

Listening to a programme about compulsive hoarders I snorted, thinking at least I'm not exactly collecting my fecal matter in ice cream boxes...but they mentioned one woman who doesn't throw away water bottles. A quick glance down by my bedside revealed about 15 different bottles - from Dubai, India, funny ones that say "Women's Water" that I bought in a health food store in Australia and hulked back with me. You see if I get a nice water bottle - no not a Nalgene or a Sigg, just a plastic bottle, I keep it. It's nice. I get upset at the thought of throwing it away. I think I have a problem.

But, this isn't about giving stuff away, crushing your possessions or not buying things for a year. This is my celebration of stuff, and my never ending desire for more - more clothes, more TV, more magazines, more books that teach me useless facts to triumph at pub quiz, more countries to visit (29 and counting).

What will I do? The solution no doubt awaits in a storage special of Elle Decoration.