Fat

I feel fat today. Notice I said feel, not look, because I believe fatness is, or at least can be, an emotional state. I mean I don't think I look much fatter than usual - I just did an hour and a half's dance class so logically I should not look fatter than usual.
No, fat is definitely a state of mind. I have excess mental activity and deficient physical output. I am a thinker, for certain, but this detracts from my ability to be a doer. I am not by nature a doer. I don't do half the things I say I will, leaving me with a persistent sensation that I really could be the greatest thing in the world...if only I could be bothered.
What is it that prevents us from enacting all the amazing plans in our head? Why do nine out of ten of my friends rate "procrastination" as one of their primary talents? Why do we constantly sabotage ourselves from being better, doing better, feeling better?

My "to do list" runs from here to eternity, including items such as "Call IKEA" [see previous entry], "Change uni enrolments" and "Clean desk" right through to "Go for run!!" "Call Jenna!!!" [incredibly close friend who have not spoken to since New Year's] and "Book tickets for STC show!!!!!!" Why do I never do these things? Why are my days instead spent watching Friends reruns when there are things to be done, problems to be solved, lives to be lived?
What the fuck are we so afraid of?

The vagaries of IKEA

Anyone who knows me should probably know that one of my favourite places in the world is IKEA. I love the boxes. I love the way that everything goes cleverly with everything else. I love the fact that everything is labelled and indexed, leaving no room for confusion. I love the idea that with enough purchases, my life could stop being one endless search for keys/bobby pins/bank statements/meaning and instead be a luxurious and enjoyable wander through various stages of the day - cooking, studying, dressing, entertaining, travelling, etc.
Going to IKEA tends to make me feel pretty relaxed. I just like looking at all the pretty things. I find it soothing. And reassauring. I like telling myself that, one day, in the imaginary future, sometime around the time I become a respected actor and find myself in a loving and stable relationship and capable of paying bills on time, my house too will be a series of clean lines and well ordered magazines; extensive bookshelves and interesting art; comfortable couches and a wellstocked kitchen; clothes on hangers instead of my floor, and all the associated glory that comes with said.
However, after spending four hours in the place yesterday, surrounded by boxes of all shapes and colours, I think my passion has temporarily faded. For one thing, the whole reason I went to IKEA was to buy a desk. I knew which desk I wanted. (My next favourite thing to visiting IKEA is reading the catologue.) I went to the desk section. Damn desk is sold out. I mean, when does IKEA sell out of anything? Most discouraging. Then I bought a bedside table, and a lot of boxes, the uses of which are contingent on me building this bookshelf that I bought from IKEA sometime just after I came home - September probably. The bookshelf IN ITSELF is a WHOLE SEPERATE ISSUE (why did I get it in dark brown when everything else in my room is a pale beech colour???). And currently my room is just knee deep in boxes, packed and unpacked, of clothes that need to be altered, bookshelves that need to be created, photos that need to be stored and such a dazzling array of miscellaneous paperwork I hardly know what to do with myself.
The chasm (I think this is my new favourite word) between my dream home (compartmentalised) and the reality (shit spewing out of drawers and cupboards as though it were genetically mutated and trying to take over the world) is so depressing as to actually make me simply want to crawl into bed (IKEA sheets, naturally) surrounded by a pile of junk, and just...disappear.

Just hypothetically

What do you do when you think you know exactly how you want your life to go but you know that, essentially, it's not really up to you?
What if you can see all these amazing, perfect things in your hypothetical future?
What if none of them come true? What are you left with then? Were the dreams foolish? Or was it in fact you who was foolish for not chasing the damn dreams to begin with? For waiting for them to chase you?
This may seem like a solid contender to win the Statement of the Bleeding Obvious 2008 gold medal, but it is only really dawning on me - in a real, meaningful, fist in my gut sort of way - that I can't imagine my life into perfection. That creating conversations in my head does not lead to their eventuality. And that all I do by doing so is create an even greater and more dangerous chasm between reality and...whatever it is I think I'm headed towards.
It might not happen. It probably won't happen. But what will happen? And why does it scare me so much?