I crawled out from beneath my rock and surveyed the horizon

Earlier, my horizon was bleak and beautiful in that misty skeletal British mid-winter sort of way. I was on the train from Euston to Manchester, happily slurping through several G&T's kindly supplied by the steward, another fellow passenger on the "it's good to soften the edges" carriage. "It makes the journey go by faster," he laughed, sneaking me another one. Which was a good thing what with points failure at Coventry delaying everything into stretched-out sameness. I'm like that on long-haul flights, too. I know it's going to be 10 hours, but 2 hours in, I look up - surprised - "I'm still here?"

So, you may have surmised, it all got a bit chaotic there for a while. The flu was bad, and it was awful and I missed a whole week of work (a first), and I didn't feel quite right for weeks afterwards. All better now though, and freshly grateful for good health.

Then parents! and christmas! and new years! and suddenly back to work and it all seems like feverish imaginings. But it was good, and fun. I'm a lucky lucky woman.

Speaking of reality bumps, poor Humph sure had one when Mom left to go back to Canada. She came well-equipped with delicious doggy-biscuits, the willingness to scratch chins without fatigue and a soft streak Humph took full and complete advantage of. She also had a way of saying "Well hello there big boy" and I think Humph fell in love. He moped for days when she left, looking up as to say - "you? who are you to compare?" He is now back to normal.

And so am I, I suppose. My new class started last night, I'm back in manchester, work is crazy and uncertain, but it's all ok.

not a good week

I'm ill. I'm not very good at being ill. I complain alot. I am currently matching Humphrey for pathetic looks and sighs. I seem to have the flu. Fever, aches, pains, sniffles (if you can call what feels like niagra falls attempting to exit my face by any means necessary "sniffles") and a deep and nasty cough that leaves me unsure of whether to clutch my head or my lungs. I wish I could clutch my lungs. I would haul them out, read them the riot act, give them a good cleaning out and pop those puppies back in with strict instructions to do better next time. luckily i do not get sick like this often, but god, does it ever suck.

We are supposed to be on the last weekend of super cleaning in prep for the parental arrivaltude next week but that is suddenly not looking so important.

and yes, the week preceding the arrival of the phlegm was also terrible. more on that later. i've run out of steam and must sleep now.......

My Optimism Runneth Over

YAYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

yup - it's been one of THOSE weeks. A few of them, actually. And now, that particular section of chaos is reprieved for two days and I feel delightfully, air-ily happy.

I managed to get home at, what these days, passes for an early hour, and I had the delight of sharing my train carriage with a group of cheery men who, one by one, disappeared with bags and reappeared dressed in outrageous costumes. One returned in full father christmas regalia, another in what could possibly be described as Studio 54 meets Blaxpoitation pimp meets a rather shocking amount of pink leopardskin. It was something. I love on-train entertainment! I have no idea where they were going but I bet they're going to have a fun weekend.

In two weeks tomorrow my lovely parents arrive from their winter wonderland of winnipeg to spend xmas with us - I am getting excited, and also am starting to panic slightly. In a good way. Events like this completely shatter my laid-back, cool veneer and expose me for the control freak that lurks beneath. This evening, I actually said the following sentence - " but that bathmat would match the towels nicely" ! I know! I am channeling my mother. Already. By the time she leaves I'll probably be painting my nails and talking about the merits of cableknit. I'll keep you posted on my transformation.

But for now, I am slurping a cheap-but-surprisingly-robust Rioja and reveling in the gloriousness that is a friday evening. Loads of reading for my next class? Well, that's later! Massive cleaning to do before parental units appear? Lots of time! Essay to research? No problem! There's still Sunday!

whoo hoo!

Dance your PhD!

What am I up to?

The usual -

kicking back with a glass of decent red, listening to the dawg snore and watching the winners of the 2008 Dance Your PhD contest.

What? You haven't seen it? Go watch! Now! You'll thank me! ('specially you, Geo!)

61% Male!!!!!

I think I've cracked it.

Go on - try for yourselves.

GenderAnalyzer

"Gender Stereotyping - Not Just for Work!"

Ha!

It is now 56% likely that my blog is written by a man. Down from 60% after that last post. I wonder what the key words are and how many of them you have to use to pass as female.

alternatively I wonder if I can pump it up by using political/economic language - lets try, yes?

elections (erections?!), voting, analysis, pundits, talk radio, culture, white house, recession, credit crunch, economics, libor rate, hoi polloi, The Financial Times, exchange rates, economy, MP, banking, CEO, CFO, cut-backs, voting, views, bull market bear market , stock market, dividend derivative, securitisation

Intangibles

...
Actual conversation at work today:
Boss: You were right, (then somewhat sarcastically) you're always right. Thats because you're a woman
Grapecat: Yes, I am always right. But not because I'm a woman, but because I'm SMART.
I should add, boss is trying to wind me up and laughed very hard at my reply.
...
According to some website that apparently analyses your writing to see if what you write is written by a male or a female (phrasing it like that does rather point to the ludicrousness of the whole thing, no?) it is 60% likely that the author of this blog is male. This is news to me. Though perhaps it explains my inherent smartness (see above). good grief.

yes of course I put my blog address in even though I knew it was a) stupid and b) arbitrary (like most gender difference crap). Inquiring minds want to know, even when they are reasonably sure it will just piss them off. Completely sure, because if it has told me that I write like a woman, I would have thought, well what does THAT mean? Maybe I don't write enough about shoes. Actually, I'm going to try that. Lets see if my womanly score improves after this:

shoes makeup shoes makeup lipstick boys boys boys dating crying chick flicks dresses skirts bras shoes shoes shoes eyeliner shoes shoes makeup makeup
.....

Thank you!

see Sarah Palin pictures

it's just like that sometimes

ARGGGGHHHRRRHHHRGH

grrrrrrrrrrr

shall i manage your expectations for you sir?

I've been busy. I know that's unoriginal, but then, so is everything else at the moment so tough. Crap poetry and stolen jokes do not a decent update make. I would promise to do better, but I would not want to raise expectations. Expectation is really one of those words you just run into at work, isn't it? In my personal experience, when anyone in management mentions "managing expectations" one should make oneself scarce, or bring protection.

However, I am now
a) alone and
b) on holiday
so perhaps the situation will improve. Once you add in
c) I'm supposed to be using this time to read, study, decide and research my essay topic for my class and generally catch up on life the universe and everything that has been happening since I've been spending what seems like 22 hours each and every day either in Manchester on the project or in a class at Birkbeck - a transition that is most definitely not yet seamless - then you can bet that I'll be displacing activity on a massive scale, hence, more blog posts. Isn't the human mind wonderful?

Yes, N has gone up to visit his uncle in Cheltenham and will be enjoying long British walks in the Cotswalds, cozy pubs, and the unadulterated joy of listening to Uncle L who sounds just like Wallace in Wallace and Grommet. But in a good way. I am holding the fort. Thankfully, Humph, our OCD rescue greyhound, has given up the bi-minutely routine - pace, stare, jump on sofa to look out window, sigh, look reproachfully at me, settle, repeat - for the time being and is now employing sad eyes (tm) from his bed in the corner interspersed with manic paw licking. There can be no mistaking the glaring reality of being considered second rate. Obviously dogs really are man's best friend.