see more Lolcats and funny pictures

balancing the books

i read something in the paper last weekend - i think in the money section, another article about how the recession is hitting men harder than women (if you count this only in terms of job losses), and how some women were now the primary earners in their relationships and how stressed out this made them feel.

at the time i thought, 'huh', (direct quote), and read the rest of the paper, but it's been niggling. for one thing, what a completely hetero-normative analysis. for another thing, the guardian (the paper in question) continually trots out this sort of gender stuff without questioning it and it's really getting on my nerves.

but it also made me think - wait a minute - i've been the primary earner in my relationship for ages - i've earned more than my partner for at least a decade and for the last few years we have lived solely on my income. am i supposed to feel stressed out about this? maybe i do and i just hadn't realised. goodness knows i have enough to be stressed about - it would be plausible to mis-attribute sometimes. as you can see, i can be very suggestible at times.

i've thought about it off and on for a few days, and i've come to the conclusion that no, i don't feel stressed out about it in the least. but it still niggled.

this evening, i was updating my budget spreadsheet. i have to keep track of everything - it's the only way to make things work and make sure we spend money on what we want to, not just piddle it away on wine and take-outs (not to mention books - ahem.) i balanced out the spreadsheet against my online account and checked that we were on track for this month and next month. we are, i smiled, and logged out of my account.

then it hit me - what i feel about being a primary earner isn't stress, it's pride. kind of what men, when questioned, often say they feel.

why wouldn't women feel the same way? why shouldn't they?

new carpet!!!

old carpet:




new carpet: (with gratuitous laser eye dog)



it's not patterned. it's soft and squishy. it's positively dreamy. to paraphrase jan and dean, i'm in love with the new rug in school.

when we came to the oast to pick up the keys all those years ago, we were met with the startling sight of a man on his hands and knees carefully cutting out a burn mark (old tenants apparently did not believe in ironing boards). he was filling this in with a piece of carpet that our new landlord proudly informed us he had kept from his original fit out. you know, back in 1970 something. we didn't say anything because frankly we just wanted the keys and the moving van was coming the next day but as we walked back to the train station we were both like WTF??? this was without a doubt the ugliest carpet we had seen in a house ever. and this guy kept a piece for repairs?

turns out that was just the tip of the iceberg but we love our oast. the landlord, john, died several years ago, and his wife is much more pragmatic. we have been extraordinarily lucky with our housing and with our landlords. and best of all, the hated carpet is now consigned to someone's allotment.

seen on train last night

i first saw this guy on the tube - it was packed and this man had tons of luggage and this giant stuffed bear. then he ended up sitting in the seats across from me on my train home to kent. just before i got off i asked him if i could take a picture of his bear and he smiled and said "of course".

it's crazy busy at the moment - big projects at work, tough move this weekend with some serious crap going down (literally - building manager wouldn't allow me to use the lifts so my poor, but very strong and tough removal men had to take everything down the stairs, and then the plans were wrong and i was short 25 metres of filing. arggghhh).

classes started last week too - my class this year is fantastic - i'm so excited about it.

but now, tired. i need to go to bed, but i've only been home for 2 hours and i want to stay up! i feel like a five-year-old. if i were a dog, i'd be on the second turn just before i flop over and fall asleep half way across my bed.

thump.

???

from yesterday's Guardian:

Three pensioners were today jailed for up to nine years for their part in a £60m cannabis smuggling operation. Derek Mercer, 70, of south Norwood, south-east London, was sentenced to eight years; John Rowe, also 70, of Bethnal Green, east London, got seven years; and Wattie Soutter, 68, of Rotherhithe, south-east London, received nine-and-a-half years. The cannabis, disguised as frozen chickens, was imported from the Netherlands to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Police recovered two tonnes of the drug, and the court heard there had been 12 previous shipments. Two accomplices were also jailed.

emphases mine, of course.

happy october

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

book reorganisation

not mine, blessedly. mine are perfectly (un)organised. but this made me laugh so hard i almost spilled my wine in the bath!

lucy mangan on reorganising her books with her husband:

We work for a while in silence. Eventually the room is mazed with books. "It looks like postwar Europe," he says as we unpack the final box. "Borders mean nothing any more, and everyone is looking to a higher authority to help them out. So… what kind of system are you planning on? Simple alphabetical order? Chronological within alphabetical? Maybe a moderated form of Dewey Decimal? I do most of mine by publisher, but then the colophon was my only childhood friend."

"None of the above," I say. "It goes 'Fiction', 'Non-fiction'. Read and unread within each of those. Within each 'unread' there will be 'Really want to read', 'Quite want to read', 'Not quite sure why I bought this' and 'Accidentally bought this twice – this is the spare.' Then a shelf for 'Lovely books' – that's my Folio Societies and my Persephones and occasional other volumes whose beauty trumps their read/unread status. And here, maybe on a special shelf all of its own, I'm going to put Bridget. And call it social history. OK?"

up late

ha - not even midnight! years past this was considered going out hour. how things change. now it's the latest i've been up in about 6 weeks (excluding lisbon of course). working weekends kills your night life.

my night life tonight is solitary - n's gone to bed. not quite solitary - humph is perturbed that his nocturnal idyll is being disturbed in such reckless fashion and is harumphing and rolling his eyes.

i am looking forward to two glorious days off and it has completely gone to my head. it's the secret joy of working weekends - when you work loads in a row, and have one off, it feels like heaven.

here's some pics from the day - this is looking out the window of the Town Hall Extension, Camden at St Pancras in the sunset-


this is re-patching the comms cab for the move:


humph has given up and gone to sleep - and i will too - soon -

autumn

it's very very autumn today. it rained all day. it's dark.

sigh.

and this from someone who loves autumn. generally. when it's not being boorish and cracking dumb jokes and whispering behind your back. flirting with raindrops and howling with mirth.

and knitting is hard, goddamit.

my life at work

from a fantastic TED talk (check them out) by Emily Levine:

a girl is in the car with her elderly mother driving when she goes through a red light. the girl,worried about her mother's reaction, doesn't want to say anything (like - what are you doing - you're too old to drive) so she keeps quiet. her mother goes through a second red light. the girl says, tentatively, "mom - do you realise you just went through two red lights?" the mother looks at her in alarm and says, "what?? i'm driving???"

btw i am the girl in this analogy. i think i am, anyways