well of course it is!

"the sales boost that will now inevitably occur..." !!

Should you have kids?

http://www.momlogic.com/2010/03/should_you_have_kids.php

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

i actually did this once. ok - not exactly, but with eerily similar overtones. and of course, i'm not a cat (i really shouldn't have to be drawing attention to this sort of detail).

the "well crap" moment i am referring to took place many years ago in my parents' house in vancouver. i still lived there so i must have been around 15. the house had an entrance on the ground floor, but the living area was on the first floor - reached by a rather steep staircase with one 90 degree turn about one-third up. there was a ceiling light above the bend, which had burned out.

my family is not the sort of family that have ladders. we don't really do diy, or gardening per se. i do, now sometimes, but growing up - these things were things that "dads in garages" did. we didn't have a garage, and if we did, my dad would have used it as ancillary book storage.

so the ceiling light had burned out, and it stayed burned out for lack of said ladder. one day, i decided that i could fix this without a ladder. i was home alone (a simple fact that would later have frightening and humiliating consequences) and bored. this was a fairly constant state of mind for me as a teenager which, looking back, would have been completely alleviated by the internet - but alas, it was 1989.

the reasoning behind my confidence lay in a thin dado rail that ran around the stairwell walls at the level of the top stair landing. i found that, in sock feet, i could balance one foot on each side of the dado railing and edge out over the stairs towards the light, crab-style. i held the replacement light bulb - gently - between my teeth, and edged out over the stairwell towards the light fitting, until i could grab it for balance. I unscrewed the defunct bulb and screwed in the new one.

"i must switch it on" i thought, and then realised to my horror that effecting the same maneuverer backwards was going to be rather more difficult - nay, impossible. i couldn't turn around on the narrow rail, and without something to grab for balance, i couldn't move without risking falling fifteen feet onto the steep staircase.

my parents, as i remember, were not as surprised as one might expect to return to their home and find their daughter balanced precariously 15 feet above the stairwell, spread-eagled, clutching the light-fitting and, it must be admitted, pretty pleased to see them. i don't remember them laughing at the time but i may have been too busy trying to get the circulation back into my numb feet.

i would love to say that's the only time i completely mis-judged spatial ratios but unfortunately that was only the beginning...

swimming swimming

...in the swimming pool
hot days cold days in the swimming pool
front stroke back stroke fancy diving too
don't you wish that you could have
nothing else to do but...

a very good swimming lesson this morning - 15 minutes of uncoordinated humiliation followed by - eureka - by jove i think i've got it! my back stroke is now passable. needs practice but passable.

i feel euphoric after these lessons - it may be just be endorphin rush but i think the joy of the pool is part of it. i've always loved swimming - i was constantly being hauled protesting out of the water swearing blind through blue lips and chattering teeth that i was not cold and should be permitted to continue.

anyways this week i shall go after work and do the grown up lane thing and we'll see how that goes. until then, back to happy aching. (oh yes, muscles i didn't know i had - that would be pretty much all of them)

arggggghh

i'm disgruntled and i have no real right nor reason to be which is not helping. an almost sore throat that won't quite go away and days of carrot sticks and apples do not a gruntle make. or something. go ask aesop.

work - still boring. even though i have a bit more to do i am so used to being bored it's hard to snap out of it. the moment has passed. i'm so over it.

new exercise regime - see sore throat above. although i did walk for ages yesterday which should count.

new resolution to eat only carrot sticks or apples for snacks instead of the calorie festival of carbs i've been entertaining every (boring) afternoon at work - what was i thinking?? no wonder i'm bloody cranky. and i'm still fat and it's been 3 whole days. gruntle gruntle gruntle.

and i can't even drown my sorrows cause it's only wednesday and i will never never get thin(er) if i keep knocking back wine at this rate. you know how long you have to run to burn off a glass of wine? don't - it'll make you cry. srsly. both the knowledge and the running.

and it's still bloody freezing out.

phooeey. ptttttbbbbttt.

that is all.

swimming lessons

literally. i just got back from my first lesson with jackie, a very patient woman who is endeavoring to teach me to swim properly. i can swim, like a fish - an ungainly fish with a propensity to cavort and do handstands. i thought i would just need a refresher on basic strokes that i learned as a kid, but it quickly became apparent that i have no idea what i'm doing. i have swallowed gallons of chlorinated water and i am already starting to ache in muscles that haven't been used for quite same time. i can certainly see why swimming is such good exercise - i'm exhausted!

i will now tuck into a marvelous full english breakfast that my beloved is cooking and undo all that hard work!

not just genocide

this term i'm doing an intensive class instead of a weekly class. it's the last class of the degree requirement (!!!) so once it's done there's just the small matter of a dissertation to research and write (*cough*) and i will be done. the class is in international criminal law and comprises 3 hours last friday evening, 7 hours yesterday and 7 hours next saturday.

"that's a long time focusing on genocide" my partner sympathised.

"oh it's not just genocide", i chirped back brightly, without thinking, "there's rape and torture too"

these are the sort of conversations that give the wrong impression when overheard in the pub.

today was spent doing not a lot. i did exit the house to walk the dog and get a paper but other than that it was all about reading, bathing, vegging and snacking, and i'm thinking longingly about bed already (time 8:35pm). ahh bed. i keep up this pretense that i will be going up early "to read" but we both know this is optimistic at best unless i can read by osmosis through the book that's fallen on my face. if we slow down as we age i'll be stationary by 50.

it's a busy week ahead filled with activities that virtually ensure i'll be drinking good wine most evenings, thus finalising my thud off of the "no alcohol from mon - thurs" wagon. but it's february for gods sake. you do what you need to survive. can't all be genocide and torture you know.

p.o.v.

via feministing.com

the original ad (i know - ads - i'm sorry. trust me though :) )



and a great response:

adbusters

this made me laugh.

sorry for the light postings - lazy, busy, lazy - hard to tell the difference sometimes.

i'm in the middle of a 19-day stretch doing moves on one of the floors in the main council building where i work - they're going amazingly well and i'm pleased but there's so much to keep in my head - i'm afraid it's leaking out all over the place. this morning i woke up at 630 am - wide-awake and slightly shivery, filled with the dread conviction that i had ordered one set of lockers too few for the property team. when i got to work i discovered that i had ordered the right amount. lockers. hardly life or death, and certainly not worth losing sleep over. like i said, my head's too full.

there's lots of fun in it too though. nothing that would translate to a page but moments all the time where you just have to laugh at what we humans can get up too. nothing like change to bring out our inner qualities!

blue moon and happy new year

it was a blue moon yesterday - that's gotta be an auspicious start to the new year and new decade. blue moons, in case you didn't know, happen when there are two full moons in one calendar month. here in the uk, last night's moon was hidden under angry clouds of sleet and obscured by howling winds, but tonight it is luminous (well of course it would be!) and huge. reminds me of a bruce cockburn lyric when he writes that "the moon was hanging so low in the sky it looked like it was trying to hatch us..."

makes me think of the singing mice in babe as well, they sang "blue moon". i am such a sucker for talking animals.

we had a good new year - we went to a dinner party at friends of ours in town. they cooked an amazing feast and we then proceeded to dance the old year out and the new one in beside a roaring fire. we're somewhat subdued today. i slept in shockingly late, then when i finally did get up i padded downstairs to get some melon slices and a cup of coffee and promptly crawled back into bed with a good book. ahh bliss.

it feels like sunday - complete with the back to school feeling that never quite leaves even though the original cause is long forgotten. i keep telling myself it's friday night but self isn't convinced by paltry calendar evidence. self will undoubtedly be elated tomorrow morning to wake up to saturday and not monday.

happy new year

may all your wishes come true (but only if they're good for you or at least really, really fun).