You Can Run With Scissors....

I had lunch this week with my dearest friend, the kooky hypnotherapist, and my newest crush, the sexy acupuncturist. The hypnotherapist was telling us that she had found herself using the phrase “ you can run with scissors if you like” to someone who was finding it hard to let go of his introjected parental controls. There followed a funny and revealing discussion between the three of us about the strange things that we could do, now that we are grown-up.

Here is our list:

• I can draw on the rubber sole of my slippers with a biro (You won’t understand until you have tried it….)

• I can eat Flying Saucers until I feel sick (Actually this applies to eating anything at all, but Flying Saucers is my personal thing.)

• I can stick pins in my fingers (The sexy acupuncturist…..who hadn’t seen the connection until we pointed it out to him, proffered this. And then he was freaked out that he was acting out his childhood peccadilloes by sticking pins in other people. Spooky.)

• I can wrap an elastic band tight around my wrist and leave it there all day if I choose (This turned out to be a female thing. Kooky hypnotherapist and I were getting very excited that we had both been chastised for this as children, but sexy acupuncturist wasn’t getting it at all.)

• I can wrap an elastic band tight around my finger and watch the end of my finger go white (Variation on the above theme, but higher up the risk tariff.)
  

• I can eat pudding first, and then see if I have room for my main course (All three of us.)

• I can stand at the top of a tall stairwell and spit right down to the bottom, even if there is someone using the stairs (Sexy acupuncturist, shamelessly encouraged by kooky hypnotherapist. I disagreed, by the way.)

• I can ride my bike down stairs (My personal favourite, and I even do it in front of the children. I have even watched my son do it and then fall off. I am a bad, bad mother.)
  

• I can sew through the ends of my fingers (Again, a female thing. Notice the self harm motif emerging?)

• I can wear pyjamas all day

• I can watch ITV (this from another friend, who spent her childhood watching 'Blue Peter' whilst the rest of us watched 'Magpie', which was so much racier.)

Any more from you, dear readers?

I Love The Shipping Forecast...

My 11 yr old son and I were listening to the shipping forecast at 5am this morning. Being up before sunrise always brings out the melancholic aspect of me. I have learnt that this is a time for sadness and the darkest of thoughts. I told him that I used to listen to the World Service when he was a tiny baby, and that the shipping forecast was my favourite part of the day. Instantly soothing to me, like being swaddled tight in a blanket. I would get excited if I heard a force 10 gale, and would wait excitedly for my partner to wake so I could tell him that North Utsire had a force 10 today. He could never understand why this was so significant to me, and to be honest neither could I. I was a bit mad in those strange early days of motherhood, when your life moves around feeds and you find yourself awake when the rest of the world is slumbering.

The husky voice of the announcer said “Low Biscay 1010, low just south of Iceland 1012 and high Norway 1029 all losing their identities.” We laughed that they were losing their identities. “Perhaps they need cyclone-therapy” I said, and he laughed and laughed. He is smart and witty and I love him so much it hurts.

We drove into town through the early morning mist and I dropped him at the car park where all his school mates were waiting to climb aboard their coaches. I watched him amble across to his friends with his bag slung across his shoulder.

Don’t talk to strangers in the service stations, always stick with your friends and don’t wear your iPod when you are crossing roads I said to myself in my head as he slouched casually against one of the coaches.

I can’t bear that he is growing up. The world is full of danger and people who will hurt him. I want to wrap him up tight in his cellular blanket, as I did when I was mad and listening to the Shipping Forecast at 5 each morning.

I cried all the way home, weeping gently for my own lost childhood, not his. His world is not full of fear and danger. That was mine.

I Haven't Won Anything Since That Box Of Maltesers In The School Tombola In 1976...

I have been awarded Post of the Week by the lovely people at, er, Post of the Week. I am disproportionately excited at this news, and will celebrate tonight with a small tot of something or other. It seems only right and proper that I should make a full acceptance speech. If I start to cry and ask God to Bless America, someone please shoot me stop me.

I would firstly like to thank Ulrika-ka-ka-ka for her willingness to share so much of herself on prime time television. So much. (In fact I would suggest to her that she could now stop, if that is not too presumptuous of me.) I must of course thank the talking horse and its owner with the unfeasibly long hair (which is apparently the longest hair in the world. No really, it is.) I couldn’t have done it without them. Thank you to Channel 4, for finding that tiny slither of the sleaze market not yet covered by Channel 5, and filling it so competently. And finally my mother, who continues to contribute so persistently to my world-weariness.

I couldn’t have done it without you.

P.S. A serious thanks to Dandelion for nominating me xxx

How To Disappear Up Your Own Backside In One Easy Lesson....

I had a meeting today at one of the clinics at which I work. (Yes, on a Saturday. How bloody inconsiderate is that?) I make it a point of principle never to work on a weekend, unless I am running a workshop and getting paid for it. I had to be persuaded quite hard to attend this meeting. I have too many interesting and stimulating things to do at the weekend – like grocery shopping, laundry and housework – to be bothered schlepping in to work for insignificant conversations that could just as easily be held during the week. Anyway, for various reasons the meeting was held this morning and I was persuaded to attend.

I arrived ten minutes late. In any other circumstances one could simply say “sorry for being late” and it would all be over. But this was a room full of psychotherapists. And in a room full of psychotherapists, a big cigar is never just a big cigar.

As the meeting progressed into areas of previously uncharted tedium, my mind wandered off onto the subject of my lateness. How would my colleagues view it? I suspected thus:

The Transactional Analysts would see my behaviour as a discount, either of my significance to the group or the group’s significance to me. Either way they were probably a bit pissed off, which they would have to express in order not to enter into a symbiosis with my discounting behaviour.

The Gestalt Therapists would see it as an avoidance of contact and intimacy, by my missing the ten minutes of socialising before the meeting started. That was sure to piss them off, which they would have to express to maintain their congruence.

The Psychodynamic Therapists would hypothesise that it was either an unconscious expression of anger and resentment at having to attend the meeting in the first place, or that my ‘making an entrance’ was an unconscious expression of my grandiosity and need for attention. They wouldn’t be pissed off, because they don’t do pissed off, but they might have me sprawling on a pin at some point in the future when it is but a distant memory for me.

The Relational Therapists would be processing their counter-transference – which was almost certainly irritation – and trying to understand if I was projecting my anger onto them or inviting their anger in order to replay a historic drama. Either way, they were also pissed off but I trusted that they would be able to process this internally and only bring it up with me if they felt it was useful to our process.

The Person-Centred Counsellors would want to understand my experience of lateness, before moving to an interpretation which would be nonetheless based on an unconditional positive regard for me as a person. They are nice people.

The Cognitive-Behavioural Therapists would see that I need some adjustment to my time management skills, and that just six sessions of CBT would resolve my problem. They would be pissed off if I questioned my need for CBT.

I then realised that none of them gave a monkey’s toss that I was late, which means that I am either paranoid, narcissistic, or both. I came home and had a lie down.

More On Therapy Culture...

It took a sex therapist a little under two hours to diagnose Ulrika Johnson with sex addiction. And the defining moment, apparently, was when Ulrika admitted that ‘sex makes me feel like a different person’. The therapist stated the fucking obvious came up with the startling conclusion that Ulrika uses sex to feel better about herself. That she seeks a sense of completion through the sexual union with another. That her repeated ‘falling in love’ temporarily transforms her emotional world. No shit, Sherlock? Give her a cigar and call her Dr Freud.

I thought that this was just how we, with our human frailties and our inherent drive towards contact-in-relationship, seek to make intimate connections. Granted, it’s not the ideal way to meet all of our relational needs although – hang on to your hats here – it probably is the best way to meet our sexual needs. (Needs which, astonishingly, failed to get a mention on last night’s programme.) Yes, we sometimes use sex as a shortcut to intimacy. Yes, this is not always in our best interests. Yes, we often expect our relationships to transform our lives and feel disillusioned when they don’t. But I always thought this was a part of the human emotional landscape which may or may not require psychotherapy, depending on the impact on the individual. Silly old me. No, apparently this is a disease called sex addiction, which is soon to be an epidemic and – get this bit – requires an industry of sex addiction centres to make these people normal again. Ouch. Get thee behind me, capitalism.

And it got better. Ulrika was then invited into ‘equine-assisted psychotherapy’, complete with an ‘equine therapist’ who was either a 15-hand chestnut or a woman with unfeasibly long hair tied back in a very swishy pony tail. You know how owners start to look like their pets? She couldn't quite shoo the flies away yet, but you could imagine her practising in the privacy of her bedroom. It was not clear who was the therapist, or indeed, who actually knew what was going on here. Ulrika cried because she picked the first horse that she saw. This, observed the woman with the unfeasibly long hair, is also "her blueprint for picking a mate", thus demonstrating consummate assessment skills considering she had only known Ulrika for a few minutes.

“After these revelations, it isn’t taking much to destabilise Ulrika” said the voice over. I think we missed the boat on that one some time ago. Ulrika was then invited to tell the horse what she was feeling, which I suppose just about beats talking to a cushion.

“It is hard to believe that Ulrika has just revealed one of her deepest insecurities to a horse”, said the voice over. Hard to believe? I was wetting myself. The horse was starting to look a bit embarrassed. He’d only taken the gig to get his equity card, and he was clearly wondering whether his TV career was already over.

Ulrika was given some cod psychology by Peter, Paul and Mary about how she attempts to find herself through relationships,* prescribed a year’s abstinence and advised to ‘learn to love herself’. She then went home for a shag.

My prescription for Ulrika is to avoid the tendency of advanced capitalist cultures to attempt to manage our alienation from our core relational needs by pathologising any emotional twinge into a condition that requires treatment.

* More on this later. Yes, much more on this later.

Cartoon by Cathy Thorne at everdaypeoplecartoons.com

Blinking Thoggers Part II....

"I am not really sure what all this 'Thinking Blogger' stuff is about" Ms Melancholy, previous comments.

Caroline came up with this explanation at John Baker's Blog. Read it and weep. Is this what we have come to?

Blinking Thoggers....

I have been tagged by the consistently brilliant Not Saussure, a very sexy Tyger and the divine Charlotte with this 'Thinking Blogger' meme, started by Ilker Yolkas (I think that is his name. It might just be his favourite tipple.) Apparently I now have to tag 5 blogs that 'make me think', and they receive a 'Thinking Blogger' award too. Hooray! Hooray! Except I am too incompetent to work out how to get the award into my side bar, or even how to reproduce it here. Clearly I am not worthy of the 'Thinking Blogger' award so if you would like to withdraw it, Mr Yoldas, I would completely understand. Perhaps you could replace it with a 'Tries Hard, Bless Her' award, or even a 'Could Do Better' sticker? Or how about a hundred lines: I will take these things more seriously in future?

I know there are some dull and poorly written blogs around. But you know, if you don't like them you really don't have to read them. For that same reason I have never read the Da Vinci Code or anything by Marian Keyes. I also avoid soaps, crap sitcoms and the red tops. But I don't deny anyone else their right to indulge. For that reason I shall simply nominate the blogs that I enjoy the most. They do make me think, and they also make me laugh and feel totally OK about saying inane things in their comments box.

Top of my list would have been That's So Pants, but Not Saussure got there first. She has also just given birth to Eraserhead and is feeling poorly-sicky so may not appreciate the tag. Get well soon, lovely Ms Pants. Tyger also got in first with the slightly scary Political Umpire and the delightful YellowDuck, with whom I will be eloping as soon as The Husband gives me the nod. I would have nominated The Periodic Englishman, but he appears to have forsaken me. I am bereft. Pony Boy, please come back.....

So I nominate the lovely Caroline, at In Search Of Adam, for being so willing to share the complexities of her internal world with us all and letting us have a peak at the freakiness that is induced by having your first novel published. I heart you lots, Caroline.

Nmj at Velo-Gubbed Legs is a constant delight, not just for her remarkable capacity to manage illness without self-pity but for her wonderful writing and her ability to swear with the utmost of dignity. Keep that bastard plane in the air, nmj.

Ms Signs, at Reading The Signs for her beautiful words, her poetry and her constant reminders that there is more to this life than mere consumer capitalism.

The wonderful BoBo at BoBo Hits Back for his challenging interpretations of psychotherapy theory. This man is still a trainee, don't you know?

The beautiful Dandelion (pronounced Dand-ee-lyon) at Lonesome Ocean for her frank and honest account of her personal experiences.

And finally, Ms Stray at Daily Straying because I have just discovered her blog and I am loving it. She also makes a very good cup of tea and will milk the local goat if you ask her nicely.

That appears to be six blogs. Have I ever mentioned that I am a compulsive rule-breaker?

Here are the rules, for those of you who like that kind of thing:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.

PS Can I also add Daniel at In Wild Heaven, because he is an exceptionally clever finance officer who knows more about mental health than any of his CMHT colleagues? And that, I do believe, makes seven.

Shaggy Blog Stories....

It seems a week is a long time in Blogland. Troubled Diva has conceived, compiled and published a book whilst I have been gorging on tapas and churros in rural Spain. And it has come of something of a shock to me to find that I am one of the contributors. So, thank you to whoever nominated me, and a big thank you to Mike for including my post. (I still have no idea which post has been included, but I have a dreadful feeling it may involve me having a smear test.) I guess this is the part where I say please buy the book and all proceeds go to Comic Relief. Or I could just let you read the official press release from Scaryduck.


Order your copy from www.shaggyblogstories.co.uk

Bloggers publish book for Comic Relief.

100 bloggers have published a book to raise funds of the BBC's Comic Relief appeal on Friday 16th March.

'Shaggy Blog Stories' features hilarious contributions from Richard Herring of 'Fist of Fun' fame, BBC 6Music presenter Andrew Collins, comedian Emma Kennedy, and James Henry, scriptwriter from Channel Four's 'The Green Wing'.

Authors Abby Lee, David Belbin, Catherine Sanderson and The Guardian's Anna Pickard have also contributed pieces to the book.

The vast majority of contributions, however, are the work of many of the lesser known and unfamiliar heroes of British blogging; going under pen names such as Diamond Geezer, Scaryduck, Pandemian and Unreliable Witness.

The book is the idea of blogger Mike Atkinson who writes the 'Troubled Diva' weblog. 'Shaggy Blog Stories' features comic writing from not only the cream of British blogging, but also the best up-and-coming and undiscovered writers publishing their work on their own websites.

Giving himself a "ridiculously short" seven days from idea to finished product, Atkinson admitted that he was overwhelmed with the response, which gleaned over 300 submissions for publication.

With a pool of talented writers, and the latest publishing-on-demand technology, Shaggy Blog Stories bypasses the usual snail-paced publishing industry, and offers a mail order service to customers who will receive their finished copy within days of placing their order, and only a couple of weeks after the original idea.

"Blogging creates complex, worldwide networks of friendship and contacts on the internet", says journalist Alistair Coleman, one of Shaggy Blog Stories' contributors. "By creating a buzz about this book, we can reach out to hundreds, thousands of readers who'd be willing to part with a few quid for this very good cause. Mike's got some excellent writers on board here whose work deserves a wider audience. Everybody wins."

For details of how to order the book, visit www.shaggyblogstories.co.uk.

For the background story on the creation of Shaggy Blog Stories, take a look at www.troubled-diva.com.

TTFN

I am taking a short break, as I am in serious need of sunshine, churros and decent coffee. Please don't wrestle in the mud whilst I am away. Does anyone want any duty free bringing back?

(Photographer not referenced on website)

Sometimes I Wish I Wasn't A Therapist....(#1 of an occasional series)

We had an appointment with the building society to apply for a new mortgage. I decided to take the opportunity to book in for a smear and my ears syringing at the same time, as the GP practice is near enough the building society for it to be an efficient use of my time. My hearing has been a bit crap of late, and this is not good in a therapist. (“I’m sorry what did you say then?....No, just didn’t get the last bit….You feel….? Just that last word, again? You feel suicidal. Oh.”)

I was a bit nervous. The smear thing is fine. I have had 3 miscarriages and a baby so I am quite used to taking my knickers off for the doctor. It is almost a reflex action now when I walk into the surgery. I am worried that one day I will be introduced to a doctor at a party and I will automatically start to undress. The ear syringe is an entirely different matter though. I never put anything in my ears, and I hate doctors even looking in them through that thingy that they have. It just feels so intrusive. I know, it doesn’t quite make sense.

So I arrived for my smear and ear syringe. There are a number of jokes that can be made about this double booking, and the receptionist made several as she ticked me off on the computer. The funniest one involved me walking around for the rest of the day with wet knickers, which quite tickled her.

The practice nurse asked me in her best bedside manner which procedure I would like to ‘get over with first’, as she reached for her tray of speculums.

“The syringing” I said, and admitted to being a bit nervous. She looked at me like the numpty that I felt. I don’t know whether you have ever had your ears syringed. I can’t tell you what the instrument looks like, because I didn’t look, but I am guessing a turkey baster attached to a pumping machine. I focused hard on the tray of speculums in front of me to calm myself, and wondered why there were so many different sizes. We are not that different, surely?

“Are you okay, now?” she asked sweetly as she pumped warm water into my ear, me sitting with my head cocked on one side and slightly trembling.

“Just fine” I said bravely, although in actual fact I was feeling quite dizzy. Then I heard a thump, which was me landing on the consulting room floor. Like a delicate Victorian lady, I had fainted. How bloody embarrassing. She made me sit with my head between my legs, whilst she consoled me that I must have a very sensitive middle ear. She made soothing noises for a few minutes, which did nothing for my embarrassment, and suggested that I have the smear and come back for my ears on another occasion. I felt a bit silly, as well as nauseous, dizzy and shaky.

Knickers off. You know the procedure. Except she couldn’t find my cervix. Several insertions, change of speculum, internal examination. Still no cervix.

“I definitely have one” I said. “I’ve had a baby. He would still be in there if I didn’t have a cervix.”

More poking and prodding. This was getting uncomfortable.

“Perhaps you could try left lateral?” I suggested helpfully. (Blokes, ask a woman. I’m not explaining this one.) Left lateral worked a treat and I could finally get the hell out of there.

I rushed into the building society 20 minutes late. The Husband was in the advisors office, making small talk, and flashed me an irritated look as I was ushered in.

“I’m sorry I’m late”, I flustered, “but I had my ears syringed and I fainted – it was horrible - and then she couldn’t find my cervix!” and then I burst into tears in quite a dramatic fashion. I know it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened, but I was feeling a bit delicate. The mortgage advisor looked mortified, and went rushing off to find tissues and a glass of water. The Husband looked bemused. He is used to me. I just don’t normally do it in public.

The application went fine, with The Husband answering all the questions and me snivelling into my tissue and sipping my water. He gave all his personal details. And then my turn. Name, date of birth, occupation.

Oh fuck.

“Psychotherapist” I said, ever so quietly.

“I’m sorry?” she said. At first I thought she had said “I’m sorry”, which would have been entirely appropriate under the circumstances. But it was definitely a question.

“Psychotherapist” I said, just a tiny bit louder.

“Oh!” she said, looking both surprised and amused. The Husband smiled wryly. I knew he thought it was very funny.

“Could you spell that?” she said.

Is Competition A Necessary Evil? Discuss....

I am sorry to be so demanding of you, but there is more voting to be done over at Leesa's Battle of the Blogs.

You can vote for Ms Signs and me here.

You can vote for Ms Pants, Yellow Ducky and the Lovely Caroline here.

Nmj, Pony Boy and Mr Zhisou are not out - they are just waiting in a field for the naked mud wrestle to start.

Thank you for your patience. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

On Meeting Our Children's Needs...

I posted recently about the Internal Critic(s), and how we, as children, internalise external hostility or disapproval in an attempt to control our impulses and make our external world safe. I have been pondering since then about how that post was received by people who are also parents. We all have multiple selves who interpret the world through their own particular framework; this is most apparent for those of us who have a (real)* parent self with the responsibility of care-taking and nurturing our own children. Whilst our ‘child self' may have felt validated by the argument I presented, it is possible, if not highly likely, that our 'parent self' might feel guilty about it’s own capacity to raise a child with good self-esteem. I think a post on one strand, therefore, automatically necessitates a post on the other strand. And then Atyllah produced a wonderful post on the problems of the ‘self-esteem movement’ in the US, and how overly positive parenting is producing a generation of young people with narcissistic disorders. A lovely synchronicity.

So this post is for all parents (or prospective parents), in case you had decided you should hand your children over to the perfect parenting brigade for their own well-being.

Winnicot talked of ‘good enough parenting’ and argued convincingly that whilst small babies need parents who can anticipate and meet their needs satisfactorily, developing children need only have some of their needs met by their parents for healthy psychological growth. He argues that:

The good-enough mother...starts off with an almost complete adaptation to her infant's needs, and as time proceeds she adapts less and less completely, gradually, according to the infant's growing ability to deal with her failure... (My italics)

D.W.Winnicot (1951) Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena

Small children are by their very nature grandiose and egotistical. They wish to control their world, to ensure that their every need is met and that the world responds only to their wishes. (Of course they do. Who wouldn't? I would, if I thought I could get away with it.) Our job as parents is to ensure that we do meet their essential physical and relational needs, but, importantly, that we enable them to regulate their internal, emotional experience when we fail to meet their ego-needs. Our job, in fact, is sometimes to let them down and then allow them to feel the rage and grief that ensues.

Kohut called this a process of transmuting internalisation. He argues that failures of empathy allow the developing child the capacity to develop their own internal self-structures which will enable them to deal – bit by bit – with a world that will not respond to their every whim. In other words, if we get the basics right but screw up a bit around the edges, we give our children the best chance they can have of learning to deal with the big bad world. If we indulge their grandiosity then ultimately they develop a fragile ego and fail to cope with the real world when the time comes. If we let them down just a bit, they develop a robust ego that can cope with life’s disappointments.

The important thing is that we do this in a ‘day to day’ kind of way, rather than a ‘I’m going to teach you a lesson’ kind of way (which is why I have a great deal of difficulty with the ‘naughty step’.) If our failures of empathy are persistently punitive or hostile, our children learn another kind of lesson altogether. But we can let our children down, if this is the exception rather than the norm, because by doing so we are actually giving our children a big psychological hand up. Let's remember that children who don’t learn to move beyond their own grandiosity turn into narcissistic adults. I’m not suggesting you should beat your children into submission. But go ahead and screw up just a bit. Trust me, it’s good for them. And if you don’t believe me go and read Atyllah’s post.

*as opposed to the Parent ego state of Transactional Analysis, which we all have whether we or not we have children of our own.

Lunar Eclipse.....

The Husband has just called me from work - he is working a night shift tonight - to let me know that there is to be a full lunar eclipse at midnight tonight.

My response: "I wonder if that is why my breasts have been so sore today?" I immediately regretted saying it. It was quite a stupid thing to say, after all. I paused.

He paused for quite a long time. I know what he was thinking: how do I respond to this pseudo-feminist, neo-pagan flakiness? Do I just take the piss, or do I sound sympathetic and thus confirm my alertness to the feminine principal and my status as a new-man?

He responded with: "Yes, my breasts have been quite sore too."

Which just about covered all bases, I thought.

This Is A Test Transmission...

Please bear with me whilst I conduct a short experiment:

• My husband is extremely sexy and a wonderful and thoughtful lover.

• I love his Thai cooking. I don't at all mind that he uses every pan and utensil in the kitchen - even though Thai is classically one-pot cooking - and then fails to soak them so that the washing up takes me twice as long as it should.

• He is not untidy. His method is just different to mine* but is equally valid and shouldn't be criticised.
  

*which is to put things away when you have finished with them.

• He is not disorganised. I, on the other hand, have an obsessive-compulsive disorder and from now on shall refrain from re-organising the yoghurts in the fridge according to sell-by date.

• The top of the bedroom chest of drawers is absolutely the correct place to store piles of loose change, large numbers of receipts, credit card bills, cello strings and rosin.

• I agree that any flat surface is just fair game.

• I don't at all mind the fact that he pushes the duvet down the bed in the middle of the night and then traps it between his legs, so that I wake up in the morning curled up in a heap at the bottom of the bed in a bid to keep warm.

• Sitting on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon watching the football results definitely counts as 'work' if you have a child sitting next to you.

• Haydn's string quartets are infinitely preferable to Amy Winehouse, Ojos de Brujo or anything else you might actually be able to dance to.

• He can have a free pass for Angelina Jolie, Kate Bush and the woman who works in our local.

• I forfeit my free pass for Zidane, Robert Carlyle and Howard from Take That, thus promising a life time of monogamy.

The Husband claims that he has never read this blog. This may have something to do with the fact that when I first started writing it I said "I don't want you to read it", because I was feeling a little shy. Since then, however, I have said several times "have you read my blog, yet?" which is woman-speak for "I've changed my mind and you can read it if you like." He tells me that he hasn't. It's not that I don't believe him, just that I want to be sure. And this will surely flush him out if he is lying.