On Meeting A Stray And A Badger...

My meeting with Stray came via email, following a post about a smear test I seem to recall. It passed without incident.

I met Badger a few weeks later, introduced by Stray via her blog roll. Enjoyable indeed, but still without controversy.

So how I wish I wish I wish I had met them first in the flesh and not the cyber world. As their housemate did. Read it here. And then see if you dare visit them ever again.

PS Not only has Badger won the coveted Post of the Week for her post on Tourette's, but Stray has won the coveted GBA(S)Fiction festival, over at The Moon Topples. Such talent, and all under the one roof.

Wingardium Leviosa...

This new technology still baffles me. I can barely understand how words and pictures can be stored on what is basically a cheap piece of plastic. I certainly don't understand how information can spirit its way through the ether and land on someone else's laptop. It still amazes me that I can send a document to someone and it can arrive there seconds later, without me schlepping out to the post office to photocopy it, put a stamp on it, find out a week later it hasn't arrived and then go through the whole damn process again. I feel like my mother trying to programme our 1980s video recorder. I don't like not knowing how things work, but I fear I will never get my head around this World Wide Webulator malarkey. It may as well be magic.

My son spends half of his time living with his lovely dad, eight miles away from my house. He is now at secondary school - I still call it 'big school' much to his disdain - which means that lovely dad and I spend half of our lives ferrying books, rugby kit, uniforms and other associated school miscellany back and forth from house to house. It is becoming a pain in the arse. A few weeks ago I got home to a desperate call from him when I returned home from an evening session at 10pm.

"Mum! My English assignment is on a floppy disk on my desk. I NEED IT FOR TOMORROW! You will have to drive over with it in the morning before school."

I work two evenings a week until 9pm, which means that two mornings a week I get a bit of a lie-in and potter around the house until I start work in the afternoon. This should have been one such morning. I waved bye-bye to my lie-in, and sought out the floppy disk.

(In my defence, at this point I did wonder why he had put it on a floppy disk and even where he had found one. I haven't used floppies for years, and somewhere in the confusion at the back of my head was a suspicion that there was a better way to do this. I was tired though, and ignored the nag. Silly me.)

I was up at 7 the next morning, so I could drop it off in time for him to print it out for school. As I drove over to his dad's, there was still a nagging doubt that this was a ridiculous thing to do. I was also pissed off, however, at missing out on my lie-in and having to negotiate the morning madness on the roads.

His dad answered the door, with a very broad grin. And then....very slowly....it clicked...into... place.....

Bugger!!!!

"Email" I said.

"Email indeed!" said his dad.

Son took the floppy disc off me, looking a little shame-faced if truth be known. At least I have an excuse. I am old-fashioned. This is not my world. But heaven knows it is his - he spends half his life on the computer-box.

Next time I saw my son he had bought a memory stick. Well done, son.

Note to self: ignore nagging doubts at your peril.

(And if anyone knows of a way to transport a rugby kit by email, could they please let me know?)

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?

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)

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.

Battle of the Blogs...

Someone called Leesa is being very public spirited, and has organised a Battle for people who Blog. Its a rather complex voting system, based on something called baseball or basketball (not sure which) which is apparently an American sporting thingy. All you need to know is that you get to vote loads of times. So you can vote here for Ms Pants and Mr Ducky and the Lovely Caroline. You can vote here for Ms Baroque and Mr Zeddie. You can vote here for lots of people that I have never heard of. You can vote here for Signs and The Periodic Englishman. And this is where it gets really difficult because then you have to choose between me or the Lovely Nmj at Velo-Gubbed Legs. One option is that we scrap the contest altogether, and have a naked mud wrestle to decide the winner. Or alternatively, we could all just have a naked mud wrestle. Anwyay, if you decide to vote in the Western Bracket, just keep it under your hat, OK. Nmj and I don't need to know

xxx

Valentine's Day Update...

The Husband and I have just watched our neighbour's boyfriend arrive at her house armed with a huge bunch of flowers, a cute looking teddy bear and a box of expensive looking chocolates.

"Awhh!" we both said. "How sweet...."

She is 19 and has a great deal to learn about life and love, but I enjoyed the reminder of the joyous innocence of being 19 and in love for the first time.

"Love you lots..." said the Husband as he left for work. "Oh, and by the way, I nearly got you a card, but I knew you wouldn't get me one and I didn't want to make you feel guilty."

He is so thoughtful sometimes...

Why Oh Why Oh Why...?

I think what is missing from my children’s lives is the opportunity to bathe in a cocktail of chemicals every evening, inhaling noxious fumes and plastering the tiles with gunk. I can’t believe I have been depriving them of this luxury for so long. So thank goodness for Gelli Baff, a new product currently being advertised on children’s TV. I have ordered a shed-load to make up for my previously neglectful parenting.

PS – I give them three months before they are out of business. Surely nobody is this stupid?

Who Needs Psychotherapy...?

Forget in-depth psychotherapy. Find out who you really are with this sophisticated personality test. I couldn't quite decide between two pictures, but I felt this captured me quite well....

You are sexy, powerful, and bold. You're full of passion and energy... Sometimes this passion has a dark side. You feel most alive when you're seducing someone. You never fail to get someone's attention. Quick minded, you're also quick to lose your temper!

and then I discovered I was also this....

Your Personality Profile

You are pure, moral, and adaptable. You tend to blend into your surroundings. Shy on the outside, you're outspoken to your friends. You believe that you live a virtuous life... And you tend to judge others with a harsh eye. As a result, people tend to crave your approval.

and now I am just feeling confused.

Time for some dialogue between my multiple selves...

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Ladies or prostitutes...?

Prison warder from Sudbury Open prison, being interviewed on the radio:

I saw two females leaving the prison first thing in the morning. They had clearly been there all night. I am not sure if they were prostitutes or ladies.

Here is a tip: ladies wear tiaras and fox fur stoles, whilst prostitutes wear bright red lipstick and suspender belts. Hope this helps...

What Is Ken Russell Doing???

I can't help wondering whether having a stroke live on national TV is actually preferable to becoming an honorary member of the Goody family...

LOL!!!! :))

Before I started blogging I used to get quite irritated with the annoying little icons, smiley faces, ‘LOL’ type comments , indiscriminate use of exclamation marks! and the ‘god, aren’t I funny!!!’ implication of several exclamation marks in email communication. But I think I understand now. Psychology tells us that most of our communication is non-verbal (I can’t be bothered researching the actual figure, but suffice to say it is highish.) As a therapist I know that I ‘listen’ to the non-verbals just as much as the verbal content of people’s communication. Posture, facial expression, eye-contact, tone of voice (paralanguage) and gestures all communicate a different aspect of the story I am hearing. Sometimes people tell me that they are OK, but their non-verbals tell a very different story. I listen to my own body and internal experience, which will often pick up their unconscious communications thus allowing me to make the implicit more explicit.

So if communication is so complex and richly textured, how do we express ourselves in discussions that rely entirely on the written word? (I think this is different to ‘proper’ writing, by the way, which doesn’t rely on an explicit exchange between author and reader in the way that blogs, emails, letters etc. do.) It is very easy to misunderstand and redefine the other’s intention and motivation. We unconsciously project our own paranoia and then persecute the other. (Think of all those arguments that have started from a poorly worded text message. I am thinking of starting a support group for people who compulsively misunderstand text messages and find themselves in yet another text argument.)

Necessity is the mother of invention. Hence we shoe-horn in those smiley faces, ‘LOL’ commentaries and further indiscriminate exclamation marks (!) so we can let the reader know that ‘I’m a nice person really, even though I have just left a potentially disagreeable message on your blog’. They may be a bit flat-footed in comparison to our usual complex psychological communications, but I guess they do the trick.

Naked Rowers Get Therapy...

Charles and Tom are best friends who found themselves with a couple of months to kill in between graduating from Bristol University and starting Sandhurst Military Academy. So they decided to row across the Atlantic. Naked. Like you do.

In preparation for their Herculean task, Charles and Tom have had some couples therapy. God love ‘em. Couples therapy is not an easy undertaking, and is only ever marginally less stressful for the therapist. Given that it involves parading your finest moments in front of a third party, for most couples it is usually something of a last resort balanced precariously between calling the divorce lawyer and buying the strychnine. Couples either argue so violently you need the skills of a boxing referee or refuse to speak until it feels like pulling teeth. (This is not a criticism, by the way. I have great admiration for couples who are willing to involve a therapist in their most private moments.) But boy oh boy, I wish I wish I wish I had gotten that gig. Picture the scene: two marvellous specimens of our finest public school system, eager and willing to go.

Therapist: Charles, what would you like Tom to know about you before you start on your journey?

Charles: Well, I’m a frightfully decent chap, but nanny used to beat me every night with a wooden spoon and I’m afraid it’s become rather a custom.

Therapist: How do you feel about that, Tom?

Tom: Oh thank goodness for that, Charles. I was worried you might have some strange habits.

Charles and Tom are thus well prepared to spend several naked weeks together in a space the size of a public toilet cubicle. They apparently, and I quote: ‘plan to have small diversions to relieve the possible tensions and boredom.’ Sometimes you just don't need to make it up.