I'm not your buddy, guy!

Occasionally, I accidentally use the word "guy".

It makes me cringe.

I'm English, for heaven's sake. The only time I should use the word guy should be on the 5th of November. And with a capital G!!

Today, I used the word "flashlight". Yikes. That's like calling the fire brigade the fire department.

I should be taken out and shot.

Not that I have anything against the United States. Love the place. Some of my best holidays have been spent there. Most of my favourite films were made there.

But I need to try to stop it invading my vocabulary.

And I wish more people in England would try to resist. I like our quirky little cultural identity. No point turning ourselves into a small grey copy of the USA.

The USA wouldn't be as much fun if it wasn't different.

Homeward Bound (I wish I was)

Have you ever listened to the words of "Homeward Bound"?

You know, the Paul Simon song?

Jeece! What a whiner!!

"Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend."

Well, don't bother on my account. If it's such a bleedin' chore.

He should try getting a proper job. Then he'd have something to whine about...

.

What a dream I had...

Well, I didn't need a professional dream interpreter to get the point of Friday night's dream!

I dreamed my sister had won a poetry competition, but there was this stupid rule that the winner had to use two different kinds of handwriting in the poem they submitted.

My sis had done that, but the judges refused to believe that she hadn't cheated and got someone else to do the other kind of handwriting.

All very weird, and about average for my dreams, I'm afraid!

The thing that made complete sense was that I went to the judges, and gave them a scathing, sarcastic, comprehensive telling off! I remember saying, "What's the prize, anyway, that you need to be so mistrustful, the Koh-i-noor diamond!?!"

It was so transparent that that's what I want to do in real life.

My bosses at work - not my immediate bosses, but the top decision-makers - are such a bunch of half-wits, and I feel powerless and helpless in the face of it.

They've brought in some stupid consultants, and are doing everything these idiots say, with seemingly no thought for the consequences. And no long-term or strategic planning, either.

I ask you - what kind of manager has so little pride in their abilities that they will abdicate their decision-making to a shower of buzz-word-using morons they dragged in off the street? It's like admitting that you've no idea how to do your own job!

So my dream was a wish-fulfilment thing. I want to go to those people and tell them how pathetic they are, and tell them to do their damn jobs!

But of course I don't have that kind of access to them, and I might need a good reference one day!!

Uncommon Misconceptions

When I was a kid, I thought Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon.

As I got older, I worked out that that couldn't really be the case, but then I thought there was some mystery about it.

I think I imagined that people went to bed with a view of a perfectly normal mountain, and woke up to presidents' faces. I thought it was like crop circles - nobody knew how those faces got there.

That would've been much more fun than how they really got there.

I also used to think that the reason second serves in tennis were slower and easier to return was because the first serve tired the server out. I thought a weedy second serve was all they had the strength for after putting everything they had into the first one.

And PMS. I thought women got PMS because they knew their period was due in a few days, and they really weren't looking forward to it.

I used to wonder what was so bad about it that it made them all tetchy for a week before. OK, it's not great, but is it worth getting so stressed about?

Gene Kelly on Roller Skates

You have to see it. Here's a YouTube link for you to follow. Go and look, right now...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAISjlN_p8E

OK, maybe I'm influenced by the fact that I can't even stand up on roller skates, but I think the man was a genius, and that bit of film is the proof.

Can't Complain

So, as I already mentioned, I'm nearly forty.

Just a couple more months.

One of the things that annoys me is that I can't grumble, complain and freak out about it to anyone.

There are two kinds of people in the world - those who are older than me, and those who are younger.

I can't complain to the older ones. They'll either tell me that I should think myself lucky, or hate me because I'm rubbing their noses in the fact that I'm younger than they are.

And the younger ones? They're just so young and vibrant and smug that they make me sick!!

Forty

Yes. I'm almost forty.

I find it quite frightening.

I'm the youngest out of five children, so I'm used to being younger than everyone, but now I'm really not any more, and I have to face that fact!!

OK, I'm still younger than my siblings, obviously, but that's no consolation!

In a way, though, I've aged gradually, which has given me time to get used to it. The really weird thing is thinking that all my little friends from school are forty, too.

Last time I saw them, they were little kids. How could they possibly be as old as I am?? I refuse to believe it - I'm sure they're all still riding their Raleigh choppers and eating plasticine.

Then there's all the vibrant prime-of-life people that I used to know. When I first started work at 16, I seemed to work in a company made up entirely of thirty and forty-something people. I can't believe those people are now approaching or into their retirement. Bizarre.

Which reminded me, and I just checked on iMDB, all the stars of thirtysomething are now fifty-something. That's just not right.

Over-excited!!

Today, I'm much too excited about a couple of green strawberries.

But we grew them ourselves! And they look somewhat like what they're supposed to be!!

The one nearest the camera is even starting to get a little pinkishness amongst the greenness.

I should have waited until they were red, I suppose. But I'm too excited! And probably some bird, or insect, or neighbour child will have eaten them by then!

As you can probably guess, this is the first time we've grown anything edible.

We've started with some potatoes, some carrots, some tomatoes and some strawberries, and the strawberries are the first things to look anything like edible, hence my childlike excitement!

The carrots are a sad story. We planted them, and between the local cats and the local slugs, there is nothing left of them. A couple of little leafy bits will struggle out of the ground from time to time, but despite all our efforts, something has always dug them up or eaten them within a couple of days.

Makes the strawberries all the more miraculous!!

Dressing for the Occasion

I'm a new(ish) cyclist.

I only started to learn quite recently, despite being fortyish.

I can cycle in a fairly straight line, now, so long as I don't try to make hand signals or look too far over my shoulder.

But what to wear?

I tend to just get up and jump on my bike and go. Which leads to me looking like a middle aged woman who was just sitting on the sofa watching TV, who has been magically transported onto a bike.

A bit incongruous.

I feel I need more sporty clothing for my bike riding, but I don't want to take it too far.

Every once in a while, you see a bloke on a bike, riding through town, wearing the full Tour de France getup.

Lycra shorts, super-aerodynamic helmet, lycra top covered in advertising. It's a bit much for nipping into town for the papers.

I wonder about those blokes. Do they carry that tendency into other areas of their lives?

When he's making beans on toast for his tea, does he dress in a white tunic, checked trousers and a tall white hat?

'Orrible trauma...

Is it safe? Is it safe?

I just had a tooth yanked out by the dentist, and I'm being a total wimp about it!

I was nearly crying when I arrived at the surgery this morning. But I went, so I suppose I could have taken the even more cowardly way out and hidden under the bed until I'd missed my appointment.

She must've pumped about a pint of anaesthetic into my jaw, then there was all kinds of stuff - poking, pressing, drilling. It's so barbaric, dentistry.

I kept my eyes closed most of the time, but I was unlucky enough to sneak a peek when she was just being handed the pliers. Pliers!!

The worst bit is that I've been looking on the internet about it. I figured that ignorance and fear went hand in hand, but I was wrong. Ignorance was bliss. Bliss, I tell you!

If I took all the advice I'd been given on the internet... Well, actually, I couldn't. I should eat nothing, and I should eat plenty. I should rinse my mouth with salt water, and I should never rinse my mouth at all. I should have a nice lie down, and I should under no circumstances lie down.

I've never seen so many bits of advice, many of which were conflicting.

The most amusing was that I'm not allowed to suck or blow for the next 48 hours. I have to go back to work in a few minutes - lucky I'm not a glass blower, balloon-animal maker, or prostitute!!

I need pain killers now. I don't want to know that there's a big hole in my jaw, and as the anaesthetic wears off, it's becoming harder and harder to deny!

Let's face it...

I'm worried now, that I might be facing up to too much.

I never get drunk, and I don't take any drugs. So everything is faced with a clear head.

Is that the best way, or just the stupid way?

Would I be better taking a little time off the relentless facing of my fears and worries and the harsh realities of life? Would I benefit from getting completely shedded once in a while? Would it be a nice little holiday from the clear-headed reality-facing that I do every day?

It's like the whole religion thing. Would I be happier if I could abdicate my responsibilities to some (probably imaginary) guy in the sky?

Would it be easier to trust in God to have his plan for me, and to take care of me, rather than having to make all my own decisions and worry that they are the right ones?

Maybe so, but that's even more unlikely than that I'll take to drink! I find Gin more of a possibility than ever coming to believe in a God.

Particularly one who has a plan, and who is taking care of people down here on earth - the evidence all screams that that's not happening.

That said, I think my facing up to things goes too far. I'm so keen to face up to the negatives in life, that I finish up facing a lot of stuff that doesn't need facing.

My mind runs along the "worst case scenario" route, and I feel I have to face all kinds of unlikely possibilities, that will most likely never happen.

Plus I face the horrible realities that other people face. I've never been one of those "it'll never happen to me" types. Something horrible happens to someone else - disease, crime, piano falling on the head, etc - and I'm convinced that will happen to me.

I should probably just have a drink...

Improvisation

What is the point of improvisation?

Not in life. You have to do it in life. Life is pretty much made up of improvisation.

But why would I want to see professional comedians making up jokes as they go along?

Why can't they spend a bit of time perfecting their gags before I have to listen to them? That's what they get paid for, surely?

Why settle for the half-arsed, spur-of-the-moment, hit-or-miss crap? Insist on proper jokes, properly written, and given more than a second's thought!!

Did you ever see the TV show, Ready, Steady Cook?

That's like the cooking version of improvisational comedy. Instead of thinking it out and planning, and practicing a recipe, they throw together whatever comes to hand, in a twenty-minute time-limit.

And then they sell the recipes! Who wants those? I just looked on Amazon, and there are bunches of Ready Steady Cook cookbooks. Seriously, who wants a book of half-arsed, spur-of-the-moment, hit-or-miss recipes, when they could by a book of proper recipes that have been thought out and tested??

Improv. It's all just an excuse to do a half-arsed job! They can't even be arsed to say the whole word, most of the time...