It's Character Building

It's go time people!
It's time for another flurry of activity and a light smattering of getting things done!

It started with a sheepish acknowledgement that I should probably go back to the physio and see how my muscular retraining has been going instead of just rolling about on my swisse ball doing my embarrassing and somewhat suggestive-looking strengthening exercises*.
So I made an appointment.

Then I realised that I hadn't been to the dentist in a while** so I blocked that in too.

But why stop there? I haven't been to the GP in a bit, I might have a vaccination due for a boosting and I guess I should have my flu shot whilst I'm at it.

All in the same day.

I thought this one through obviously.
Because, if all things go to plan, by the end of the day I'll have been scraped, poked at, stabbed, stretched and massaged***.
And I'll feel a bit hard done by but also too guilty about sugar and plaque to have a drink or some cake, too stabbed up to comfortably do my physio exercises but will feel slack and self-sabotaging if I don't and will be wondering fretfully whether even though I was well when I entered the Doctors' Surgery I might have picked something up from one of the hacking and dripping people that surround me in the waiting room****.

But as dentally violated and bodily battered as I'll feel, it'll be accompanied by a perverse sense of accomplishment and a deep and fulfilling sense of relief that I won't have to do any of those things again for quite some time.
By which point I'll probably have forgotten the stabby, scrapey, stretchy part of the proceedings and will only remember the sheer genius of taking a day off and getting it all out of the way in one fell swoop.



*I'm not going to lie to you, they're all pretty suggestive. There's a lot of lifting and thrusting and bouncing involved. I'm starting to worry about my physiotherapist really.

**Ahem, 2006, just before I went backpacking for five months. I didn't want to be in the middle of the picturesque rural scenes of Europe and have a rogue tooth erupt out of my jaw and pierce my nose.

***I'll leave you to guess what by whom, you might be surprised. I have a couple of concerns about my dentist too.

****And whether if I asked really nicely if anyone would mind if I kept the original edition TMNT comic books that are just wedged in amongst all the Woman's Days, New Ideas and Reader's Digests! I mean they're just sitting there! And kids today don't appreciate these things!

A Sign

This toilet roll holder says 'you are in a public place and we don't trust you not to run off with our precious precious paper you dirty skinflint'.


This toilet roll holder says 'you are a student and you will only receive one sheet at a time and only one-ply you dirty beatnik'.



This toilet roll holder says 'if you can afford to be here you are affluent enough to afford your own toilet paper, do what you will glorious sir or madam'.

This post says 'I just finished playing House of The Dead: Overkill and am trying desperately not to think about the ending'.


Note: The pictures of toilet paper aren't a veiled reference to the quality of the game, it was just the first thing that popped into my head.
Possibly born of a subconscious desire to wipe certain images from my memory.
And sounds.
Yeesh.

Who Watches The Watchtower?

It's official.
After almost two years of living in my flat I've finally passed my last rental rite of passage.
I got back from the supermarket the other day to find something had been shoved underneath my door.


Thanks Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York!
Your house isn't really a home until someone has tried to tell you about Jesus or shake you down for a charitable donation when you're halfway through making dinner or just about to get into the bath.

The fun bit is when you try very politely and respectfully to assure them that yes you have heard about Jesus, yes even the bit where he died for our sins and came back from the dead, having attended a Catholic primary school and secondary school you actually have had the time to read the entire book and didn't even just skip to the end, even then they don't really believe that you know about Jesus.
I mean really know about Jesus!
Because if you did you wouldn't be home to answer the door, you'd be out knocking on other people's doors!

Some folk who go the evangelical route do it because they really do believe that they're trying to save you and guide you towards the only opportunity for an afterlife.
Or at least the comfy afterlife that doesn't involve pitchforks, brimstone and torments that some people here on Earth might pay quite good money for*.
Others unfortunately use it as an opportunity to branch out in their Judging and Lecturing People home businesses. They tend to be the ones who sound like they're threatening you even when they're smiling.
But whichever variant of evangelist you find at your door they always seem slightly skeptical that you're really both on the same page.
As if you might be talking about a different Jesus.

But whoever my mysterious leaver of pamphlets might have been I'd like to thank them for taking the time to stop by and especially for doing it whilst I was out.
So I could admire the styling ensemble of the fellow on the cover before cheerfully making myself dinner and then having a nice relaxing bath and a glass of wine.
They got to reach out to somebody and I didn't have to feel like I'd kicked a puppy when I had gently let them down. May we always be so lucky.



*It takes all kinds.

I Know I Should Be Relieved But I'm Also A Tiny Bit Disappointed*

Goddamn laundromat!

I keep thinking I'm being fanciful and imagining it's a weird place because I always seem to end up writing these things in there but I've started realising that writing blog posts is a form of laundromat self-defence, as if I think nothing is going to happen to me if I'm writing.
Or if it does at least I'll have a witness.
Even if that witness is also me.
And I'm the only one who can read the handwriting in my notebook.
And if anyone read the other things written around my 'witness statement' they wouldn't consider me a reliable witness.
This is probably fundamental to the nature of all laundromats everywhere and yet I continue to be startled. All I want is clean socks.

I do have other options. I could buy a new washing machine (Ha! Ha! It is to laugh!), I could take my laundry home with me when I visit my family (but oh God that just seems... no), so I go down to the laundromat and what do I get?
Impromptu, unasked for Mythbusters!

Yes, you can temporarily fix a dodgy Cycle Select knob with a hair-tie after you've already put your laundry and washing liquid into the machine and are too stubborn to move the gooey unweildy mess.
-- CONFIRMED! --

No, you can't make a change machine accept a $20 note just by cussing it out like a fluffy duck mother lover.
-- BUSTED! --

Yes, dryer-fresh sheets are still the best thing on Earth to wrap around yourself right after the cycle finishes.
-- CONFIRMED! --

No, a lighter will not explode or catch fire if put in a dryer with a heavy weave cotton blanket on the highest setting for over half an hour.
-- BUSTED! --

This damn dryer had already yielded a bumper crop of crud (a bottle cap, a can tab, a cigarette filter, the plastic wrap from around at least three packets of cigarettes and a wad of gum wrapped in its own paper) but it wasn't until the blanket reached the end of its cycle that I found the three-quarters full piping hot cigarette lighter.

The plastic was almost malleable, the damn thing was radiating heat but no it had not burst into flames, melted or smeared my comfy cosy binky with toxic stinky fuel.

Well done anonymous lighter company whose product I was too busy throwing into a bin far far away from me to identify by name.

To blazes with you ridiculous bogan bastard whose pockets spilled this cornucopia of shash into Dryer Number 3.

I hope you miss that lighter! I hope you miss it like hell!


*I mean I'm not saying I WANTED the dryer to burst into flames but... would've looked cool.
S'all I'm saying
S'not my dryer...