I have a love/hate relationship with sleep.
Wait, that's not true, I pretty much adore sleep unreservedly but the love/hate relationship exists in relation to my complete lack of self control with regards to sleep.
I love the luxurious feeling of a long, relaxing lie in.
I love waking up and then choosing to roll over and snuggle back into my blankets.
But I hate that I can wake up, know that I am going to be furious with myself later for not getting up, and then still stick my head back under my pillow and make with the Zs.
Sleep-ins are excellent for when you've earned them, when you feel like pampering yourself, when you've been super-exhausted or on public holidays when you usually would be at work but aren't.
But when you have things that you want to get done, need to get done, were looking forward to having done... and you don't have time to do them because you hit the snooze button, that's where the love/hate part kicks in.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I don't think I'll ever be one of those 'gets up at 6am every morning like clockwork even 20 years after retirement because that's what I did all my working life' people, and not just because I haven't had to get up at/before 6am for work since I finished working hospitality.
If I don't have to get up - and I mean have to with a capital H, the kind where you might get yelled at or fired or make somebody cry at their own birthday party - then I don't.
A few years ago I thought this was me choosing to live life the way I liked it, with extra sleep.
Now I feel like there's two me's, First Wake Up Me who doesn't give a damn about consequences and lives only to please herself and Second Wake Up Me who has to clean up after her.
It's not that I'm exhausted or lethargic or anything like that which might suggest that I have a medical condition that might explain this behaviour.
I'm just behaving like a jackass.
I know this is going to be difficult habit to ditch and will take a long time to shift behaviour that at this point I've been indulging in for about half of my life but I'm determined to try.
First Wake Up Me has to start pulling her own weight.
And if that means going to bed earlier, chugging water before I turn in and buying the loudest alarm clock money can buy and then putting it where I can't reach it or its power cord from my bed, then that's what I'm going to do.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Sunday, 3 July 2011
The Fertility Faction
OK, I obviously spoke too soon.
Last year a coworker announced she was pregnant.
All the women in the office who have had children got intensely excited.
I congratulated her, anticipated chipping in for flowers in a few months time and forgot all about it.
I missed the predatory gleam in their eyes.
The first salvo was subtle.
The magazines on our lunch table - usually a reliable mix of culinary, design and architecture with the odd Cleo thrown in - was suddenly peppered with parenting periodicals.
The second salvo was slightly more direct.
They began including me in their 'isn't that cute' group emails of pictures of kids frolicking with dogs, drawing on walls, buried in piles of leaves and cosplaying with their parents at Comic Con.
Their stated reason for this was that they thought I liked dogs/vandalism/leaves/cosplay.
I was invited to and attended the baby shower, where I won several games.
They saw this as a promising sign until I made it blatantly clear with my gloating victory dance that my apparent baby-related prowess was down to being a competitive jerk.
At this point the campaign had been running at least two months* and I had started to get a little paranoid and had begun wondering how they got my private email and the ads on my Facebook sidebar to join in.
My junk mail had suddenly given up on selling me V14gr4 and c14l1s or trying to hook me up with my foreign lottery winnings and has been offering me singles of all flavours.
Black singles, white singles, Latin singles, Asian singles, Christian singles, Jewish singles.
All the singles.
My Facebook ad sidebar seems to be trying to kill two birds with one stone and every day urges me to 'Give Single Dads A Chance'.
So far, I have not.
Disheartened by this lack of results, they gave up on both subtle and semi-subtle.
Any time an unmarried guy not biologically old enough to be my Father visited our workplace, they would comment on his various favourable attributes and ask me what I thought.
I thought it was kind of creepy.
I mean I'm all for the sexual equality of ladies having the freedom to perve on appealing dudes but the 'give him some slack, then reel him in, then give him some slack, then reel him in' language used by certain women in these situations make me feel incredibly skeezy.
Especially when the two very nice IT guys came through to do an equipment audit and the moment they were out the door, one particular coworker demanded that I picked out and started dancing the sideways rumba with whichever one I preferred because it was terrible to see a decent chunk of man meat like that go to waste.
When I declined her order to sexually assault the IT guy(s), she began listing friends of hers who were single and not old/crazy/destitute.
At this point two of my friends decided to come to my rescue.
Awkwardly, however, they did this by insisting that I could have had the pick of their friends at any point over the last four years but that I was under no obligation to make such a selection.
Choosing this as the moment to put my earphones on and never ever take them off again, I was spared the rest of that cringefest.
Luckily after the 'take that nerd and make him your own' conversation, they did seem to get the message that I was not going to be taken in by their cunning plan.
This reprieve can probably be more accurately attributed to the fact that our pregnant coworker has recently given birth and they now have a freshly baked bun straight out of the baby oven to coo over and the intense desire to see me opening my own franchise has abated.
I know this is temporary and that one day, they'll hear the bugle call to arms once more, but I'm just grateful for the cease-fire.
However long it may last.
*I say 'at least two months' because given my field tested obliviousness to signs, signals and hints I cannot rule out the possibility that this had kicked off the moment pregnant coworker finished enunciating the letter t in 'I'm pregnant!'
Last year a coworker announced she was pregnant.
All the women in the office who have had children got intensely excited.
I congratulated her, anticipated chipping in for flowers in a few months time and forgot all about it.
I missed the predatory gleam in their eyes.
The first salvo was subtle.
The magazines on our lunch table - usually a reliable mix of culinary, design and architecture with the odd Cleo thrown in - was suddenly peppered with parenting periodicals.
The second salvo was slightly more direct.
They began including me in their 'isn't that cute' group emails of pictures of kids frolicking with dogs, drawing on walls, buried in piles of leaves and cosplaying with their parents at Comic Con.
Their stated reason for this was that they thought I liked dogs/vandalism/leaves/cosplay.
I was invited to and attended the baby shower, where I won several games.
They saw this as a promising sign until I made it blatantly clear with my gloating victory dance that my apparent baby-related prowess was down to being a competitive jerk.
At this point the campaign had been running at least two months* and I had started to get a little paranoid and had begun wondering how they got my private email and the ads on my Facebook sidebar to join in.
My junk mail had suddenly given up on selling me V14gr4 and c14l1s or trying to hook me up with my foreign lottery winnings and has been offering me singles of all flavours.
Black singles, white singles, Latin singles, Asian singles, Christian singles, Jewish singles.
All the singles.
My Facebook ad sidebar seems to be trying to kill two birds with one stone and every day urges me to 'Give Single Dads A Chance'.
So far, I have not.
Disheartened by this lack of results, they gave up on both subtle and semi-subtle.
Any time an unmarried guy not biologically old enough to be my Father visited our workplace, they would comment on his various favourable attributes and ask me what I thought.
I thought it was kind of creepy.
I mean I'm all for the sexual equality of ladies having the freedom to perve on appealing dudes but the 'give him some slack, then reel him in, then give him some slack, then reel him in' language used by certain women in these situations make me feel incredibly skeezy.
Especially when the two very nice IT guys came through to do an equipment audit and the moment they were out the door, one particular coworker demanded that I picked out and started dancing the sideways rumba with whichever one I preferred because it was terrible to see a decent chunk of man meat like that go to waste.
When I declined her order to sexually assault the IT guy(s), she began listing friends of hers who were single and not old/crazy/destitute.
At this point two of my friends decided to come to my rescue.
Awkwardly, however, they did this by insisting that I could have had the pick of their friends at any point over the last four years but that I was under no obligation to make such a selection.
Choosing this as the moment to put my earphones on and never ever take them off again, I was spared the rest of that cringefest.
Luckily after the 'take that nerd and make him your own' conversation, they did seem to get the message that I was not going to be taken in by their cunning plan.
This reprieve can probably be more accurately attributed to the fact that our pregnant coworker has recently given birth and they now have a freshly baked bun straight out of the baby oven to coo over and the intense desire to see me opening my own franchise has abated.
I know this is temporary and that one day, they'll hear the bugle call to arms once more, but I'm just grateful for the cease-fire.
However long it may last.
*I say 'at least two months' because given my field tested obliviousness to signs, signals and hints I cannot rule out the possibility that this had kicked off the moment pregnant coworker finished enunciating the letter t in 'I'm pregnant!'
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Divine Providence
I've just got a new TV/entertainment system cabinet because my cousin is becoming a nun!
Uh... I haven't bought it in celebration of her upcoming novitiate.
In August she's entering the convent for her three months of contemplation/extra meditation/xtreme nunning and as such she's been busily giving away her superfluous worldly goods*.
I expect I'm supposed to say I was surprised when she told me what she was planning but I honestly wasn't.
That's not to say I've ever looked at her and thought 'girl is gonna end up a nun'.
She's an attractive, accomplished and personable woman with all sorts of life paths open to her and whilst she's been a practicing Catholic for years she's never been overtly religious or expressed any prior intentions in this direction.
But I can see how it makes sense for her.
And she's one of the few people I know who has the personality, the temperament and the sense of moral responsibility to carry it through.
She's been a teacher for almost 10 years and in that time she's helped a heck of a lot of people, in the course of her work at the school, within her community and parish, and by donating her time to teaching disadvantaged children in other countries on working holidays.
She's been on several pilgrimages with our Grandmother** which I thought she was undertaking predominantly as an aide/chaperone to help 80-to-85-year-old Grandma get around the less accessible parts of the Holy Land, but they obviously stuck with her personally.
She's always been a spiritual person, not a preachy person but an introspective/meditative one and she has a firm sense of social justice.
When I said 'moral responsibility' I didn't mean it in the self-righteousness or blinkered morality way that some might use it, I meant that she is the kind of person to take responsibility for her own actions, to act for the good of others and to take a religious position seriously as an act of service to the community as well as to the church.
I think she'll do well in the vocation if she chooses to take vows and she'll do a lot to help others who need help without asking anything of them in return***.
I'm happy for her.
I am also not unhappy for me and my new TV/entertainment system cabinet.
I've been meaning to get one for ages but never really got around to it...
*most of her furniture, kitchen bits, books and DVDs, anything without deep emotional or personal meaning
**who has entered the pilgrimage phase of being an Italian/Irish matriarch
***up to and including not expecting people to pay lip service to religion in order to receive help, that is not her style
Uh... I haven't bought it in celebration of her upcoming novitiate.
In August she's entering the convent for her three months of contemplation/extra meditation/xtreme nunning and as such she's been busily giving away her superfluous worldly goods*.
I expect I'm supposed to say I was surprised when she told me what she was planning but I honestly wasn't.
That's not to say I've ever looked at her and thought 'girl is gonna end up a nun'.
She's an attractive, accomplished and personable woman with all sorts of life paths open to her and whilst she's been a practicing Catholic for years she's never been overtly religious or expressed any prior intentions in this direction.
But I can see how it makes sense for her.
And she's one of the few people I know who has the personality, the temperament and the sense of moral responsibility to carry it through.
She's been a teacher for almost 10 years and in that time she's helped a heck of a lot of people, in the course of her work at the school, within her community and parish, and by donating her time to teaching disadvantaged children in other countries on working holidays.
She's been on several pilgrimages with our Grandmother** which I thought she was undertaking predominantly as an aide/chaperone to help 80-to-85-year-old Grandma get around the less accessible parts of the Holy Land, but they obviously stuck with her personally.
She's always been a spiritual person, not a preachy person but an introspective/meditative one and she has a firm sense of social justice.
When I said 'moral responsibility' I didn't mean it in the self-righteousness or blinkered morality way that some might use it, I meant that she is the kind of person to take responsibility for her own actions, to act for the good of others and to take a religious position seriously as an act of service to the community as well as to the church.
I think she'll do well in the vocation if she chooses to take vows and she'll do a lot to help others who need help without asking anything of them in return***.
I'm happy for her.
I am also not unhappy for me and my new TV/entertainment system cabinet.
I've been meaning to get one for ages but never really got around to it...
*most of her furniture, kitchen bits, books and DVDs, anything without deep emotional or personal meaning
**who has entered the pilgrimage phase of being an Italian/Irish matriarch
***up to and including not expecting people to pay lip service to religion in order to receive help, that is not her style
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Dear Lady At The Sandwich Shop
You are pretty awesome.
You're always friendly and efficient and even when it looks like you're having a cruddy day you don't take it out on your customers and you genuinely seem to appreciate it when we try to cheer you up.
You aren't stingy with the ingredients but you know how to hold back on the mayo so it doesn't taste like our sandwiches or rolls are drowning in eggy death unless that's what we've specifically requested.
I like the way you call me 'darl' as if you're about 50 even though you're probably a few years younger than me.
I am very glad that you respect the health code enough to wear gloves when you prepare our sandwiches and rolls.
But the thing is...
You should take at least one of the gloves off before you accept the money for the sandwiches.
Because otherwise, sure you aren't touching our sandwiches with your hands but you are touching them with everything the money you just touched has bumped up against.
I was raised at the tail end of the glorious immune system boosting 'oh Lord, she's eating the dirt out of the pot plant/dog biscuits/something she found behind the couch again, get it off her and rinse out her mouth, she'll be right' era so I'm fairly sure I'll survive whatever money-glove-sandwich contamination might result but others may not be so robust.
And it's also still a sort of gross idea.
Other than that you're perfect and so are your sandwiches.
Yours sincerely,
Ricochet
You're always friendly and efficient and even when it looks like you're having a cruddy day you don't take it out on your customers and you genuinely seem to appreciate it when we try to cheer you up.
You aren't stingy with the ingredients but you know how to hold back on the mayo so it doesn't taste like our sandwiches or rolls are drowning in eggy death unless that's what we've specifically requested.
I like the way you call me 'darl' as if you're about 50 even though you're probably a few years younger than me.
I am very glad that you respect the health code enough to wear gloves when you prepare our sandwiches and rolls.
But the thing is...
You should take at least one of the gloves off before you accept the money for the sandwiches.
Because otherwise, sure you aren't touching our sandwiches with your hands but you are touching them with everything the money you just touched has bumped up against.
I was raised at the tail end of the glorious immune system boosting 'oh Lord, she's eating the dirt out of the pot plant/dog biscuits/something she found behind the couch again, get it off her and rinse out her mouth, she'll be right' era so I'm fairly sure I'll survive whatever money-glove-sandwich contamination might result but others may not be so robust.
And it's also still a sort of gross idea.
Other than that you're perfect and so are your sandwiches.
Yours sincerely,
Ricochet
Monday, 13 June 2011
The Vimeortex
Guys, I haven't written anything for this week.
I meant to.
But every time I got on the internet I ended up immersing myself rapturously in the 5 Second Films archive.
Sooo... instead of a real post here is a selection of my favourites.
That I culled down from 40 to six*.
There are over 600 videos so you know you should stop and do something else but... they're only five seconds long...
I regret nothing.
*OK, seven, I had to include this one for the badass moustache. It isn't on vimeo so I couldn't embed it.
I meant to.
But every time I got on the internet I ended up immersing myself rapturously in the 5 Second Films archive.
Sooo... instead of a real post here is a selection of my favourites.
That I culled down from 40 to six*.
There are over 600 videos so you know you should stop and do something else but... they're only five seconds long...
I regret nothing.
Planking from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.
Clark Kent's Close Call from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.
The Day Before Yesterday When Everything Was OK and There Weren't Any Zombies from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.
Late for Work from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.
Absence of the Towels from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.
Brothers from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.
*OK, seven, I had to include this one for the badass moustache. It isn't on vimeo so I couldn't embed it.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Hot Damn
So anyway, I was catching up with my webcomics and traipsed over to Coelasquid's awesome Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, as I routinely do, and saw this...
I don't always recognise all the characters Coelasquid portrays due to my low-level involvement in actual game playing and in these situations I of course turn to my old friend the search engine to make sure I'm getting all the nuances.
OK, there's a guy called Vassic...
He's from Dragon Age II...
I'm guessing it's a bit of a talking point that he has a bit of chest hair...
Let's see what the ole image search turns u- Phwoar!
Phwoar!
Phwoar!
So, uh yeah...
Apparently he's a dwarf...
And he's known for having a bit of a hairy chest...
Phwoar...
I don't always recognise all the characters Coelasquid portrays due to my low-level involvement in actual game playing and in these situations I of course turn to my old friend the search engine to make sure I'm getting all the nuances.
OK, there's a guy called Vassic...
He's from Dragon Age II...
I'm guessing it's a bit of a talking point that he has a bit of chest hair...
Let's see what the ole image search turns u- Phwoar!
Phwoar!
Phwoar!
So, uh yeah...
Apparently he's a dwarf...
And he's known for having a bit of a hairy chest...Phwoar...
Monday, 6 June 2011
The Bag Lady
I have a tendency to take things with me 'just in case'.
This often serves me well as 'just in case' turns up every once in a while and sometimes I or somebody I know benefits from the bandaids, pens, maps and miscellanea that I have on hand.
I've pared down the amount of 'just in case' items from a previous status of 'ridiculous' to their current status of 'not too bad but probably still a little too much' but there's one thing that seems to be slowing me down quite considerably.
My laptop.
Watching with thinly disguised jealousy as a coworker glanced at her watch, swung her bag onto her shoulder and disappeared into the distance in the blink of an eye I wondered why I couldn't be like that.
As I unplugged my power cord.
And disconnected from the internet.
And clicked on the Safely Remove Hardware icon.
And removed my internet USB.
And shut down my laptop.
And put it and all its paraphernalia into its shoulder bag.
And swung that bag onto my shoulder.
And my handbag.
And picked up the little cooler bag I'd brought my lunch in.
'Well, poop on this!' I thought! 'I can get by without my laptop at work!'
I mean, all it does is let me listen to whatever music or talking book I like, allow me to check Twitter/my email/any other websites banned by our work network, hold an array of items that I can transfer across and email to coworkers to enhance my points during arguments or offer distraction during the boring parts of the day...
I can do this...
So starting tomorrow I'm not taking my laptop with me to work.
For a fortnight.
I'd say a week but I already spent Monday wrapped in its loving embrace so that hardly counts* and seems a bit weak.
I'll just put a bunch of music onto a USB and take that instead.
I'm sure I'll be fine.
And even if I'm not this will probably be good for me.
I need to detach a little bit before I pull a full on Serial Experiments Lain or whatever the less technologically proficient version of that might be.
It should also save me about half an hour of farting around per day unpacking/packing up my laptop and I'm going to use that time to go for a walk or something.
If all goes smoothly and I don't crack like an addict who didn't realise just how hard cold turkey was going to be, I may very well make it a permanent arrangement. I expect Future Me and her back/shoulder would thank me for it.
*The fact that next Monday is a public holiday and technically doesn't count also factors into the equation.
This often serves me well as 'just in case' turns up every once in a while and sometimes I or somebody I know benefits from the bandaids, pens, maps and miscellanea that I have on hand.
I've pared down the amount of 'just in case' items from a previous status of 'ridiculous' to their current status of 'not too bad but probably still a little too much' but there's one thing that seems to be slowing me down quite considerably.
My laptop.
Watching with thinly disguised jealousy as a coworker glanced at her watch, swung her bag onto her shoulder and disappeared into the distance in the blink of an eye I wondered why I couldn't be like that.
As I unplugged my power cord.
And disconnected from the internet.
And clicked on the Safely Remove Hardware icon.
And removed my internet USB.
And shut down my laptop.
And put it and all its paraphernalia into its shoulder bag.
And swung that bag onto my shoulder.
And my handbag.
And picked up the little cooler bag I'd brought my lunch in.
'Well, poop on this!' I thought! 'I can get by without my laptop at work!'
I mean, all it does is let me listen to whatever music or talking book I like, allow me to check Twitter/my email/any other websites banned by our work network, hold an array of items that I can transfer across and email to coworkers to enhance my points during arguments or offer distraction during the boring parts of the day...
I can do this...
So starting tomorrow I'm not taking my laptop with me to work.
For a fortnight.
I'd say a week but I already spent Monday wrapped in its loving embrace so that hardly counts* and seems a bit weak.
I'll just put a bunch of music onto a USB and take that instead.
I'm sure I'll be fine.
And even if I'm not this will probably be good for me.
I need to detach a little bit before I pull a full on Serial Experiments Lain or whatever the less technologically proficient version of that might be.
It should also save me about half an hour of farting around per day unpacking/packing up my laptop and I'm going to use that time to go for a walk or something.
If all goes smoothly and I don't crack like an addict who didn't realise just how hard cold turkey was going to be, I may very well make it a permanent arrangement. I expect Future Me and her back/shoulder would thank me for it.
*The fact that next Monday is a public holiday and technically doesn't count also factors into the equation.
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