Drat that cat!

It turns out that when I left my bedroom yesterday afternoon, I accidentally shut the cat in there. This wouldn't have been such a catastrophe (cat-astrophe!) if I'd come home last night, but unfortunately I spent the night, as is my wont, on a friend's sofa, and Molly's plight apparently wasn't discovered until this morning. I tentatively ventured into the room when I got home this evening, hoping against hope that she'd had some self-control. No such luck. She crapped smack bang in the middle of my bed. I briefly toyed with the idea of being a sensible, practical non-wasteful person, and getting on with a highly distressing laundry session, but it turns out that both my bedspread and my duvet are dry clean only. I just couldn't bear the thought of going to the dry cleaners, proffering a stinking bin bag, and requesting that they clean faeces from my bedding. Plus, would I ever have been able to sleep under that duvet again, knowing what I knew? So I threw it all in the bin. I know, I know, there are freezing children in the Arctic circle who would think themselves lucky to have a cat-turd coated duvet, and I've probably just done more than my fair share towards destroying the planet by swelling the contents of a landfill, but I'm prepared to accept that. Now I need to buy a new duvet. What the hell is a tog, anyway?

Sexual Nature

Last night L and I went to the Sexual Nature exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Here we learned many interesting facts about animal courtship and *snigger* mating. We also learned that it is necessary to physically move away from stuffed angora rabbits if one is to obey the 'do not touch' sign (and if one didn't that would lead to anarchy, no?), and that Isabella Rossellini is a complete loon. The exhibition was dotted with video screens showing short films of said loon simulating graphic sex while dressed up as various different animals. Attempts to find an example on youtube have just led to extreme excitement, as it turns out there are lots more than were shown at the exhibition. Be warned. These are genuinely weird and may scar you for life.

I would definitely recommend the exhibition if you're one of those people (like me) who likes to dot a conversation with fascinating facts about echidnas, much to the bemusement of the decidedly uninterested people who unsuspectingly set you off. I enjoyed it anyway, even if it has left me with the vague impression that men ought to be building me bowers, presenting me with pebbles and inflating their neck wattle to extraordinary proportions in order to earn my affection.

Tick tock

One of the interesting side effects of long term insomnia is a certain shortness of temper. Now, it has to be pointed out that I wasn't exactly the most equable person to start off with. I'd love to be one of those serenely placid people who glide through life full of smiles; patting small children on the head, handing out sage advice and comforting platitudes as if they were sweeties. Unfortunately this is no very accurate self-portrait of my character. Instead I range from the fretful, nervy peevishness of a Victorian woman who needs her corsets loosening a bit, to the hysterical, frustratedly sobbing rage of......well.......a slightly more expressive Victorian woman, whose husband will probably have her packed off to an asylum very shortly, there to spend the rest of her life in a white flannel nightgown and a drug-addled haze. This being the case on a day to day basis, you can imagine my current state of instability, given that I'm able to count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've slept through the night in the last two months. My fuse is shorter than Ronnie Corbett's inside leg measurement. Mustering up enough self-control and civility to last me through each day is getting harder and harder, and I'm sure it's not just my present state of mind that makes people seem so much more ill-mannered and demanding lately. Fortunately I'm still clinging to enough rationality to summon up reserves of politeness for the woman who turned up half an hour late for her appointment to view the house this evening. If she decides to buy the house all will be forgiven. And if she doesn't? Well, they do say that the best indication of good manners is in refraining from commenting on other people's bad ones, so I'm actually proving myself the better person. Except I just did comment on her bad manners, which makes me as bad as her. Does it count as moderately self-restrained to be pleasant at the time, and refrain until after the event from pointing out either her tardiness or the fact that she failed to apologise for it, or does it just make me mannerless and two-faced? Be warned that answering this question incorrectly will put you at risk of my wrath.

Erm.......

Is it me, or is it a little bit creepy to hear someone say 'You dropped something', turn around to pick up your oyster card, turn further and see that the person who alerted you to its loss has a white stick and a dog in a yellow jacket?

I've heard that somewhere before....

You know how I'm crap at taking a compliment? Apparently it runs in the family...

Baby: Ardie Megs you look piddy.
Me: Thank you, darling. So do you.
Baby: (Plucking at her pyjamas) My not look piddy.

Your wish is my command

If I found a magic lamp, the genie would be moving on to his next client before he even had time to stretch out the lamp compression cricks. I already know exactly what I want.

1) Peace on Earth. I'm aware that this makes me sound like a Miss World contestant, but it's a wonderfully all-encompassing good wish, which allows me to be as selfish as I like with my other two wishes.

2) The power of teleportation. This would also be my chosen super power were I to be dropped into a particularly accommodating and open-to-suggestions vat of nuclear waste. I'd never have to pay for a holiday again. I could go anywhere I wanted on Earth (which would also be conveniently peaceful thanks to my first wish), and then zap myself home at the end of the day to sleep in my own bed. I would also be able to eliminate the daily commute to work which, given recent public transport based events, would be a real boon.

3) This is the controversial one. I would wish to be beautiful. I know this is a horribly shallow attitude, but it's what I would want. There is actual research that shows that attractive people are more likely to get the jobs they apply for, pay rises, in fact anything they ask for. I suspect this may be partly down to the increased confidence that comes from being attractive. I spend massive amounts of time, at work and in my social life, with women who are quite extraordinarily beautiful, and I'm sure my confidence would be much higher if I felt myself their equals. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that looks are the most important thing about a person....not even close! I would never swap my intelligence or my sense of humour for a pretty face, but if I had a wish going spare, to use in whatever frivolous manner I chose, this is what I would go for. I daresay quite a few people will judge me for saying it. After all, it taps into a huge worm-filled can regarding social and cultural attitudes to women and to appearance in general. I suspect most will understand though. After all, out of all the amazing, intelligent, outspoken women I know, I can only think (off the top of my head) of two or three who don't worry about the way they look. Why not eliminate that, if you had the genie?

Things that make me smile no.75

Two year olds tend to run to "I want! I want!" as a means of expressing desire. I got home today to be asked "Ardie Megs, pease may I bowwow your horsie?". Aw! How can I refuse you anything when you ask so nicely?

How to give yourself a heart attack

Accidentally delete every email in your inbox, including the hundreds which you will, inevitably, need to refer back to at some point in the future. Then sit there and pray for the fifteen minutes it takes your, apparently crashed, email programme to reluctantly restore them all from the trash box.

I was almost tempted!

The scene......A woman stands, in her pyjamas, on her front lawn, with dripping wet hair and no shoes on. Under one arm she holds an angry cat. In the other hand is a dead pigeon. A passing man stops and stares.......

Me: What?
Man: Is that a pigeon?
Me: Yes.
Man: Why do you have a pigeon?
Me: I thought I'd have it for dinner.
Man: Seriously?
Me: No.
Man: Would you like to come for a drink with me? You can bring your pigeon...

Flower power

My new bath salts smell lovely, but the chopped up bits of flowers in the bottle look less 'rose petal bath in the honeymoon suite of a swanky hotel', and more 'someone dumped their garden compost in my tub'.

Fly paper for freaks

My epic series of crazy people on public transport continued today, as I watched a woman methodically tear fragments from her Evening Standard and eat them. Hygienic!

I love my friends

P: I've been having trouble with my dauphinoise lately.
E: That may be the gayest thing that's been said in North London today. And that includes all our talk about cock.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

In 2011 I have slept through the night twice. I've had periods of insomnia since I was a teenager, but this is getting ridiculous. I feel lucky if I manage four hours of sleep a night. I can't remember ever being so exhausted, and it shows. My dark circles are like inky thumbprints smeared under my eyes. I'm always pale, but lately I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the windows of the tube, and I don't even look like the same species as the people around me. I look like something that's been left underwater too long; the bloated, water-bleached corpse of some long-dead fish. The very fact that I'm comparing myself to a piscine cadaver is probably a good sign that I'm going a little crazy with tiredness. In my defence, it's gone two in the morning, I've been trying to get to sleep for nearly four hours, and this is fast becoming the norm. You'd be rambling too.

Things that make me smile No.74

Having one of the babies make her mummy bring her back down from halfway up the stairs because she wants me to give her a goodnight kiss. It's nice to be wanted.

Things that make me smile No.73

The sunrise this morning was stunning: streaks of concrete grey and the washed out blue of old denim, with a candyfloss froth of peach. I admired it for a while, and then realised I was dressed in that exact combination of colours. Joy!