Spoons

Spoons, and cutlery in general, are a necessary evil. I appreciate the need to use them in public, but table manners are only a concession to other peoples' sensibilities; a way of making oneself pleasant to be around. I don't want to watch somebody chew with their mouth open, and they don't want to watch me eat with my fingers. At home, however, with nobody else around, they're welcome to chomp away as messily as they like, and I will almost always choose to forgo cutlery. Obviously this doesn't work with every foodstuff. A tub of ice cream requires a spoon. So does anything too runny to pick up digitally but not runny enough to drink straight from the bowl. But generally I think food just seems to taste better when eaten with the fingers. Not wanting to sound like too much of a knob, but I think it gives you more of a connection with what you're eating. It also, admittedly, sometimes gives you burnt fingers, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Breathing

Sometimes when I'm concentrating on something (usually writing or attempting to make numbers add up properly, since there's very little else I bother to concentrate on) I start to get a bit dizzy. Then I realise that I'm unwittingly holding my breath. I sometimes wonder if this unconscious respirational suspension could ever lead to actual unconsciousness, or if I will always become aware of it in time to remind myself to start working those lungs again. Either way, isn't breathing supposed to be an automatic thing? How can one just 'forget' to breathe?

Inspiration dearth

I expressed concern on Facebook regarding my current lack of inspiration for writing topics, and received two responses:

J: Spoons.
M: Breathing.

Thanks guys. Thanks a lot. Still, I'm not one to shy away from a challenge. Actually that's a lie. I almost always shy away from challenges. Not on this occasion though. I shall not be beaten!

Dark thoughts

Is it strange to be 26 years old and still scared of the dark? It makes perfect sense to me. After all, anything you could possibly be scared of could conceivably be there in the dark. It's like Schrodinger's cat. Until you open the box the cat is both dead and alive, because it's impossible to know which. Well until you turn the light on, everything that frightens you is right there. At night every window has the potential to suddenly frame a creepy face staring in at me. The space under the bed is populated with spiders and indefinable creatures ready to clutch at my ankles. Indistinct figures stand over me as I lie there, just waiting for me to close my eyes. Luckily for me, the time-honoured technique of pulling the covers right over your head is a very effective one. After all.....if you can't see it, it doesn't exist.....right? Modelling myself on an ostrich may not be the most effective lifestyle choice, but I still wish I could apply it to life as a whole. If I never had to worry about anything that wasn't right in front of my face, my stress levels would be much more manageable.

I hate public transport!

After last week's face punching debacle this is probably not a big deal, but I could have done without it all the same. Today the man sitting opposite me on the tube decided to tell me "You know.....you'd be quite pretty if you lost some weight". What makes people think it's acceptable to comment negatively on a complete stranger's physical appearance? At least it wasn't as bad as the time a man watched me do my make-up on the Northern line and then said "I don't know why you're bothering. You're fucking ugly anyway". There must be something about me that inspires meanness in the general public. I was pretty proud of myself for my self possession on this occasion though. Instead of gaping in disbelief as usual, or bursting into tears, my response was a scornful "How sweet. You wouldn't."

Things that make me smile No.72

On a cheerier note from the last post; on Saturday I came downstairs all gussied up for an evening out. One of the babies looked at me and declared 'Ardie Megs look perdy'. I was naturally delighted, and she got so much attention for it that she decided to try out the same line on me on Sunday morning. Unfortunately it was slightly less believable at that point in time, when I'd just wandered blearily into the room in my dressing gown, with panda eyes and bed hair.

I can't think of a punchy title

On Wednesday evening, while I was on the train home, the man standing next to me started to have some sort of claustrophobic panic attack. Unfortunately, this manifested itself as him screaming at everyone to let him off the train and then, because I was between him and the door of the still moving train, taking a swing at me. The train was sufficiently packed that he wasn't able to put a lot of power into it, but he caught me square on the cheekbone. Annoyingly, given how painful it was and how distressing I found the experience, I only have the faintest of bruises and a strange red mark beside my eye. If I have to be punched in the face by a complete stranger on public transport, I should at least get a proper bruise out of it to add drama to the telling of the story.

The man ran off when we pulled into the station a split second afterwards, and it didn't seem to occur to any of us at the time to call the police. Of course lots of people are now instructing me to do so, but I don't want to. He seemed more scared than angry, and I imgine will be wary of rush-hour trains for a good long while. If only this were not also the case with me. I have no option but to travel during rush hour, and find myself getting anxious now when I do so. I keep scanning the faces of my fellow passengers to see if any of them are about to lose it. This leaves me standing there, fidgeting, eyes darting around suspiciously, meaning that the only one on the train who looks like a crazy person............is me.

Shades of Molly

Last night one of the babies grabbed my hand and declared "Ardie Megs paint fingers like Molly". Naturally I was confused. Molly painted her fingernails? Impressive, given her lack of opposable thumbs. And then I realised what the baby meant. Auntie Megs has indeed inadvertently painted her fingernails the colour of the cat. That child is too smart for her own good.

Wakey wakey

It's been over a week since I had a proper night's sleep. I lie awake for ages and then, when I do finally drop off, I keep waking up again. My whole night is made up of a series of fitful dozes and disturbing dreams. Rather annoyingly, I'm starting to suspect that it's worry about not being able to sleep that's preventing me sleeping. Vicious circle anyone?

Diddly dee dee

There was a girl on the tube this morning who was clearly struggling to stay awake and failing. In order to stop herself dozing off, she decided it would be a good idea to set her mobile phone alarm to go off every minute or so. Loudly. It worked....for her. Every blast of the alarm brought her jerking out of her doze, but it only took about three minutes before I and, by the looks of them, everyone else in the carriage wanted to seize that phone and drop it down The Gap. And that's the polite version. I was strongly tempted to find out her destination and tell her I'd wake her when we got there.......and then 'forget'.