Procrastination is a bad bad very bad badness of baddom

I work very hard all day. I don't read blogs. I work.

I come home, a bit late, working on the train. Thinking about how tired I am (having been up past midnight yesterday, working), and how much I am looking forward to wrapping up this little worky thing (and maybe clearing away a few of the most pressing and also quickest other worky things that are hovering about in the corners of my brain and in-tray, looking awkward and making "ahem" noises whenever I look up from the worky thing right in front of me) so I can go to bed.

I get home. I open half a dozen letters and one package. I fire up pooter and check email, which fails to deliver anything that I haven't already seen and if necessary replied to from the office. This hurts my feelings. I feel unloved and deprived of communication. I feel instantly compelled to check half a dozen not very interesting blogs* that I have actually been monitoring quite closely enough.

Bad Scroobious. No biscuit.

(Ooooh... time for tea and biscuit break?)

* Not yours, obviously.

Context is everything

Words that have made me happy this week:

"I can get you a hospital appointment."
"You won't get headaches, and you won't put on weight."
"The X-rays show your teeth are absolutely fine."
"There's nothing more to do here. You should go home now."
"This evening's performance is starting in one minute..."/"I'm almost there."
"The next train at platform 18 is the 22:22 to Addlestone via Brentford."
"Oh. That headline is... really excellent."
"It's here at last! The most sophisticated piece of technology you'll ever pee on!"

The problem with yoga

Now, we all know that yoga is a wonderful thing that enables you to contort into unnatural postures and develop long elegant limbs and imagine you too can have men salivating over you even when you're 50, just like Madge. Plus, there aren't a lot of exercise classes that include a gentle snooze at the end. But. I feel the drawbacks of this rather peculiar discipline are too often overlooked. So in case a yoga class is on your list of New Year's resolutions — sorry, "goals" — I'm here to remind you that the problems with yoga are manifold.

1. It's not enough to be bendy, or twisty, or balancey. You frequently have to do all three at once, while staring at the ceiling and following instructions in that special alien yoga language that go something like: "Open your shoulderblades! Extend your arm in line with your left leg! Rotate your hips! And remember to keep your body on a vertical plane!" I'm not even sure what all that means, but I'm pretty darn certain I can't do it without checking my posture in a mirror, and even if I had a mirror, it wouldn't be on the ceiling.

2. About that "open your shoulderblades" thing. Yoga instructors seem to have a completely different idea of how the human body works. Surely anyone with a basic grounding in anatomy would understand that "bring your left kidney towards your right knee", if it means anything at all, is impossible?

3. Also, yoga was invented by men. Ascetic men. Men who apparently tried very hard not to think about things of the flesh, especially things of that interestingly curvy flesh that belongs to the other half of the species, and hence they haven't really considered the implications of certain positions for those of us with certain endowments. Now, whatever you may think, drowning in one's own bosom is really not a sexy way to go.

4. Over the centuries I suspect the ascetic aspect has gradually given way to a certain level of prurience. Hence the universal guideline from yoga instructors: "Wear something loose and comfortable." If anyone were foolish enough to actually follow this advice, they would soon find themselves halfnaked as the loose folds of their clothing gathered around their ears.

5. So we all wear something tight and comfortable instead, which definitely also enhances the prurience factor, and has the added disadvantage for female students that for half the class we are staring at the lithe, lycra-clad, perfect buttocks of the girl in front of us, and for the other half we find our eyeballs approximately two inches away from our own generous rolls of adiposity, significantly enhanced by the unforgiving position we're in. (At this point, I find it helps to remind myself that nobody else can see any further than their own belly either, so this isn't quite the forum of public shame that it feels like.)

6. And then — I blush to mention this, but it must be said — there is the danger of farting. With all that buttocks to the ceiling business, if there is any gas in your body, surely it will out. Probably when you're quite unprepared.

See you next Wednesday, then?

Adrenaline junkie

I like living dangerously. On the edge. I crave risk, I need to fly that little bit closer to the sun.

I just put my brand new, exquisitely cut, dry-clean-only wool/silk skirt in the washing machine.

Oh yeah baby. Feel the rush.

Update: It's out, looking very much as it did before, only cleaner. Ha! Dry cleaning is for WUSSIES!

Women are like that

Seen in Annabelle cafe/bar in Zurich. Annabelle is a Swiss magazine; its advertising slogan is "Frauen sind so".

Holiday album

All pics courtesy of Beloved.

I never learn

It's a good thing my new year's resolutions didn't include "do not accidentally swallow a gallon of booze and pass out on the beanbags, leaving your long-suffering husband sleeping all alone at home", because I would have already failed.

Then again, maybe if I had made such resolution I would have tried to keep it, and I wouldn't have felt quite so horrible today. Or had to cancel my lunch date with a poor neglected friend.

So, almost new year's resolution: do try to drink like a grown-up, dear.

(You know, I don't do this often. Not at all often, which is probably why it never even occurs to me to resolve to cut down. And why I get so surprised at the effects.)

You know it's the first week of January when...

...you're up at 8am to go for a run — even though you only start work at 4pm.

...your diary is still a thing of beauty in your eyes.

...you have a mountain of Christmas chocolate in the house, and you fail to see how this might in any way compromise your good New Year intentions.

...your friend has just changed your date (made before Christmas) from "tea" to "lunch", because she genuinely believes there will be less calorie consumption that way.

...you know exactly what you want to do next New Year, and you don't for a minute think you might forget your idea by then.

...you see no problem with having signed up for a race in just five weeks, requiring you to train diligently in the coldest, most miserable time of the year.

Scrunch or fold?

Anna Little Red Boat, investigative journalist extraordinaire, started quite the conversation while I was away. Now, I'm entirely with her. Scrunching all the way. Folding your loo paper? That's just *weird*. (But does explain why English toilet paper is so thick.)

However.

Tissues, I fold. This is important. Blowing my nose with a single unfolded tissue leads to leakage and the immediate need for further tissues. Scrunching is inefficient. So I take my tissue, I fold it in half (usually), tuck neatly under the nose, blow, turn upside down, blow, fold again, wipe, fold, tidy up. I am told this is peculiar. I fail to see why. It's just sensible.