Mumbling Into My Shirtwaist

My irrational fears have welcomed a newcomer into the fold.

Today, whilst despairing over ever finding a job that involves even slight less bacon-grease scraping, I took my mind off a fruitless search with some casual email-reading. I alighted upon an email from CodeAcademy, with whom I tried to learn skills many months back. In a moment of peerless enthusiasm for my left brain, I clicked through to take up where I'd left off.

After completing three small exercises, I felt proud and clever. I would code! Or learn to recognise some code! Or retain information longer than four minutes!

Eighteen seconds after opening the fourth exercise, I was sitting up very, very straight in my chair, unable to move, paralysed by the overwhelming realisation that I would not code. That my brain was simply and completely unable to grasp the concept of coding. And that it all frightened me to the point of immobilised imbecility because I couldn't understand.

My last similar experience was at the age of three or so, when I suddenly realised that I didn't know how the toaster worked. I lay rigid in bed for hours every night and couldn't go into the kitchen for weeks.

Hopefully I'll be able to stand up soon.

F*ck Yeah Organising

Have created a new folder in my gmail documents area (said area only contains two documents and one of those is a film noir my ex-boyfriend wrote, but I think I am getting up to speed on this internet thing) specifically for WEDDING SHIT. That is what it is called. With emphasis on the caps-lock. Within the folder, a file! For addresses! So I can send invitations to people to come to this wedding that I hate planning almost more than I hate changing the cat litter tray!

I wrote down all the people that we wrote down ages ago in the notebook of usefulness into a spreadsheet so I could try to figure out where they all lived. I have no idea where most of them live. I don't even know some of their last names. There is a guest invited that I know only as Panda. I don't think it's his real name, but I'm really not all that sure it isn't. But I wrote him down in pen before, so he's clearly important.

But stay, that is not the only thing I have organised! I also cut out all the pieces for my mock-up dress. Except the skirt. I ran out of material because I forgot it would have four pieces. So then I read the instructions and tried out the new sewing machine on a random scrap of fabric. It is becoming increasingly apparent that to skip from a half-finished hand puppet in the shape of an owl to a dress is not so much a steep learning curve as it is a a dry-stone wall someone is building on top of your head.


I hear elopement is no longer considered taboo. 

Debate Night

Tonight we went to a debate on whether one can act in a moral way without belief in a god. The god in the room tonight was of a Judeo-Christian nature. I couldn't tell you if it fell more toward one than the other, as the theology of the religious side of the debate became and remained muddled.

Nothing gets me more than people who claim a religion is about love first and foremost and then seek to withhold any kind love from those who don't agree with their point of view. The cat ran into the wall today chasing a piece of paper she was holding in her own mouth. She would have been better at arguing logically (or coherently! I would have accepted either!) than most of the people talking about god tonight.

Perhaps I should offer her to SOLAS (look it up, I had to) the next time they try to play debate. At least she won't call my moral standards into disrepute just because I'm a humanist.

Some Things You Should Think About Before Doing Them

Here are some of the things I have done that really merited more forethought than they got:

• Diluted paint thinner with incorrect diluting substance.
• Used entire bottle of paint thinner to dunk new decorative ashtray.
• Bought decorative ashtray.
• Eaten two-person supper portion of Mexican Tomato Bake.

So today has been useful for anyone who reads this and is thinking of doing any of these things. I mean, the water and paint thinner seem to have separated and according to the internet I'm not even allowed to pour it all down the drain when I'm done. So I guess moving the good saucepan until it's all evaporated is not something I can do now. Maybe I shouldn't have put the paint thinner in the good saucepan, but how was I to know? There is an astonishing lack of instructions on the bottle, given how hazardous this stuff claims to be.

When it evaporates and leaves crystals behind I can't dispose of those either. Presumably I'll have to be buried with them.

Other than that, a pretty good day.

Trampolining is Dangerous

All I had to do was thank the handyman when he left and then continue sitting down. Not exerting myself was the priority. Left alone for an hour, I thought I could achieve that.

From the helpful brief of "Sit here, and don't do anything that could pull your muscles. I'll be back when I have gone to the bank for you and picked up the spare keys." I was able to extract "Lie down, in such a way as to ensure you can't get up." I lay down on the bed, and realised that I could not exercise my stomach muscles sufficiently to pull myself back up.

Gazing at the ceiling, my mind wondered idly whether, when Matt returned home, he would be able to justify living with a woman who cannot even get back up after she has laid down? And laid down contrary to his own loving advice?

He might look at me, lying there, covered in Asda's own-brand strawberry laces and wincing every time the dust made me sneeze and think "I have set up house with an imbecile." I didn't want him to think that. Or surmise that I needed round-the-clock, specialist care to deal with having pulled a muscle. I am nature's optimist. I tried rolling to the side, rocking my feeble body back and forth. With enough momentum, I had figured that I would be able to roll on to the floor and land face-down, allowing me to push myself upright with my hands, gripping the furniture around me for support.

Later, as I brushed the dried blood from my hair and applied pressure to the wound, I was able to reflect that I had, at least, thanked the handyman, and that now the front door locked correctly. Progress!