Happy Birthday to Rants. Happy Birthday to Rants. Happy Birthday to Rants....of a Bitter Northerner. Happy Birthday to Rants.
Can you believe that three years ago on a couch in Kentish Town, the first Rant was born. And three years later, not far from the couch - I'm sat at the table which backs onto the couch - it's time for the173rd Rant of this still bitter Northerner.
I've been storing up a few treats for you and so it will be a completely random composition of anything that decides to fall out of my head, or tumble off the pages of my trusty notebook. Prepare yourselves.......
Interval training is a bitch!
With my first charity run looming, it was time to step up the training regime - good word that, regime - and try my legs at some intervals. So it was a case of running 2km to the track and then sprinting - I use the word loosely - 100metres, followed by a minute rest, and repeating this 8 times. Then running 2km home.
Lucky me, when I got there, there was a group of high schoolers using the grass in the middle of the track for some sort of team game, though I couldn't figure out what it was. I guess it was their PE lesson. So great, I would have a teenage audience for my 'sprinting'. A dream come true. So I start off well, but of course after the third 'sprint' the old thighs are beginning to groan and the minute rests become a little longer, the breathing louder and laboured.
As I start my fourth, I hear some of the lads saying, 'Go on girl.' I think, I'm technically old enough to be your mother, so shut it. And by number 6, it's more of a fast jog. By the final sprint, I think I'm just about jogging, but I still did it and I did it with those pointy hands and swooshing arms, like they do it on the Tele, so presumably I still looked good, right?
No, no. I was out of breath with exploding cheeks and very tired legs, and I was ready to leave at the same time the school group was. Disaster! So I dawdled whilst they got on their bus and then jogged pretty slowly all the way back with thighs screaming the whole way.
The pain lasted the next two days though I think it was topped up on Wednesday from my day of 6 music classes and hours of carting around heavy bags full of instruments. My arms and everything were in pain and I think I even worked my abs. So maybe this will become a weekly thing and then I can ache every week. Whoop! Something to look forward to.
You're not in my class.
So there's a particular kid who I see every week but she's not in the music class. She refuses to go outside and her teachers never make her, so instead she stands right on the edge of the carpet - where I teach the lessons - and watches. Creepy!
This week, she stood there shouting how she didn't like the music. 'I don't like this song.'
I said, 'Well it's not for you, so it doesn't matter.'
May seem a tad harsh but I've been teaching there 9 weeks, she knows the drill.
A little later she says it again, as another child comes into the room. 'I don't like this music. It's not nice this song.'
It is of course a wonderful song and story and the rest of the children were thoroughly enjoying it. I ignored her this time until I noticed her dancing along to it. Ha. So you don't like it? Stop dancing then, I dare you.
Then again, she shouted at me that she didn't like the music. I said, 'Well you were dancing to it a minute ago.' And what I didn't say, because I'm well versed in containing what I want to say when around children, was: 'Next time go outside like everyone else does and stop watching us you creepy three year old. You are not in the music class, yet every week you try to get a freebie. I don't offer freebies. You pay for the class or kindly toddle off and I don't really care whether you like the music or not, it is not for you!
The benefits of a poky London flat.
You probably don't realise how beneficial it is to have a tiny London flat, with no stairs and a minuscule floor plan, but if you watch a lot of 90's slashers/horrors, like I have been recently, then you will know beyond a doubt that you are one step ahead of that psycho killer.
Okay, so you've no garden. No acres of outdoor hiding spaces. Good. You've probably got an open plan living room/kitchen, eliminating doors and rooms. And you don't have any stairs. Good. These will all come in handy.
So when the psycho killer on the phone asks you: "Which door am I at?"
You're pretty much limited. Er, the front door, because the living room and bedroom doors are propped open; I can see through the glass on the balcony door and if you've climbed up five storeys to get here, well done to you. And finally there's the bathroom door, but that would imply you were on the toilet when you answered, or that he had let himself (or herself) in and shut themselves in your windowless bathroom. A bit pointless really. So yeah I would say, front door.
When the psycho killer says: "What's your name? I want to know who I'm looking at."
Don't panic, if your flat is anything like mine, then there are floor to ceiling windows in the bedroom and living room. People can see us and we can see them. A lot of people don't even have curtains nowadays. So there's no reason to freak out and start screaming. Just wave to your neighbours.
When the heroine of your slasher film says that people are, 'always going up the stairs when they should be going out the front door,' you can feel smug.
If you live in a flat you are less likely to have a set of stairs, meaning you would of course go out of the front door, or just stay inside. If your flat is open plan you'd see said slasher a mile off, and could just get out. Lack of rooms, doors, floor space and garden mean less places for them to hide.
(Scary Movie flashback: 'Where am I?' 'You're behind the couch.')
So by living in a tiny apartment you are already outwitting the slasher in a 90's horror, eliminating his choices and also your own. Making decisions in stressful situations is not conducive to good decision making, so therefore if you have less choices, you are less likely to do something stupid.
I would say the only downfall of a flat is that if your psycho does get in, then you are unlikely to get out, but the odds of them bothering with a block of flats with hundreds of residents is unlikely. Come on, you know the drill: big houses in the middle of nowhere, with basements and attics and twenty five rooms, and a pool and a corn field out the back. Cityscapes, not so much.
I have been enjoying the splattering of 90's movies making their way onto netflix recently. Brings back a few memories. And wow, some interesting fashion choices too. .......
Editing
I have recently hit on an analogy for the editing process. It is akin to sieving. But each time you edit you need to use a sieve with smaller holes, to syphon off even the smallest crap.
The only thing I'm not sure of, is when you stop sieving. I'll get back to you on that.
Katie Bush Box
My parents came to visit last weekend and I asked them to bring my Kate Bush Boxes. What are these? I hear you ask. Well, they are full to the brim with articles, magazines, books, VHS and lots of rare Kate Bush items that I collected during the Uni years. My dissertation was on the way she infused narrative throughout the Hounds of Love album. Having it all at the flat now is awesome. I have some incredible stuff and most of it is really rare and probably, mostly forgotten.
I also found an essay I did for my A-level Music, based on the way narrative is infused within The Creation by Haydn. Hmmm, I'm sensing a theme. Narrative and Music. How weird that I didn't realise that until now. Narrative, storytelling, it's always been there even when I thought I'd put it on the back burner to study music. But it's always been one huge story for me. Writing songs and lyrics, was giving a song a plot. There was always a beginning, a middle and an end for me, that was just how I wrote. Perhaps that was why they didn't particularly like my songs? Maybe there were too straight forward, too linear, too fairy-tale? Or of course, they could have just been crap.
I just thought it was quite interesting to realise how storytelling and narrative never left me, and I used music as a way to explore story, plot, characters and how you could exploit these in music, enhancing them with vocals, lyrics, a guitar lick, a drum beat, a piano phrase. I presume it was some sort of weird destiny that in the end I would go back to writing books, leaving the lyrics behind as my singing voice retreated back inside me and the words flowed out of my fingers instead of my mouth.
Reading
Man I am reading some incredible stuff at the moment, courtesy of Kentish Town Library, Easter presents from A and The Owl Bookshop Sale. The piles of books to be read is growing faster than I can read them, though it doesn't help when I go to the library to return a book and then come back with three more. Oops.
This year I decided to keep a log of all the books I read, in months, and these will be going on my website. I also have a book where I log and briefly review the books from the library. I have definitely had an explosion of all things literary, which I'd like to say is helping my writing, but most of the time I just want to sit in the chair and read, I don't want to be sieving.
Here are a few quotes from books I have read recently. I'm not one to quote from books but I always envy those who can. So I also keep a book entitled: Interesting Words and Quotes, because let's face it, I can't remember stuff like I used to. So instead, it is all written down, some of it on brightly coloured post it notes, shoved in there for further remembrance down the road.
"Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough when the time comes." Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale.
If only sanity was tangible, I would store it up in an envelope and hide it in a drawer. I have a feeling I'll need some soon.
I just had to mention this book. It is incredible! A dystopian future that feels far too realistic, it actually scares the bejeezers out of you. Women are simply wombs, empty spaces to fill with life, and this is just for the dwindling few that aren't known to be barren. Women are forbidden to read and write. (Erm... Hell!) Any money and property is seized from them, and they are palmed off on men whose wives cannot reproduce, essentially becoming open houses, prime real estate for men to fill.
Yes it is harrowing and as a woman it especially makes you angry, to even think that something like this could happen, and we could be bargained off as nothing more than an oven to cook up the next generation. But it's not all doom and gloom and anger and hatred, there are moments, beautiful moments and fragments of light and laughter, pinches of humour and flashbacks that will make you smile. This is survival and it ain't pretty but it certainly captivates and burrows in deep. Everyone should read this book and then kill anyone who ever suggests anything like it in real life!
"That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real." Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale.
Oh and just one more quote from the fabulous: The Humans by Matt Haig:
"Maybe you are a road, not a destination. That is fine. Be a road. But make sure it's one with something to look at out of the window."
That's not all.....
Finally, I would like to thank you, the readers of Rants. Without you I would be ranting to myself and losing my marbles at a much faster rate. Thank you for your comments and encouragements, it's nice to know I make you laugh sometimes.
Maybe I'll toast myself later, with a Birthday drink and a cake of some kind. And please feel free to toast yourselves on my behalf, as long as you find something to rant about afterwards.
Here's to the next three years!
Rants
Friday, May 9, 2014
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Be the next..........
E, I'm riled this morning. Can't put my finger on the exact reason but that twitter email about 'being the next J.K Rowling', may have had something to do with it.
I hope the people entering the competition realise that they could never be the next J.K Rowling, no matter how good their writing is, because there can't be another J.K Rowling. You can't be her, you won't be her unless maybe you decided to do a complete rip off of the HP series and just plagiarise to buggery.
Man I hate things that just name drop to attract people in.
It's like any dystopian future book, even if it was written and published before the Hunger Games, can only ever be 'The next Hunger Games.' No, we've had the next Hunger Games, it was called Catching Fire and then there was another one called Mokingjay. I don't think we need anymore.
A said, 'Yes but it's a similar-ish concept.' True. So maybe they should put that on the front of the book instead: A similar-ish concept to the Hunger Games. All dystopian futures are going to have something in common, at the very least that they are dystopian and in the future, and for the most part shitty for some of the people within them. But comparing them all to one, is just bloody annoying.
I would like to clarify, right now, that I love the Harry Potter books and The Hunger Games, but I don't want every book series in the future to be one or the other. Just because you like a thing once, doesn't mean you necessarily want to read another fifty of the same. So, I guess what I'm trying to say, in my slightly ticked off way, is just, write something that is yours and be compared to yourself and don't try and be the next anything, except maybe the next super successful debut author. That would be nice.
Okay, maybe the rant is over for now. Maybe......
Rants
Side note: Dystopian came up as a spelling mistake and when I clicked on options to change it to, it gave me these:
dustpan
dustpans
Dustin
dustbin
dustman
I hope the people entering the competition realise that they could never be the next J.K Rowling, no matter how good their writing is, because there can't be another J.K Rowling. You can't be her, you won't be her unless maybe you decided to do a complete rip off of the HP series and just plagiarise to buggery.
Man I hate things that just name drop to attract people in.
It's like any dystopian future book, even if it was written and published before the Hunger Games, can only ever be 'The next Hunger Games.' No, we've had the next Hunger Games, it was called Catching Fire and then there was another one called Mokingjay. I don't think we need anymore.
A said, 'Yes but it's a similar-ish concept.' True. So maybe they should put that on the front of the book instead: A similar-ish concept to the Hunger Games. All dystopian futures are going to have something in common, at the very least that they are dystopian and in the future, and for the most part shitty for some of the people within them. But comparing them all to one, is just bloody annoying.
I would like to clarify, right now, that I love the Harry Potter books and The Hunger Games, but I don't want every book series in the future to be one or the other. Just because you like a thing once, doesn't mean you necessarily want to read another fifty of the same. So, I guess what I'm trying to say, in my slightly ticked off way, is just, write something that is yours and be compared to yourself and don't try and be the next anything, except maybe the next super successful debut author. That would be nice.
Okay, maybe the rant is over for now. Maybe......
Rants
Side note: Dystopian came up as a spelling mistake and when I clicked on options to change it to, it gave me these:
dustpan
dustpans
Dustin
dustbin
dustman
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Seven Days Without Specs
Yesterday I was gifted with long distance sight, courtesy of my returned glasses with updated prescription. Wow! Everything is so shiny and clear and in focus. Seven days without them were horrendous but I guess it made me realise how much I need them, how much they help me and how freakin' blind I am without them. (And my prescription isn't even that bad.)
Here's just a few of the happenings of my week without spectacles:
Monday
I wore them to teach my class in the morning, then went for the optician's appointment. I reluctantly handed them over and then couldn't read any of the bus numbers until they were inches away. It's sort of disorientating, to the extent that someone is actually stealing things from your vision, deliberately erasing them, distorting the images and messing with your head. Then I had to babysit in the evening and I thought, this won't be too bad, until they announced we were watching the first Harry Potter film. Great. Movie night when the sofas are so far from the TV I really can't see anything.
Tuesday
Not too bad as I spent most of the day in the flat. Computer screens and books are fine so it was only when I had to go out and teach that the blur stole over me again, and distance distorted. It's the simple things like loss of facial features for the people approaching you. Feels like a bad horror movie. I'm half expecting everyone to turn monster or demon on me. But I managed to get back home unscathed. No monsters on the 46. Some cranks, but no demons.
Wednesday
I'd been roped into some impromptu babysitting for the boy I do private music lessons for. We were off to The British Museum for the Vikings exhibit and some Viking creative activities for children. How not fun are museums without glasses/sight? I couldn't see any of the signs. We had to get really close up first and somehow being around lots of people in a large space like that, makes it worse. They get in the way of my already limited vision, obscuring it. But he's a good boy and never left my side and we had a good few hours of museuming.
In the evening I was off to visit a friend in Richmond, an easy trip on the overground. Except.......All the trains were cancelled, after fifteen minutes of waiting for a delayed train and there were signal failures and defective trains and we all had to be refunded to our Oyster cards and sent to find alternative travel arrangements. Okay. So, I'm in heels and slightly blind but let's do this. So I walk to the Underground station. I change twice to get to Earls Court and the district line and then lo and behold, there are no trains going to Richmond. I'd already been travelling around for an hour and twenty minutes, slowly getting nowhere. In the end we agreed to meet in Waterloo for a much needed bottle of wine and a pizza.
I couldn't see my friend until she was right on top of me. Then I couldn't see the sign for the toilets. But I could see my menu, wine glass and pizza. Then I saw the dessert menu and every spoonful of panna cotta. Mmmmmm. At least it was just one tube home.
Thursday
Again, not too bad today as I was mainly in the flat, except for my doomed outing for baking ingredients. Of all the places to shop in Kentish Town, no one had black treacle. Or if they did, I certainly couldn't see it. And somehow the lack of black treacle was a by product of my inability to see. Pretty much everything that went wrong that week was attributed to my missing specs. Well, you have to blame some thing.
In the evening we had friends over for dinner, which wasn't too bad vision wise, just a blurry face experience, though in my tiny flat no one can ever be that far away. The company and food were lovely, though by the end of the night I had lost my voice.
Friday
Ah, a day in writing progress reports for one of my schools. Again, writing, reading and computers are all in focus because they're close up. But then a night in watching blurry TV was pretty distressing, nothing in focus and heaven forbid there should be any writing on screen. Eesck.
Saturday
The sore throat from the last couple of days had escalated, resulting in a lovely cough and fever and general ickiness, so no Parkrun for me this week. Then we arranged with a friend of ours to use our birthday vouchers for The View from The Shard. What an amazing time to not have glasses, when you have to see really far. Luckily I do have prescription sunglasses, though of course you look like a dick if you wear them inside. But half the viewing stuff is inside and half is out, so it was a pretty good compromise. I found where our flat was and I could see Wembley where Wigan were taking on Arsenal in the FA Cup Semi Final. Watching the trains coming in and out was weirdly satisfying. They were like wriggling, snaking, caterpillars or worms or something. And there are so many of them, only half a minute apart and constantly in and out. Rather fascinating in an oh-shit-I've-turned-into-my-dad kinda way.
Sunday
A relaxing morning watching the London Marathon on the TV, reminiscing when I did mine four years ago. Then an art gallery in the afternoon. Again, lack of sight, kind of an issue, especially when the main exhibit was all 3D screens and videos. I was doomed. I bet next week when I have the glasses, I do barely anything that would require them. Typical. Anyhoo, in the evening we watched the epic, historical film: Lincoln and I managed to fall asleep in the last thirty minutes. Oops. I blame the glasses-less-ness.
Monday
Well, we've gone full circle. I taught my class, this time without glasses and much of a voice. I came home, wrote some progress reports and then finally got the call. So I jaunted out and picked them up, whilst the lady marvelled at how cool my frames are. I'm like, I know, that's why I kept them and didn't change them for one of yours. And then it was glass, literal glass in front of my eyes, but glass with my exact prescription. I could see, even further and clearer than before and all the way back on the bus I just looked and read signs that I previously wouldn't have been able to and had my own little chufty badge, which no one else had a clue about. I can see. La la la la la la. Though I do get jealous of people with 20:20 vision, who never have to go through this bull crap.
And so, that was my week without glasses. I fear at some point, I will have to get a spare pair, so this doesn't happen again, ever. But then it did give me something to rant about.
Thanks for reading
Rants
Here's just a few of the happenings of my week without spectacles:
Monday
I wore them to teach my class in the morning, then went for the optician's appointment. I reluctantly handed them over and then couldn't read any of the bus numbers until they were inches away. It's sort of disorientating, to the extent that someone is actually stealing things from your vision, deliberately erasing them, distorting the images and messing with your head. Then I had to babysit in the evening and I thought, this won't be too bad, until they announced we were watching the first Harry Potter film. Great. Movie night when the sofas are so far from the TV I really can't see anything.
Tuesday
Not too bad as I spent most of the day in the flat. Computer screens and books are fine so it was only when I had to go out and teach that the blur stole over me again, and distance distorted. It's the simple things like loss of facial features for the people approaching you. Feels like a bad horror movie. I'm half expecting everyone to turn monster or demon on me. But I managed to get back home unscathed. No monsters on the 46. Some cranks, but no demons.
Wednesday
I'd been roped into some impromptu babysitting for the boy I do private music lessons for. We were off to The British Museum for the Vikings exhibit and some Viking creative activities for children. How not fun are museums without glasses/sight? I couldn't see any of the signs. We had to get really close up first and somehow being around lots of people in a large space like that, makes it worse. They get in the way of my already limited vision, obscuring it. But he's a good boy and never left my side and we had a good few hours of museuming.
In the evening I was off to visit a friend in Richmond, an easy trip on the overground. Except.......All the trains were cancelled, after fifteen minutes of waiting for a delayed train and there were signal failures and defective trains and we all had to be refunded to our Oyster cards and sent to find alternative travel arrangements. Okay. So, I'm in heels and slightly blind but let's do this. So I walk to the Underground station. I change twice to get to Earls Court and the district line and then lo and behold, there are no trains going to Richmond. I'd already been travelling around for an hour and twenty minutes, slowly getting nowhere. In the end we agreed to meet in Waterloo for a much needed bottle of wine and a pizza.
I couldn't see my friend until she was right on top of me. Then I couldn't see the sign for the toilets. But I could see my menu, wine glass and pizza. Then I saw the dessert menu and every spoonful of panna cotta. Mmmmmm. At least it was just one tube home.
Thursday
Again, not too bad today as I was mainly in the flat, except for my doomed outing for baking ingredients. Of all the places to shop in Kentish Town, no one had black treacle. Or if they did, I certainly couldn't see it. And somehow the lack of black treacle was a by product of my inability to see. Pretty much everything that went wrong that week was attributed to my missing specs. Well, you have to blame some thing.
In the evening we had friends over for dinner, which wasn't too bad vision wise, just a blurry face experience, though in my tiny flat no one can ever be that far away. The company and food were lovely, though by the end of the night I had lost my voice.
Friday
Ah, a day in writing progress reports for one of my schools. Again, writing, reading and computers are all in focus because they're close up. But then a night in watching blurry TV was pretty distressing, nothing in focus and heaven forbid there should be any writing on screen. Eesck.
Saturday
The sore throat from the last couple of days had escalated, resulting in a lovely cough and fever and general ickiness, so no Parkrun for me this week. Then we arranged with a friend of ours to use our birthday vouchers for The View from The Shard. What an amazing time to not have glasses, when you have to see really far. Luckily I do have prescription sunglasses, though of course you look like a dick if you wear them inside. But half the viewing stuff is inside and half is out, so it was a pretty good compromise. I found where our flat was and I could see Wembley where Wigan were taking on Arsenal in the FA Cup Semi Final. Watching the trains coming in and out was weirdly satisfying. They were like wriggling, snaking, caterpillars or worms or something. And there are so many of them, only half a minute apart and constantly in and out. Rather fascinating in an oh-shit-I've-turned-into-my-dad kinda way.
Sunday
A relaxing morning watching the London Marathon on the TV, reminiscing when I did mine four years ago. Then an art gallery in the afternoon. Again, lack of sight, kind of an issue, especially when the main exhibit was all 3D screens and videos. I was doomed. I bet next week when I have the glasses, I do barely anything that would require them. Typical. Anyhoo, in the evening we watched the epic, historical film: Lincoln and I managed to fall asleep in the last thirty minutes. Oops. I blame the glasses-less-ness.
Monday
Well, we've gone full circle. I taught my class, this time without glasses and much of a voice. I came home, wrote some progress reports and then finally got the call. So I jaunted out and picked them up, whilst the lady marvelled at how cool my frames are. I'm like, I know, that's why I kept them and didn't change them for one of yours. And then it was glass, literal glass in front of my eyes, but glass with my exact prescription. I could see, even further and clearer than before and all the way back on the bus I just looked and read signs that I previously wouldn't have been able to and had my own little chufty badge, which no one else had a clue about. I can see. La la la la la la. Though I do get jealous of people with 20:20 vision, who never have to go through this bull crap.
And so, that was my week without glasses. I fear at some point, I will have to get a spare pair, so this doesn't happen again, ever. But then it did give me something to rant about.
Thanks for reading
Rants
Monday, April 7, 2014
Defective
It's expensive having shitty defective eyes.
I went for my eye test today - only a year overdue, oops - and what a polava it was. They test you with all these lights and dots and flashing things and puffs of air in your eyes and it feels like a test that you're rapidly failing. How many lights did you see? Where were they in terms of clock positions? (Man it's difficult to think quickly about that.) Do you see any green lights? (Yes. No. Ahh, I think so.) It's all super fast and you have to think so speedily, half the time I was only processing one as she's gone on to the next one. (Just realised this makes me seem slow and slightly thick.)
So then, after this you are passed to the actual optician - before being told I have to repeat one of the tests later. Great - for charts and weird glasses. Then it's more questions and lights and tests and indecision. Which is clearer, the red or green? (As soon as you say green, convincingly, you wonder if it was red.) Which dots are clearer? Can you read the top line? Okay, so I started reading the top line and could barely make out anything on the second line, but then she changed the chart and I thought, what the hell, my eyes must be so bad I'm seeing backwards letters. Then she revealed they were actually numbers. Ha ha. Glad she told me. I thought that 3 was a backwards E.
It's only later when they get you to put on your current glasses and then add the new prescription, that you realise how much your eyes have further deteriorated. I re-did the field vision test and passed with flying colours this time, thank god. Though I'm not sure what happens when you don't. Naughty corner? Smacked wrist? And then came the new glasses spiel.
I made it pretty darn clear that I was keeping the same frames, my late 1950's vintage frames that are the most beautiful frames in the world. But still, they tried to persuade me to go for contact lenses, despite me making it perfectly clear I wouldn't be putting things in my eyes. Just take no for an answer, please! And they persuaded me to try a few of their frames, but it's no use, I'm a creature of habit, these frames suit me and they make all other frames pale into insignificance. Bless her though, the lady was patient and very sweet. She knew she was on to a loser there.
Unfortunately, it's costs more than most of the designer glasses that are buy one get one free, just to get lenses done on POF (patients' own frames). Then they offer you all these coatings and thinner lenses and something else and fairies will lick them clean and some other bumpf, and you're just left sat there confused, not quite sure what you've paid for, with a significant hole in the bank balance. I had to actually get rid of one of the coatings because it was working out more than I'd paid for my vintage glasses in the first place, and that included lenses when I bought them. Ridiculous! But even worse is that I am now glasses-less until next week. A freakin' week! I'm sure Specsavers used to do 'em in an hour. But not Boots. That is such a long time to be without them. I miss them already. But it would have cost a further £30 to have them done any quicker and that might have been 5 days instead of 7. Nah, I'll just wait thanks.
So if I'm seeing you, or attempting to see you in the next week, bare with me. If you are far away, I will not see you until you are much closer and I will be unable to read signs, bus numbers, train times or words on a cinema screen. The joys. I know I should get a spare pair, but money does not come out of my ass, unfortunately, and as I had to keep reminding them, it's really expensive to have defective eyes, especially when you're self-employed. Thankfully, I'm mostly on half term break this week. I only have a couple of babysitting things and one more class to teach, so I should be able to muddle through. If you see me squinting, you know why.
Oh, finally a little tit bit for Monday afternoon, a snatch of overheard conversation on the bus:
Oh hi, yeah, I need to book a bikini wax.
Ha ha. Made me cringe and inner giggle. Is that really something you want overhearing on a bus?
Anyhoo, to those of you with defective eyes, I salute you. To those of you with perfect eyes, I scowl at you in pure jealousy, and to anyone who has seen Final Destination 5 before an eye test, they will understand my recoil from some of the red lights.
Rants
I went for my eye test today - only a year overdue, oops - and what a polava it was. They test you with all these lights and dots and flashing things and puffs of air in your eyes and it feels like a test that you're rapidly failing. How many lights did you see? Where were they in terms of clock positions? (Man it's difficult to think quickly about that.) Do you see any green lights? (Yes. No. Ahh, I think so.) It's all super fast and you have to think so speedily, half the time I was only processing one as she's gone on to the next one. (Just realised this makes me seem slow and slightly thick.)
So then, after this you are passed to the actual optician - before being told I have to repeat one of the tests later. Great - for charts and weird glasses. Then it's more questions and lights and tests and indecision. Which is clearer, the red or green? (As soon as you say green, convincingly, you wonder if it was red.) Which dots are clearer? Can you read the top line? Okay, so I started reading the top line and could barely make out anything on the second line, but then she changed the chart and I thought, what the hell, my eyes must be so bad I'm seeing backwards letters. Then she revealed they were actually numbers. Ha ha. Glad she told me. I thought that 3 was a backwards E.
It's only later when they get you to put on your current glasses and then add the new prescription, that you realise how much your eyes have further deteriorated. I re-did the field vision test and passed with flying colours this time, thank god. Though I'm not sure what happens when you don't. Naughty corner? Smacked wrist? And then came the new glasses spiel.
I made it pretty darn clear that I was keeping the same frames, my late 1950's vintage frames that are the most beautiful frames in the world. But still, they tried to persuade me to go for contact lenses, despite me making it perfectly clear I wouldn't be putting things in my eyes. Just take no for an answer, please! And they persuaded me to try a few of their frames, but it's no use, I'm a creature of habit, these frames suit me and they make all other frames pale into insignificance. Bless her though, the lady was patient and very sweet. She knew she was on to a loser there.
Unfortunately, it's costs more than most of the designer glasses that are buy one get one free, just to get lenses done on POF (patients' own frames). Then they offer you all these coatings and thinner lenses and something else and fairies will lick them clean and some other bumpf, and you're just left sat there confused, not quite sure what you've paid for, with a significant hole in the bank balance. I had to actually get rid of one of the coatings because it was working out more than I'd paid for my vintage glasses in the first place, and that included lenses when I bought them. Ridiculous! But even worse is that I am now glasses-less until next week. A freakin' week! I'm sure Specsavers used to do 'em in an hour. But not Boots. That is such a long time to be without them. I miss them already. But it would have cost a further £30 to have them done any quicker and that might have been 5 days instead of 7. Nah, I'll just wait thanks.
So if I'm seeing you, or attempting to see you in the next week, bare with me. If you are far away, I will not see you until you are much closer and I will be unable to read signs, bus numbers, train times or words on a cinema screen. The joys. I know I should get a spare pair, but money does not come out of my ass, unfortunately, and as I had to keep reminding them, it's really expensive to have defective eyes, especially when you're self-employed. Thankfully, I'm mostly on half term break this week. I only have a couple of babysitting things and one more class to teach, so I should be able to muddle through. If you see me squinting, you know why.
Oh, finally a little tit bit for Monday afternoon, a snatch of overheard conversation on the bus:
Oh hi, yeah, I need to book a bikini wax.
Ha ha. Made me cringe and inner giggle. Is that really something you want overhearing on a bus?
Anyhoo, to those of you with defective eyes, I salute you. To those of you with perfect eyes, I scowl at you in pure jealousy, and to anyone who has seen Final Destination 5 before an eye test, they will understand my recoil from some of the red lights.
Rants
Friday, April 4, 2014
Severe Submission Sickness (SSS)
It should have been novel submission excitement this week, but instead I was struck down, in the prime of lime with the dreaded SSS - Severe Submission Sickness.
Symptoms include but are not limited to:
Just in case that was a little too grim for everyone, I'm sorry, but we can't be all happy and positive all the time. What do you mean I am never those things? You're probably right, but just in case, I will leave you with a slightly more optimistic thought:
What if reading books was exercise? I mean, what if ingesting all those words and travelling off with our characters actually burnt calories? I would be so fit!
For instance, you're not stationary when you're reading, even if you are actually stationary. You move with your characters, you experience every thing they do, so why can't that involve the real sacrificial burning of some belly flab? (As my workout DVD lovingly refers to it.)
I have been devouring books lately and have stumbled upon an author I have been meaning to read for such a long time: Lauren Oliver. Oh my. I have been missing out. Ate Panic in just over a day and am onto the first in her bestselling trilogy: Delirium. Frickin' brilliant. I'd like to think by the end of it, especially with all the running the main character does, that maybe I will be trim and fit by the end of it. Though as I am likely to finish it tomorrow, then doubts are high. Shame though. That would be the most enjoyable way of exercising and keeping fit.
Anyhoo, it's Friday, so even if, like me, you are experiencing SSS, maybe wine or vodka or friends or a little break could cure at least one or two of the symptoms. It's not a case of keeping your chin up, it's more like unknotting your stomach, trying to keep your eyes focused, and if all the dots and squiggles become incomprehensible blurs of black, then step away, have a minute, and breathe, but that's a given.
Rants
Symptoms include but are not limited to:
- Inability to trust any judgement you make.
- Hating the world, disliking everything.
- The need to throw things, generally scream, shout and have a tantrum.
- A break out in spots, akin to that of a prepubescent teen.
- Additional/rapidly increasing grey hair ratio; the amazing little wiry ones that stick up and out the sides.
- Punctuation marks become a random assortment of incomprehensible dots and lines that seem to rearrange themselves when you're not looking.
- Inability to then correct those punctuation marks and therefore hatred of the comma, semicolon and colon.
- Temperature fluctuations to the extreme. Cold sweats. Hot sweats. Medium sweats. Being so cold you need extra layers, slippers and wrist warmers. Then stripping down to vest and pyjama bottoms.
- A increased tendency to spill things, drop things, walk into things, injure yourself.
- A tiredness that aches your bones, weighs down your eyes and makes you cranky.
- Emotions so close to the surface, it's a laugh or cry moment, every moment.
- Feeling like that submission will always be twelve steps out of reach, like the end of a rainbow or the mysterious entrance to the Gherkin building. But on the tenth step there's a precipice and you might just fall to your death.
Just in case that was a little too grim for everyone, I'm sorry, but we can't be all happy and positive all the time. What do you mean I am never those things? You're probably right, but just in case, I will leave you with a slightly more optimistic thought:
What if reading books was exercise? I mean, what if ingesting all those words and travelling off with our characters actually burnt calories? I would be so fit!
For instance, you're not stationary when you're reading, even if you are actually stationary. You move with your characters, you experience every thing they do, so why can't that involve the real sacrificial burning of some belly flab? (As my workout DVD lovingly refers to it.)
I have been devouring books lately and have stumbled upon an author I have been meaning to read for such a long time: Lauren Oliver. Oh my. I have been missing out. Ate Panic in just over a day and am onto the first in her bestselling trilogy: Delirium. Frickin' brilliant. I'd like to think by the end of it, especially with all the running the main character does, that maybe I will be trim and fit by the end of it. Though as I am likely to finish it tomorrow, then doubts are high. Shame though. That would be the most enjoyable way of exercising and keeping fit.
Anyhoo, it's Friday, so even if, like me, you are experiencing SSS, maybe wine or vodka or friends or a little break could cure at least one or two of the symptoms. It's not a case of keeping your chin up, it's more like unknotting your stomach, trying to keep your eyes focused, and if all the dots and squiggles become incomprehensible blurs of black, then step away, have a minute, and breathe, but that's a given.
Rants
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Flashed and Embarrased
For so many reasons yesterday was the best day ever; my man back from the states; Kate Bush pre-order leaving me attending three dates - can't actually convey how much this means to me. But then there are the pitfalls of teaching 40 kids in one day.
The first class consisted of two of the seven toddlers, screaming and balling because they wanted to go outside with the other children. Cue some classical tones of Beethoven to soothe them into silence. It really does work.
The second class consisted of me fending off the children not taking part in the class whilst the teachers sat on their asses not doing a great deal. I'm not actually there to entertain the rest of the kids, that's your bloody job.
Then the third class showed the weirdness and down right cruelty of kids. One of the children who every week tries to join in and I have to tell him to come off the carpet area and go and play with his friends, proceeded to flash at me. And I mean, yes, tiny willy flashing. Very inappropriate and slightly insulting. I thought he was going to wee on us for not letting him join in. Little bugger. I think if his mum enquired about the lessons, I wouldn't have him on principle. It was almost like him giving me the finger, in an altogether more disturbing way. Ew.
Then, also within the third class, baring in mind the classes are half an hour each, and follow straight on from one another and contrary to popular belief, women do sweat; one of my kids decided to oust my sweat patches. The embarrassment.
"Why is your top wet Helen?"
NO! The shame!
I told him the truth and rolled my sleeves back all the way to my shoulders to try and hide it. I mean come on, even adults are polite enough not to say anything even if they notice the old sweat patches.
Damn inquisitiveness.
All in all I had been flashed and embarrassed but I still had tickets to three Kate Bush shows! Whoop!
Rants
The first class consisted of two of the seven toddlers, screaming and balling because they wanted to go outside with the other children. Cue some classical tones of Beethoven to soothe them into silence. It really does work.
The second class consisted of me fending off the children not taking part in the class whilst the teachers sat on their asses not doing a great deal. I'm not actually there to entertain the rest of the kids, that's your bloody job.
Then the third class showed the weirdness and down right cruelty of kids. One of the children who every week tries to join in and I have to tell him to come off the carpet area and go and play with his friends, proceeded to flash at me. And I mean, yes, tiny willy flashing. Very inappropriate and slightly insulting. I thought he was going to wee on us for not letting him join in. Little bugger. I think if his mum enquired about the lessons, I wouldn't have him on principle. It was almost like him giving me the finger, in an altogether more disturbing way. Ew.
Then, also within the third class, baring in mind the classes are half an hour each, and follow straight on from one another and contrary to popular belief, women do sweat; one of my kids decided to oust my sweat patches. The embarrassment.
"Why is your top wet Helen?"
NO! The shame!
I told him the truth and rolled my sleeves back all the way to my shoulders to try and hide it. I mean come on, even adults are polite enough not to say anything even if they notice the old sweat patches.
Damn inquisitiveness.
All in all I had been flashed and embarrassed but I still had tickets to three Kate Bush shows! Whoop!
Rants
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Door Handles, Door Handles And Envelopes
My word I injure myself a lot in the home; mostly whilst doing mundane jobs like hoovering or generally walking from one room to the next. And it got me thinking about the most recurring injuries that I inadvertently inflict upon myself. And the top three are:
1. Door Handles.
I'm not sure what it is about the height of a door handle or the amount it sticks out or what, but I have quite the knack for bashing elbows, hands, knuckles, hips, legs and fore arms. The amount of bruises I've sustained from door handles is quite ridiculous. And I wouldn't mind, but it's not like they move around, changing their height and sticky-outedness. So why do I continue with the regular collisions? Reduction in spatial awareness? Definitely. An innate clumsiness? Absolutely. Being drawn to shiny things much in the same way as a magpie? Hmmm, not really. Whatever it is, they seem out to get me.
2. Buggering Door Handles.
Now you may be thinking, this is the same as the aforementioned door handles, but you'd be wrong. This is a very specific door handle injury and one that I'm still in pain from. So, I'm hoovering the house and doing a good job of it, getting up all the fluff and hair and stuff and thinking wow, that's what colour the carpet really is. Then I head into the bedroom and you know when you're in the throws of hoovering and you just don't notice that door handle right by your head, as you bend down to get in the corners. Then BAM! Right on the pissin' corner of that wonderful metal contraption. I honestly thought there may be blood and a slight concussion the force at which I hit it, but it turns out there was just a lump and tenderness three days later. Whoop! And all that from trying to tidy up the house.
3. Bloody Love Film Envelope.
Yes, the bloody Love Film envelope attacked me with a paper cut spanning the entire width of my middle finger, yesterday. Blood everywhere. Ha ha.
I think the conclusion here is that I'm a menace to myself and most door handles. Door handles beware, you may be in for a collision with Rants.
Until next time.
Rants
1. Door Handles.
I'm not sure what it is about the height of a door handle or the amount it sticks out or what, but I have quite the knack for bashing elbows, hands, knuckles, hips, legs and fore arms. The amount of bruises I've sustained from door handles is quite ridiculous. And I wouldn't mind, but it's not like they move around, changing their height and sticky-outedness. So why do I continue with the regular collisions? Reduction in spatial awareness? Definitely. An innate clumsiness? Absolutely. Being drawn to shiny things much in the same way as a magpie? Hmmm, not really. Whatever it is, they seem out to get me.
2. Buggering Door Handles.
Now you may be thinking, this is the same as the aforementioned door handles, but you'd be wrong. This is a very specific door handle injury and one that I'm still in pain from. So, I'm hoovering the house and doing a good job of it, getting up all the fluff and hair and stuff and thinking wow, that's what colour the carpet really is. Then I head into the bedroom and you know when you're in the throws of hoovering and you just don't notice that door handle right by your head, as you bend down to get in the corners. Then BAM! Right on the pissin' corner of that wonderful metal contraption. I honestly thought there may be blood and a slight concussion the force at which I hit it, but it turns out there was just a lump and tenderness three days later. Whoop! And all that from trying to tidy up the house.
3. Bloody Love Film Envelope.
Yes, the bloody Love Film envelope attacked me with a paper cut spanning the entire width of my middle finger, yesterday. Blood everywhere. Ha ha.
I think the conclusion here is that I'm a menace to myself and most door handles. Door handles beware, you may be in for a collision with Rants.
Until next time.
Rants
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