What a North & Souff....

blimey what I mouth I've got.....

I started typing this post after an incident that I clearly felt guilty/OTT about even for me but for the life of me I have no idea what that was.  Probably just the usual drunken opinionated bollocks that I talk.  Still someone has to have an opinion otherwise when out with friends, people would just stare out into the middle distance like old married couples.  Damn it is just like real life - pass me another glass of red as life is just TOO bloody short.

...change your dirty ways ....

Or Project - Me Me Me (did I say me?)

Bugger it, I have had a gut full of making other people happy and life, although full of stuff that should satisfy the average person in the Western world, just isn't.  It is time to give myself another challenge.  Just back from the gym and whilst there I decided to do my best to drop 5 kg by Christmas.  So here is my mid-August pledge:

Get me!  I saw a great photo on someone else's blog a while ago of a girl running and it read, "you are losing weight with every step", well I typed that into G images and on the first page this picture came up.  I heartily agree with the sentiment and had a quick browse of the blog it featured on.  It transpires that a very attractive, seemingly slender, 21 year old girl is obsessed with not indulging, she is lacking self-esteem and is no doubt she is under immense pressure (or that is her perception) to look like the photo shopped girls in the glossy mags.  Now I am more than double her age and like to think that I am not effected by the commercially driven tosh in the media and no longer buy magazines of this type, but of course I do want to be in control of myself again and this is not tied up with trying to compete in the sexual Olympics - which was certainly the hormone driven case from the age of 12-29.  It would have gone on further and would no doubt still be the case but I have been in a long term relationship since 29 and for many years didn't even look at other blokes (and rarely do now) and so the motivation about all related issues has fundamentally altered.  Contentment can make you fat and lazy, is that so bad? 

However you can take this too far and as late middle-age approaches, I find myself being bored by the debauched lifestyle I used to absolutely love.   Stop press - oh no, it happened again, just back from a birthday of a very good friend and it was supposed to be fun but it was just short of the mark.  I am clearly going through a transition stage and N called it, it was just a farce and bullshit - his perception but he is not used to having to please everyone and I am a master at at least attempting it.  His essential issue does speak volumes for him though.

Can I break the habit [training] of a life time?

Did enjoy being told I looked good tonight (by my friend) and this does give me a buzz, is this my new drug? 

Just discovered a running tips site and here are a few superlatives, for running and life in general!

Create your own running creed

• You must listen to your body. Run through annoyance, but not through pain
• My whole teaching in one sentence is: "Run slowly, run daily, drink moderately, and don't eat like a pig.
• I believe in using races as motivators. It's hard to keep on an exercise program if you don't have a significant goal in sight.
• Build with care - If you put down a good solid foundation, you can then build one room after another and pretty soon you have a house. After your base mileage, add hills, pace work, speed work, and finally race strategy.
• Your body is always trying to tell you where you are. Beware when you become tired and listless, when you lose interest in workouts and approach them as a chore rather than a pleasure - so just beware!
• Divide and conquer - Pick one thing each year that you need to improve, and work on that. It might be improving your diet, getting more sleep, or increasing your mileage. You can't work on everything at once
• Get over it - If you have a bad workout or run a bad race, allow yourself exactly 1 hour to stew about it--then move on

PUT THE TIGER IN THE CAT

Lasciviousness - isn't all it is cracked up to be...

Lascivious = this word conjures up images of a Roman 'Bacchanalian' orgy. 

Dictionary definition =

Adj.

1.

lascivious - driven by lust; preoccupied with or exhibiting lustful desires; "libidinous orgies" feeling morbid sexual desire or a propensity to lewdness

Well that is the keyword to describe the weekend I have just had (and not in a good way!)  The picture above pretty much sums it up but I am not sure if it depicts me - and my reaction - or my lascivious companion for the trip?

On paper it should have been so enjoyable - a couple of mates away for a mini-break, a sports car (I have just realised it could have been a T&L situation) a girly location (i.e. a spa town) money in our pockets, nice countryside, comfortable accommodations (i.e. two bedrooms and two bathrooms).  It should all add up to bliss.  But instead of this, it was more like this and --> on reflection, I realise that I am Jack Lemmon/Tony Randell and not Walter Matthau/Jack Klugman.  But of course from my prospective I am the superior being.  Well that is harsh, we just don't have enough in common to sustain a weekend together and this is the first time we have done it and I have realised it with such brute a forcini.  Perhaps she couldn't wait to get rid of me too, because I had been a boring, judgemental, stick-in-the-mud but I even wonder if she even has that much sensitivity?  When she kept suggesting other outings and locations for our next weekend away, I found myself mentally sticking a fork in my leg and kept on smiling (whilst being non-committal - see I am learning from my time spent with men!)

The timing of this weekend away was all about her, her long term lover was leaving for a very special holiday with his wife and so she wanted to fill her time and not be alone in her apartment - although whilst we were away he was in mid-air, perhaps business class but nonetheless going long-haul in a confided space, squirming in his seat, feeling pressure to converse with his partner and downing food & drink to alleviate the boredom, then we would have had to endure the inevitable indigestion and flatulence - not that dissimilar from my experience with his mistress!

Yet again it makes me think that I should have a long rest from, or at least a cut back on, time spent with people that although I like, I accommodate much more than they ever seek to accommodate me!  I felt uncomfortable by a neediness, an eagerness to please and yet total selfishness (that combination seems improbable but it actually happened) and I found myself being not only incredibly annoyed but more than that, palpably bored.  Although I felt bad, I was equally repulsed.  I am using very emotional and dramatic vocab but from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon, that feeling just intensified with every moment that passed! 

An expensive and tedious trip.  Not even the indulgence in food and drink did what it ordinarily does - it didn't really dull my senses! I can't explain my violent reaction except that my companion talked endlessly about the woes in her life, the fact that she was overweight - like it was an unfair affliction visited upon her, but the lust for Krispy Kremes didn't count - that coloured everything in her life. She mused upon this whilst eating extremely fast, her mouth open, slightly slathering.  Then after a hefty brunch or dinner, would take many minutes to contemplate - pouring over the menu and eyeing other diner's sweet treats - the first (and then second) dessert of the day whilst musing on diets ARRRRGH.

Some clever person once said you always hate the thing you are, my hedonistic mate gorged herself but declared she was never really happy with her fare, found a reason to complain about everything from the drive to the accommodation to the service to the food etc.  On the one hand her attitude is at times extreme and on a par with the most precious Diva but no doubt I see, and don't like, our similar love of greed and measure my own behaviour against it and found myself wanting.  God knows I have my vices but faced with this endless conflicting rap - I really strive to acknowledge my hypocrisy and the fact that us women are a mass of contradictions.  I did listen attentively and attempted to be supportive.  I am not sure I succeeded but I genuinely hope I did and at least one of us enjoyed the weekend.

Despite the food, drink, laziness, pleasant walks (!) chats and mooches around arts & crafts shops etcetc, it didn't work for me.  It was a bit like my New York experience.  I want to go back but just not with the same person.  Chalk n cheese works in small does BUT....

Dry July (it could be a very long month)

Well it is 4th July - Happy Independence day to America

It is also 4 day of 31 during which time I will try to attempt ......

I was just flicking through my marketing and internet sales email address and came across this article in the Mindfood magazine newsletter, under the title of Wellbeing.... so I clicked onto it in the hope it would give me some great support.   And I quote -

5 reasons to get behind Dry July

Contemplating whether to sign up to Dry July this month?  Here are five reasons why you should:

1.  Dry July is a month dedicated to giving up alcohol, in order to raise money towards creating better environments and support networks for adult cancer patients and their families.

My pledge/progress: charity in July so far - $5 in the Guide Dog training for the blind, $5 for a Big-Issue – Target charity payments, minimum $100 by end of July.

As tough a challenge as it may sound to some, giving up alcohol has a number of health and lifestyle benefits. Below, we’ve listed our top five reasons for getting behind Dry July this year:

2. The health benefits

The most obvious reason for giving up alcohol is of course, the benefits to your health; alcohol, among other things, is a toxin, digested immediately by the liver. Excessive alcohol consumption has also long been linked to numerous long-term health problems, like heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, liver disease, and even cancer. Not to mention it is a drug, and, like others, poses strong addictive qualities that can affect your life quality. 

My pledge/progress: so far so good, including a trip to the pub last night, stuck to soda water & lime cordial. But I did have squid & chips for dinner and a few squares of dark chocolate when I got home... must try harder not to compensate.  Also on the next grocery shopping trip, start to really focus on 'clean' food and whilst I cannot bear to waste anything (no pun intended) I will feel compelled to use up any 'bad' foods in the house but not replace them.  Also, I want to start really researching 'raw' food and start to contemplate a regime for reducing sugar.

3. The benefits to your waistline

The body has no storage capacity for alcohol like it does for carbohydrates and fats, so it must be digested and processed immediately by the liver. Because it is a poison, the body must metabolise it as quickly as possible. While your liver is metabolising the glass of wine you’ve just consumed, it is unable to process any fats, carbohydrates or protein. As a direct result of this, alcohol consumption can also lead to a false sense of hunger, and your body will crave fatty foods, to soak up the booze. All these factors ultimately lead to weight gain. Giving it up for a month is a surefire way to shed a few quick kilos.

My pledge/progress: Plan to go the gym 3 times this week and take longwalks in between - goal - lose at least 2 (hopefully 3) kilos this month.  At last measure I was 79.5k

4.  The beauty benefits

Waking up and facing the mirror after big night, is not often a pretty sight. You will likely appear tired, puffy-faced, and be sporting some dark bags under your eyes. Regular drinking is one of the fastest ways to age your skin, so giving your pores and peepers a breather for 31 days is the best facial you could invest in.

My pledge/progress: Concentrate on my cleansing routine, research and purchase a good serum from the money I save from buying plonk.  I have another facial booked for an end-of-month treat. 

5..The benefits to your wallet

The average person will spend $40 a week on booze, and that’s not taking into account, the price of transport and cab fares to get home safely after a night out, and the food that often goes hand-in-hand with that beer or glass of wine. Cutting out alcohol for a month will probably save you around $200 – money you can spend on something you wouldn’t normally indulge in.
My pledge/progress: a quick calculation - when I drink in the pub I probably spend on average $35 per night on booze.  Then have on average 3 bottles per week so another $40.  Now I don't drink out in pubs every week any more but I certainly used to, so I will realise a potential saving of $300 this month if I have NO BOOZE.  Use that additional income to put towards charity donations and to finance my facial/massage ($99) - looking forward to that..!

Battle of wills

My pledge/progress: really try hard to not booze for the duration of July.  I managed Feb Fast this year and I did say I would also try to get through Dry July and Sober October but if I am completely honest with myself, I am secretly already planning to have a bottle on Saturday night if himself goes away for the weekend and I can have a little binge treat whilst watching a few of my favourite DVDs.  Very poor.

The Secret is .......

I have just finished reading probably the best novel I have ever read.  It took me quite a while as I only read in bed and usually my eyes are only capable of only reading 3/4 pages but last night as it came to a gripping conclusion, I read for over an hour.  I also did not see the awful truth coming about the letter recipiant, Franklin and at the point I realised, my heart sank and I really felt upset.  A very powerful story, outstanding writing and it the captures the experience my generation.  The girl called Lionel.

However half way through the book, I read a few paragraphs that really startled me and hit a nerve.  I had to go back and read it several times - a bit like a hair-shirt.  It helped me crystalise my own thoughts about modern life that I could never artculate in such a concise way.  I have put it these paragraphs here just to remind me of not only these thought-provoking sentances and the nub of the arguement (which I agree with wholeheartedly) but also to remind me to read more of her work.
                                                  ___________________

Page 172

In the end, that's what Kevin has never forgiven us.  He may not resent that we tied to impose a curtain between himself and the adult terrors lucking behind it.  But he does powerfully resent that we led him down the garden path – that we enticed him with the prospect of the exotic.

(Hadn’t I myself nourished the fantasy that I would eventually land in a country that was somewhere else?) When we shrouded our grown-up mysteries for which Kevin was too young, we implicitly promised him that when the time came, the curtain would pull back to reveal – what?  Like the ambiguous emotional university that I imagined awaited me on the other side of childbirth, it’s doubtful that Kevin had formed a vivid picture of whatever we had withheld from him.  But the one thing he could not have imagined in that we were withholding nothing.  That there was nothing on the other side of our silly rules, nothing.

The truth is, the vanity of protective parents that I cited to the court goes beyond look at us we’re such responsible guardians.  Our prohibitions also bulwark our self-importance.  They fortify the construct that we adults are all initiates.  By conceit, we have earned access to an unwritten Talmud whose soul-shattering content we are sworn to conceal from “innocents” for their own good.  By pandering to this myth of their naïf, we service our own legend.  Presumably we have looked ‘the horror’ in the face, like staring into the naked eye of the sun, blistering into turbulent, corrupted creatures, enigmas even to ourselves.  Gross with revelation, we would turn back the clock if we could, but there is no unknowing of this awful canon, no return to the blissfully insipid world of childhood, no choice but to shoulder this weighty black sagacity, whose finest purpose is to shelter our air-headed midgets from a glimpse of the abyss.  The sacrifice is flatteringly tragic.

The last thing we want to admit is that the forbidden fruit on which we have been gnawing since reaching the magic-age of twenty-one is the same mealy Golden Delicious that we stuff into our children’s lunch boxes.  The last thing we want to admit is that the bickering of the playground perfectly presages the machinations of the boardroom, that our social hierarchies are merely an extension of who got picked first for the kickball team, and that grown-ups still get divided into bullies and fatties and crybabies.  What’s a kid to find out?

Presumably we lord over them an exclusive deed to sex, but the pretense flies so fantastically in the face of fact that it must result from some conspiratorial group amnesia. To this day, some of my most intense sexual memories date back to before I was ten, as I have confided to you under the sheets in better days.  No they, have sex too.  In truth, we are bigger, greedier versions of the same eating, shitting, rutting ruck, hell-bent on disguising from somebody, if only from a three-year-old, that pretty much all we do is eat and shit and rut. The secret is that there is NO secret.  That is what we really wish to keep from our kids, and its suppression is the true collusion of adulthood, the pact we make, the Talmud we protect.

Sure, by the time he was fourteen we had given up on trying to control the videos he watched, the hours he kept, what little he read.  But watching those stupid films and logging onto those stupid websites, swigging that stupid hooch and sucking those stupid butts and fucking those stupid schoolgirls, Kevin must have felt to fiercely cheated.  And on ‘Thursday’ I bet he still felt cheated.
                                                           ___________________

It reminds me of a memory I had.  I was around 6 or 7 and I loved drawing - having progressed from 4 years of colouring-in.  I drew a picture of myself looking like your typical 'princess' and wrote at the bottom, "Me at 21".   The people that surround you and the media from the age of zero lead you to believe anything is possible.  I am starting to realise that this is just not true.

Pay-Day Pinks...

I was sitting in the sauna earlier today and realised that I have actually have my best job ever - it was quite an epiphany - particularly as I am not exactly stimulated the majority of the time, but then ultimately how much does that really matter? Perhaps I should stop trying to get so much from my job, stop moaning and just enjoy the fact that I am so lucky when so many are not.  I will give a bit more to charity this week as it really isn't fair.

I realised that I am having not the pay-day blues but rather the PAY-DAY PINKS 

I have just had some fun looking a Google images under the keyword pink, as you would expect, the great gal singer featured largely (I am not all that au fait with her back catalogue but she strikes me as something different from the run of the mill pretty girl pop singer and the first time I heard Family Portrait, I was struck but how intelligent the lyrics were and what a magnificent voice).

Anyway back to my PINK celebration........ boy, do I fancy a cupcake with pink icing now...!

HAPPY FRIDAY

Over the hump .......

Isn't it glorious, almost as good a feeling as 5.30pm on any given Friday - except every fortnight Friday is the best as it is also payday.  So I am well 'over the hump' - it is currently 4.45pm on a Wednesday of a typical working week and it is payday week to boot. 

Apparently 'hump day' is the day when nothing can go wrong accordingly to the Urban Dictionary.  Well I am not convinced about that but today has been pretty chilled so far.  In at 10.15am, worked until 12noon.  Went to gym, got back at work at 2.30(ish)pm, had lunch and did some more work.  Now doing personal chores whilst thinking about this entry. 

I was pleased with the work-out today, weighed in at 79.50kg, still a fat-lass but it is going down and haven't had any booze since Sunday - not much of a boast but boy, did I fancy a glass of red at the pub last night, resisted though.  I have also decided to make other small in-roads by trying not to have any hot chocolates on the days when I go to the gym.  Again not exactly a tough diet regime but I guess it all helps a bit.

I will also go for a walk for an hour when I get home so I am already look forward to that, just don't want to disappear from work too early!!

When I look at this handsome chap in the picture, two things come to mind - people in my past 'got the hump' pronounced '..ump' which always amused me as I never really understood it - basically upset, got the pip, cheesed-off - but why a hump?

Or on a brighter note, a fantastic experience on holiday when I got on one of these magnificant beasts with himself, getting on the camel and then it standing up was a thrill ride with a difference and it was nice to ride the camel tandem style.  I assume I was at the front but I can't really recall.  I do though recall having a fantastic time and a new found respect for camels - it was a great ride.  The place itself was magical and another standout memory was the sunset the first night we were there.  Photos we took did it no justice but standing there with a glass of red in hand in that extraordinary light was a wonderful feeling.

That reminds me, I must organise our next mini-break.  We had a day off together last Friday and did the hot springs and that was a lovely time too.  Not a payday though, still you can't have it all.....!