There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

Today at the Hospital, a woman ran up to my desk, looking very flustered, and asked "Is this where you do colonoscopies?"

YES WE BLOODY CAN!

I've determined that I have bipolar body image issues. Half the time I am quite happy and comfortable in my body, the other half I feel like we are at war, and it just utterly disgusts me. After listening to me moan and berate myself for the past 4 years, my honey finally gently suggested that maybe I should try the gym. Not because I was fat or floppy, but because it would change the way I mentally think about myself.

But here's the thing with gyms: I'm petrified of them. Zonko tried numerous times to get me to go to the gym, and I even went with her on a one day try, but couldn't shake the feeling of oppression and claustrophobia. In fact, I came home and cried.

But after a birthday filled of eating cream filled cake (followed by my friend Alice's cinammon rolls), I was feeling pudgy. And since My Honey goes every Sunday, I figured that I would tag along.

Now, the gym My Honey goes to is a 20 minute walk from the flat, which to some might be considered a warm up, but to others like me, it was a bloody workout in itself. By the time we got there, I already had a raised heart rate and think film on sweat.

I braved the girls changing room all by myself, then went out into the main gym. Alone. My Honey was off doing weights. I found a cross trainer and jumped on. And started pushing buttons. Nothing. Blank screen and everything. I switched to another one. And kinda stood there pretending to undo the knots in my headphone cord while I watched and waited for someone else to ge on one of those bloody contraptions . Finally someone did and I watched how they started it up ( by moving...who'd a thunk?). And then I was off.

I did 20 minutes and burned off 150 calories, and then decieded to switch to the bike. My legs were kinda feeling jellyish, so I said I would only do 50 calories worth of cyling, but then figured I might as well do 100. But the kinda scary thing? The heart reate thingy said I had a bpm of 177. Constant. For both cross trainer and bike. 177 for a half hour solid. Is that bad? I am totally scared of my heart exploding now and shooting out of my chest onto the personal TV in front of me. But I didn't feel like I was dying or that my heart was about to explore, or that I had any breathing trouble whatsoever.

And then it was go home time. The gym closes at 5:30, and someone who isn't me likes to sleep in on the weekends until 2 or 3. Meaning by the time he's dressed and fed, it's 4 and we don't actually get out of the house until quarter past.

Apparently I didn't work out enough because I awoke this morning expecting to feel super sore. But the only thing sore was my ass from sitting on the bike- and I mean, my ass is really hurting...not the ass muscle, but whatever the hell part of it that sits on a bike seat.

So I survived. And am thinking of trying to boost it up to 2 days a week.

Oh, and including the trek back to the flat? Total of 435 calories burned, baby. That''s like a quarter of a slice of cake. Good think I ate 3 slices.

Whew, it feels like so much has gone on and it’s only Saturday!

1) I am the queen of friggen MacAwesome. MacAwesome desserts that is. My birthday was on Friday and because it’s in the summer and EVERYONE and their mom is working/sick/broken/on holiday, I decided to make the cake myself. And let’s just say I was inspired by the awesomness of Wimbledon. Because that’s actually a lie, but I like it better than the truth. The truth is that I have one friend who doesn’t like chocolate cake ( I know, right!?!), one friend who is obsessed with strawberries, and a my own personal desire to use up leftovers, which were, in this case, a can of coconut milk and half a bag of dried shredded coconut. Enter my idea to make a coconut and strawberry cream cake. After searching the internet for a freaking recipe that used coconut milk AND dried coconut, I finally foundthis. I followed it for the cake base recipe. Well, the cake looked great baking, but thanks for the 4 eggs, it settled down during the cooling period and started to resemble a dense, macaroonish like custardish pancake. No worries, right? Then I cut up almost a punnet of strawberries, lightly crushed them, threw in some sugar, and mixed it up with some good ol’ marscapone. Then I whipped up some heavy whipping cream, cut up more strawberries, and presto:

And it tasted pretty orgasmic too! The cake was actually very moist and coconutty and complimented the fresh straberries more than a teen age boy trying to get laid for the first time by the girl next door.

2) My overall birthday was fab too. All but one friend managed to make it (she was foiled by hayfeaver, of all excuses), and it was good to get everyone together again, especially since 4 of us all lived together 5 years ago and haven’t all been together in a few years. And I got some fabulous swag too! A wonderful new handbag, a super amazing mug that holds like 2 cups of coffee, incense, jewelery, and My Honey gave me an exquisite dress from Monsoon, a new pair of converse shoes, and a feather down pillow in the shape of a giant V from a local pillow shop. I also was incredibly spoiled by My Honey’s family, who gave me WAY more bank that I deserve.

Giggidy quarter centennial.

Love being stoned? Love crop circles? Then too bad you weren't born a wallaby.



Apparently, crop circles have mysteriously shown up in Tasmania. The culprit? Stoned wallabys jumping around in circles.

We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as
a kite and going around in circles," the state's top lawmaker Lara Giddings
told local media on Thursday.

"Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies
that are high," she said.

This explains the real crops circles popping up in states like Kansas and Nebraska. Old MacDonald is really Old MacDrugpusher hiding his shit in the silo, and when the sheep accidentally get a taste, BAM. Instead of drugs raid, you get Mel Gibson running around trying to interprete the movements of jacked up livestock.

Whoa, who the hell was wrote that last post? Hmm, must have left the little lappy too close to the window and one of the crazy junkies had an emo moment and felt like sharing as opposed to just grabbing the thing to pay for their next hit.

So here is something completely different.



Because nothing says sexy like having a big o' giant pink rod cushioned between your chee chees. And it's so cheap, who they hell won't want one!?!?

I've been thinking a lot about my employment situation, and I think that the reason I feel so insecure in the job market is because of how increasingly you job has come to define who you are as a person. Since I still don't have that idea of what my lifelong career is, it's almost as though I don't know how to define myself, and all of this has left me wanting to just hide inside and never emerge. And making me loathe all those friends I had back at university doing engineering or the sciences who now have jobs in those fields and are constantly referring to themselves and their behaviour as 'so like an engineer', or as 'such a chemist.'

So last night, as I was getting myself ready for bed, I got to wondering how things have changed that make us use our jobs as indicators for who we are. Certainly it wasn't always like this? And that got me to thinking about my grandma. Anyone who reads this (or has since the beginning) knows I have a love/hate relationship with my grandma. Love when I'm away, hate when I'm in physical proximity. But I also love history and grandma is a living piece of it.

Grandma just turned 93. She was born in 1916, meaning she lived, if not saw or remembered, World War One, the Great Depression, Women's Suffrage, World War Two, the Civil Rights movement, and the election of the first black president. And perceptions have certainly changed during the course of her life. Growing up, women didn't work the 9-5 (unless they were slaving away in mills and factories and dying of malnutrition, or trying to eek out a living as a secretary or shop assistant in a large urban city). Middle class women were mothers, wives, and fighting to get their vote to count as a people.
In 1934 my grandma went to university. Not to further her career, but just to learn because she was interested. She majored in History and Zoology,just for fun, and god knows what she actually learned because she has no idea what the mitochondria is or how its function in all cellular creatures is pertinent to life. I think she just memorised animal names and locations while studying how amazing America is. Regardless, it was obvious that university was what middle/upper middle class women participated in, but was in no way a stepping stone to a career. After uni, grandma continued to live at home and help out with the family, but it was 1938 and you can guess what was coming around the corner. When war hit, granny joined the Marines and was stationed out in the Mojave desert working as a meteorologist along side a whole phalanx of women. My grandma was an example of a change taking place in the US. Rosie the Riveter was born, and women were being called upon to work, to fill the positions originally occupied by men, and were getting a taste of what it was like to be heard and used for the knowledge they had and for what they could do. In fact, after the war, it seems as though the whole working mentality of the US changed. Xenophobia and the Red Scare had caused the US to turn inward, proclamations of 'Made in the USA' were announced from all the shops, and the American car industry boomed, with thousands of people taking to the interstates to 'see the USA in [their] Chevrolet's!'. The blue collar worker was looked to with respect, and there was pride to be had with any occupation.
After the war, my grandma went back to univeristy to do a masters in History. She never finished because she met my grandpa and chose marriage over a degree. I asked her about this a lot, and her response has always been that college was something that occupied her time, and that being a wife and eventually a mother would take up more time than being a student would. To her, the choice was an easy one since again, education was not a pathway to a job. She did work, however. For a few years, grandma worked in an accountancy firm helping people prepare their taxes and keeping track of finances. But ask my grandma what she was, and she will always say a Homemaker. Not a marine, not a financial consultant, but a wife and mother. Ask my grandpa (born 1908) and he labels himself a Czech American. Jobs were what you did to put dinner on the table, but now what defined you.
For my mom's generation, it seems as though work was a means to an end. In the beginning, at least. My mom has said that grandma used to try and pursuade her to be a secretary or waitress or teacher, but the children of flower power had other ideas, at least until the 80s where new innovations in technology and Reganeconomics encouraged a renewed fevor in business models. Slowly, our parents and now our generation are finding themselves defined by an occupation. We're workers. We wear suits, answer blackberrys, and organise spreadsheets.
And since I don't have a job, it's like I don't have an identity. Or at least one I want. I don't want to be defined as 'receptionist,' 'book fetcher', 'secretary,' or 'assisant'. And it's infuriating!
So which comes first? Will knowing who you are first without a job lead you to find a job that matches your perception of who you want to be, or do you find a job first that then shapes the way you percieve yourself?

Okay, enough blathering... MURRAY VICTORY IN WIMBLEDON! Come on!

For the past few weeks, there's been a whole lot of nothing going on. The job at the library is a lame 7.5 hours a WEEK, and in my free time, I've been fannying around. I mean, I did managed to apply for a few jobs, but then I find a new TV streaming site on line, and before you know it, I've seen all three seasons of 30 Rock in 3 days. Oops.

No, I'm not neglecting this, but there has been frack all going on in my life. I am still looking for more work to help out with my part time not-job, and getting more and more freaked out by the second as reports keep coming in that now places like MacDonald's is turning away staff. Eek.

For awhile now I've been meaning to jot down a list of all the things I want to do in life before I bite it. But then I procrastinate and the internal list just grows. Well, Beth over at Bros Before Hos made a list and it totally gave me a kick in the pants to just get on with it. So here goes:

Why would it be awesome to be Russian? Because it's obvious the government is doing crazy shit to the vodka that is turning its citizens into Spidermen.



It's long, (8 mins?!?!) and they there is a lot of artys running scenes, scenes of 'hardcore(?)'buildings and fences, and perhaps something that might be a plot or so,but just ignore all that and focus on the anti-gravity skillz of mutants in action. If only this were shot with more cape and spandex suit actions...

Say what you will about strippers, dancers, sex workers and the like, you have to admit that these women are amazing. They must be either secret sexy ninja assassins, Spiderman's illegitimate offspring (damn you Spidy!Why wasn't I one!??!), or Cirque du Soleil gravity magicians, because the human body and a pole just shouldn't fuse like that.

Best things I've heard so far this week:

"I don't know, he's kinda effeminate. But maybe that has something to do with his dad being a transvestite" - Friend describing her new boy friend.

"She's a f*ing bisexual!"
"Oh, that's so greedy!"
"I know! You're not allowed to have both! Straight or lesbo, but bi is just greedy!" -eavesdropping in a group of drunken 17 yr old girls in Princes Street Gardens sunning themselves.