Procrastination

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
Douglas Adams

It's amazing just how long I can put off doing something. My approach tends towards leaving it until it is a) too bloody late by a long shot or b) pointless. I now believe myself to actually be incapable of just getting on and finishing it. It is for this very reason that it took me four and a half years to finish a three year university degree. Do I need to explain that playing Zelda on my Un-intendo 64 was infinitely more necessary to me than completing a 4000 word essay on the political effects of the printing press? Or that discussing porn in the pub was more interesting than dissecting the history of the romantic novel (providing a comprehensive list of all references)? Or that seeing Rolf Harris in concert was more vital than revising? Actually, I never went to that concert, stayed home "to revise", but instead had a two hour bath and watched a documentary on the SAS. Bloody typical.

Even right at this moment, I am completely failing to tidy the bedroom in any way. Look at me. I'm still not moving, despite the fact that it would really make Sidekick happy if I would just have at it.

The point to all this is how enjoyable procrastination can be. Every now and then, if you just can't be arsed, let it go. After years of practice I can take not being arsed-ness to a whole new level of slothful inadequacy. It's my art.

Suppose I'll go put some clothes away and hoover. But first I need to read this book I got yesterday, smoke a few and then perhaps a face mask? So many fabulous ways to waste time, so little excitement in the things I should do.

In other news: today I consistently typed "pumpls" instead of "pumps" and "chimney bresty" instead of "chimney breast". I feel sure my brain is doing this on purpose, with the sole intention of preventing death by complete boredom. Is sniggering a sackable offense?
Pumpls. I like it. *Snigger*

Special Offer

For sale: One set of *magic bathroom scales*.


White, reasonable condition, traditional style, measures weight from 0 to 18 stone. Would grace any bathroom, or why not keep them in the bedroom, making it easy to weigh yourself straight after waking?


Special features:
Wipe clean plastic coating Easy read dial Automatically weighs you at 3 stone less than you actually weigh. *


I'll take offers. I'd been weighing myself and thinking "Wow! It's great how I'm losing weight and not dieting or nuthin'. Damn that's good. Funny how I don't look any different, though....". Maybe I'll post them on E-Bay under "supernatural".


*May, on reflection, be broken.

Go snowboarding in Scotland. Follow these simple steps for sporting adventure.

Notice snow falling at a time when you can actually use it, ie during your week off.Decide to have one last hurrah before snow is off the menu until December.Check status of The Lecht.

Make plans to leave early, carefully pulling out all the necessary kit from it's hibernation space in the cupboard. Don't forget your hat, gloves, snowboard, etc.

Rise at the ass crack of dawn, or in my case, force someone else to rise by the time honoured method of pulling the duvet off them.Discover that the road to the Lecht is closed. Due to snow, naturally.Go back to sleep.And reeeelaaaax. You have just experienced the best that Scotland has to offer for winter sports!*

*in April, mind.

Why I'll Never Be A Music Journalist

Me: Who's the "big" rapper that's dead? Is it Biggie Smalls?

Sidekick: Nah. S'the Notorious B.I.G you're thinking of.

Me: (musing) Right. Right.....

Sidekick: There are other dead rappers, though. They all released songs about it - like O.D.B..

Me: What - Old Dead Biggie?

Sidekick: Er, no. Old Dirty Bastard.

Me: Right. Got it. Thanks.

40 or Bust

30 rushed up and grabbed Sidekick like a mugger, leaving no marks apart from an increasing level of general grumpiness. Now he's coasting towards 31 with nary a peep of complaint.

I can remember a time when 30 seemed like a distant country with no airport. Now I've been living there for a couple of months, having been forced kicking and screaming onto a direct non-stop flight. Only a few years ago, I was a called a lady for the first time - by a mother, instructing her tiny daughter to get out of my way. I wanted to pick the kid up and explain that I am a girl, dag nammit. A girl! No lady! Now that I am 30 I have to concede the point. I have officially passed the gateway.

However, I refuse to accept the encroaching decrepitude. Where will it stop? I have a vision of myself , wrinkled like a piece of perished rubber, wearing the same clothes I do now, but with the added support of a cast iron wonderbra, causing equal amounts of barely concealed horror and mirth as people see me hobble by.

My job forces allows me to regularly converse with people who are 17, 18 or 19. I sometimes feel like they have been brought up on another world and have travelled back to planet Earth to perform experiments of a social nature on me. This is, I reassure myself, perfectly normal paranoia. Isn't it?

One of them politely asked me the other day if I was going out at the weekend. He then stalled and looked slightly embarrassed, before saying, with a throwaway sort of gesture, "Of course not, you're too old to be going to pubs." I would like to state for the record that this is untrue, despite the perfectly acceptable argument that I cannot remember the last time I was in a pub. My memory, it goes without saying, is as good as it ever was (i.e. less use than a chocolate teaspoon).

All future birthdays are now cancelled. I will henceforth only be celebrating lustrums 'cos they happen less damn often.

Years are just numbers , right? Right? Good.

The Pwoer of Loev

"Do You have enough pwoer to provide your patrner high

quality SE-X on St. Valentine day?

Get a MON-STER pwoer, nothing can bring your ererction down!

Show your partner the PWOER of your LOEV and she will always remember You.

Loev will ALWAYS be associated with YOU!

Your order will be PRIVATE, nobody will know what You use.

Follow the link and get SSPECIAL DISSCOOUNT for that period."

Reading this email left me with several questions:

1. How did they know I was concerned about my ererction?

2. What's a DISSCOOUNT? SSPECIAL or otherwise?

3. Should I trust this complete stranger with my body?

The answers are:

1. The internuck knows all and sees all.

2. A small type of duck known for it's ability to fly remarkable distances.

3. Of course! I'd be a fool not to, considering the special duck and all.

If you'll excuse me, my order has just arrived from Gunter Schlong Enterprises.com. I'm just off to show Sidekick the PWOER of my LOEV, so that loev is ALWAYS associated with me.

Gormless-ness Insurance

Next week I will be making an utter Fochaber of myself by pretending that I have bottomless reserves of cool and can snowboard exactly like someone who does not have my unique "gifts" in the realm of physical prowess.

Every year I imagine myself, poised at the top of the slope, ready to glide down as if born to ride, maybe carving a few turns deep enough to lazily allow my hand to drift over the surface of the powder. Steep patch? No problem! I can turn the board as if it is on rails. The sky is an unlikely shade of blue, the mountains are like swarovski crystal and I glide along with mindblowing skill. In my mind.

Reality is more like this: Warmly bundled, my be-bootened form is as graceful as a rollerskating polar bear. (This year's boots more streamlined look are an improvement on last year's, which made me look like 2005's elephantiasis sufferer of the year.) This level of padding is enough to impede my balance, never mind my non-existent boarding ability. I've seen horrifying videos: my vast arse pushed out behind me like an airbag, knees bent, face as per Donald Sutherland pointing out the non pod-person in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" virtually catatonic with fear, hands flailing like Tyrannasaurus Rex reaching for a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Why do I insist on putting myself through it? Petrushka* only knows, maybe it has something to do with the rush of pure joy and ecstasy caused by reaching the bottom without breaking any bones, gashing flesh open with my own board, or cracking my skull open on a passing skier**. Any accusations that the happiness I feel is caused by imbibing luscious quantities of Vin Chaud (or "hotbooze") will be ridiculed while I knock back another shot and start snorting/giggling helplessly into it.

In any case I am taking no chances. I have doubled up on the holiday insurance.

*She's as likely to know as anyone else.
**If anyone can do it I can.