Speech habits I loathe but can't break

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:39:06 +0100

1. "Can I get...": It should be "May I have...?" but I'm afraid this particularly demanding sentence has crept into my everyday speech.

2. "And he was like: what the fuck?": He was like? He wasn't 'like' anything! There was nothing for him to be compared to. This is a particularly lazy and loathsome way of speaking. And yet I do it all the sodding time!

3. "Bored of": I am reliably informed that the correct form is "bored with" or possibly "bored by". Forgive me, at least I never, ever, ever fall prey to "should of / would of / could of". *Shudder*

I'd ask how it's possible to be so annoyed by something you yourself do except I'm really well-versed in mental self-flagellation.

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The School of Some Bloke Down The Pub

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:01:16 +0100

Does it ever annoy you how many times in a day, week, month or year you hear the same tired argument (usually depleted by conversational Chinese whispers) being trotted out without anyone bothering to examine what they've said and actually decide if it's an accurate statement?

I love to read and write about faith and religion, but I rarely indulge because I simply can't be bothered to deal with the anti-God brigade anymore. Not because they don't have their right to an opinion - I really do respect people who are thoughtful, educated atheists; I might disagree with them but at least they've thought about it - but because so often you get a slew of comments along the same anti-religion line that not only miss the point spectacularly, they also cast these people as exactly the same as the people they're criticising.

The argument is that "religion has killed more people than XYZ / caused misery and suffering."

Okay, let's get this clear. Stalin was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of around 40 million people. He was an atheist and belonged to a Marxist regime that rejected religion as the 'opiate of the masses' (i.e. that which holds them back from revolution). Religion does not kill people or cause misery and suffering. People do that.

People are the best and worst thing on this planet. Nowhere but among people can you find the best examples of compassion, love and honour and the worst examples of depravity, violence and hate. Because people feel strongly about their religious beliefs, they are used as a cornerstone to build their hatred upon. This is perversion and corruption of the worst kind in any faith I can think of.

I am not suggesting that scriptures do not come with their problems. There are clear elements where personal or societal interpretations have lead to religious authority mandated violence and oppression. Those interpretations were made by people, not by some nebulous sense of the faith itself.

And now, by spouting hatred against religion because of the hatred that people have shown whilst hiding under the mantle of a corrupted faith, those people who reject religion on those grounds become exactly the same as the people they're rejecting.

The various offices of many denominations have been abused by those who knew how to manipulate them for power, wealth or influence. If you are put off believing because of the perceived violence of 'religion', that formless beast that rears in people's heads like an entity separate from both faith and God, then understand that that is the real myth. There are plenty of doubts and questions in the mind of the most devout follower and there are plenty of debates with atheists worth having. The "religion has caused upheaval" one shouldn't even be allowed in the foyer of the debating hall.

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Sign up to protect children's opportunities to read freely!

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:04:52 +0100

As a child I read freely above and below what might have been considered appropriate for my age. From picture books to longer chapter books that, at the time, I might not have fully understood, I read as widely as my ability allowed and enjoyed it tremendously.

Of course, I got a very different effect from To Kill A Mockingbird when I first read it, aged 9, when I studied it, aged 16 and when I last re-read it, aged 27. That is the whole point of reading and re-reading books, and the very way in which someone like me can be inspired to want to contribute to the canon of literature - online and off.

Marketing gurus, in the form of The Publishers Association, want to now employ an age-banding system on books in the UK to help people make choices about age appropriate literature. You can see just one set of for and against arguments on the BBC website.

This is why they are dead, dead wrong in my opinion (and I say this as an editor, professional blogger and someone who has undertaken teacher training):

Children who are particularly able readers should not be restricted from exploring literature by well-meaning elders
Children who struggle to read should not be dissuaded from doing so by the humiliation of discovering they're reading 'below' their age
Age does not define everything about a person
Parents / relatives / friends / guardians should not be encouraged to abdicate responsibility for getting involved in the reading process. Shared reading is a joy forever.

PLEASE SIGN UP TO "NO TO AGE BANDING".

You would be in good company with the likes of Anne Fine, JK Rowling, Anthony Horowitz, Quentin Blake, Michael Morpurgo, Dick King Smith, Iain Banks... the list goes on.

Support over 3,700 people so far - including many children and teenagers - who think that this disastrous PR-friendly move would do nothing but destroy the culture of reading which is already suffering in the modern world. I know this doesn't sound like such a drastic problem, but reading is the cornerstone of education and every year fewer and fewer children are leaving school with adequate skills in this area - and we're in the developed world! Any element which allows the slow erosion of learning should not be allowed.

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Rant over. I've a wedding to finish planning...

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:13:31 +0100

Wedding planning continues apace, with our vows chosen (we went for the traditional required statements, and that's it. Why make people sick having to listen to you promise to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every second Tuesday for life?) and everything important booked. The dressmaker for the bridesmaids dresses is popping over to the house for a chat on Sunday and that just leaves the flower girls' dresses which I'm not remotely worried about.

Talk about grown up, though. My mother-in-law was chatting to the eldest bridesmaid, Georgia, about the day. She's 7. Going on 45.

MIL:            Are you looking forward to being a bridesmaid?
Georgia:     Of course!
MIL:            What sort of dress would you like?
Georgia:     Whatever Alex wants us to wear.

I liked the kid anyway, she's beautiful, smart and thoughtful which is a winning combination in anyone, but now I like her even more.

Last night we also went to see a diamond setter / ring designer / jeweller who's a friend of the family. MIL has - with tremendous generosity - offered me part of a multi-gemstone ring for me to make part of my wedding ring. Which means if it works I'll have a row of diamonds, eternity ring style, on one side and a plain band on the other, so I can wear it as bling or more muted as I choose. He's studying it now to see if it can be done. Even if I can't, I'll be eternally grateful that she offered - it's not about the diamonds but the sentiment. What a way to show that I'm part of the family; she offered it to me because the ring was left to her by one of Ashley's favourite relatives who adored him.

I also met his wonderfully mad aunt at the weekend, who is just brilliant. She's a headteacher at a private boarding school and her husband is equally lovely. They have ducks! And a gorgeous cat! Plus she's an amazing cook and has a sense of humour about everything. What's not to like? She was going to play the harp at the wedding but can't get the instrument down to Oxford which is such a shame.

Sometimes, despite all the aggravation life and hormones can throw at me, I do know I am one of luckiest people on earth.

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Pet peeve of the day: childishness

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:06:23 +0100

If there's one personality trait guaranteed to fuck me right off, it's people being unnecessarily childish.

By this I don't mean childlike or playful. I'm quite happy for my friends and family to scuttle around like hyperactive terriers and enjoy reading children's books or watching kiddie films. Personally, I love Disney World, for example.

But when it comes to any sort of relationship, professional or personal, close or distant, once you let the element of the playground in, it's all over. I just realised while I was having a followee cull on Twitter that someone I worked with before this job removed me and took me off their Facebook etc, etc. None of which would really have any significance for me (because we don't work together now, or even precisely in the same field, and we're not really friends) if I hadn't bumped into her at a mutual acquaintance's shindig the other week and had her be blatantly rude to my face.

Having met Ash on several occasions before, she was always very nice about him. On this occasion she ignored him completely and grunted a pained "hello" at me because I unsuspectingly went "Oh hi! How are you?" (I know, wasn't that terrible of me? I'm such a bitch.)

The fact is she started being an arsehole to me around three months before I left the job and I probably complained about this to someone who told her. I hold my hand up - I should have just asked her what the hell was wrong and fixed it if I'd done something to upset or offend her. But then she seemed to stop freaking out and even sent me a message or two after that so I just filed her in the "polite acquaintaince" box.

I actually respect her for trimming the fat - we've all done it with friends who are basically no longer friends and it's easier still if you were never really friends in the first place. But simple manners wouldn't hurt. She can be as rude as she likes to me but why drag Ash into it? He was just being friendly (he does have some terrier-like traits, it's true).

You know, I started this post thinking I could muster some righteous indignation at the person concerned but really it's about all childish people, from those who throw their toys out of the pram in website comments to those who let PMT dictate not only whom they want to speak to but whom they do actually speak to.

Sad to say, 90% of my experiences of this kind - and they are thankfully few in the grand scheme of things - have been with other women. So much for the sisterhood...

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Three songs that mention weasels

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:56:21 +0100

1. Beck - Loser

Forces of evil on a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber
’cuz one’s got a weasel and the other’s got a flag
One’s on the pole, shove the other in a bag

2. Nick Drake - Hazey Jane II

And what will happen in the evening in the forest with the weasel
with the teeth that bite so sharp when you're not looking in the evening.

3. Pop Goes The Weasel

I'm not quoting the lyrics of such an anti-weasel song!

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A really bad time to lose focus

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:12:49 +0100

This week is a really bad time to lose focus, lack momentum and generally run to a grinding halt. So of course I'm doing all three. My manager's manager (the überboss, or UB, as I shall henceforth term him, although he's considerably nicer than this moniker would suggest) is off on holiday for two and half weeks. My manager has had more work trickled down to her, which should mean I'm busier than ever.

Now it doesn't help that it's a slow news day. But there's plenty I could be doing. And, for the most part, I'm doing it (I generally write my blogs on here at lunch over a sandwich. I type fast). I'm just doing it at about half the speed and with about half the intuition and intelligence I normally employ. I'm not suggesting that I'm usually Wonderwoman, just that I can generally add two and two without reaching for the calculator. Not today.

I've slept plenty. I haven't been drinking. Ash and I are good. My friends are happy. I haven't gone out too much this week (just enough). I've got two nights with family lined up, and they're mostly healthy and content. A Pug puppy licked my fingers last night. All should be good.

Yet I'm moving at the speed of snail, my eyes are shutting, I'm bloated, weepy and exploding with PMT. I changed Pill to deal with this and though things have improved they haven't gone back to the days when I just didn't have this beast take over my body once a month, craving sugar and behaving sluggishly. I honestly used to think PMT didn't really exist and women were being overly narky about a bit of water retention... how wrong I was. I know that my PCOS is partly to blame for the blood sugar imbalance, and that I should do some exercise, eat slow-release carbs and try and keep my insides as balanced as possible but there's this demon in my head raging at me, screaming: "CHOCOLATE... NOW PICKLES!... NOW ORANGES... CHOCOLATE AGAIN!....AAAAAND PICKLES!". Seriously, I just can't wait til it's time to get pregnant...

I must, must, must not cop out of going to the gym this evening, even if I take three steps on the treadmill and fall off. I need all the endorphins I can get and to shake off a couple of spoonfuls of the sticky toffee pudding and custard I indulged in last night, following the steak and chips. No guilt - just balance. (Yeah, right).

I love being a woman, but I wish it didn't feel like there were four women having a bitchfight in my head at the moment.

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It's not I'm anti-social, I'm only anti-work...

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:43:28 +0100

Work friendships, that is.

I have a strange history of work friendships. At my first major job, I ended up with several close friends, mostly male, one of whom I shared a flat with for a year and another of whom I'm going to marry in four months. So I'd say that went well.

At the next job, however, it all went a bit... squidgy. Quite a lot of people were younger than me, and sometimes that made me feel very old and out of touch. It was an almost all-female environment, which for some reason I struggle with. Some were also single, and I think they might have felt I was a bit 'smug married' because to the outsider there's a fine line between smug and brutally bloody grateful.

Does age matter? Generally, no. My friends tend to range from about 23-40, but I don't have entry requirements beyond thinking you're nice and trusting you - you can be any damn age you please as long as you're interesting and friendly. Make up an age, if you like.

So why did I feel old? I guess it was the amount of bitching that went on behind people's backs. I am sure that if I didn't get bitched about it was only because I was too boring. Everyone else was furiously Skyping back and forth and the worst part was that I found myself caught up in it and taking part. And I started to hate that, and myself. And they probably didn't much enjoy it either. It wasn't really any formative part of the reason I left which was a purely professional development direction (I realised I didn't really want to continue specifically down the path I was on but meander a fraction to the left of it) but I certainly don't miss it. Instead I can indulge in missing some of the people, and not the versions of ourselves we tried so hard to project through gossip.

Today the girl sitting next to me went out for lunch with the girls who sit opposite. They chatted about it loudly but didn't ask me or my manager if we'd like to come along. A year ago I would have been hurt and wondered what I'd done; today I was relieved.

I've made every effort to be friendly and welcoming and have chats with anyone around, but I've also made zero effort to actually be friends with anyone. I don't see them outside work and I've yet to make it to a pub drinks, although I would go with a bit more warning. Whether they didn't ask me because I'm technically one step up the food chain from one of them or whether it's because they just don't know / like / want to know me - I'm kind of surprised that I'm not sweating it. I feel like I should be. But if the inter-office politics, mild though they were, of the last job taught me anything it's that friends are friends and colleagues are colleagues.

I'm not saying never the twain shall meet, because that's silly. It obviously happens (hey Ashley!). But I just won't go looking for friends at work anymore. Because when you need someone you trust to bitch to about stuff that's going down at the office, they shouldn't be from the same office.

It's probably no coincidence that of the people I met at the last job that I'm still actually friends with (I'm in touch with a few, either for work reasons or as friendly acquaintances, but little more), one has known me for five years, one has left and one is just one of the sweetest people in the known universe and has never, ever said a bad thing about anyone else in my presence.

I wish I could be more like her.

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Enweaselment over. Normal service resumes. For given value of 'normal...'

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:34:53 +0100

So, with text hugs from my beloved friend Aaron, real hugs from my beloved beloved Ash and a couple of hours of 24, season 3, I'm okay again. It helps that this morning I got emails from the CEO and my manager's manager reassuring me that they were supporting me. They really are great people and I'm so relieved I joined a team like this; it's always a leap of faith when you get a new job and I've only uncovered good things so far. Phew!

Also, anger is productive when channelled in the right direction. I took my upset for a walk across the road and up to the gym. I have never been more reluctant to schlep through the doors, down the stairs, past the proudly naked ladies and over to a locker. Yet, because of the all-consuming sense of indignance that was assailing me, I did much better than I usually do.

Okay, ten minutes better, but that's actually 50% up on last week. And I did a few weights, gritting my teeth, and stretched properly, and came home to a shoulder, back and calf massage from my weaselly one. He also made me dinner - a simple bowl of gratifyingly carby pasta with tomato and olives - and we settled down to TV. I shuffled myself off for an early night and now feel pretty much human again.

Also I'm meeting a friend for lunch and sushi is on the horizon! I am feeling slightly apprehensive because I don't see him much and fear the conversation might stall but I know he is very shy so I'm sure any efforts I make to keep it going will be appreciated! He works very nearby and this is the first time I've put my arse in a high enough gear to get in contact which is just plain silly of me.

Ash was at a lavoya this morning. We're spared the shiva, although I would have gone without complaint if it made Ash's dad feel better (it was his uncle). I'm becoming quite the veteran, to my dismay. I'd rather attend a few more weddings. Maybe a bris, although Ashley tends to feel faint at those...

I need good pet stories. My blog's stats rise and fall as rhythmically as the sea, and it would be nice to see them rise and rise. It's not a big issue, work-wise, but more of a personal goal of mine. Once the site redesign is done and there's a proper link to it, I'm pretty sure that'll no longer be a problem and there'll be a lovely mixed archive full of information to scroll through.

The feeling of peace - you just can't beat it.

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I feel enweaseled. Help.

nobody@vox.com(Alex) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:41:15 +0100

Due to a variety of factors, not least of all a problem with a, shall we say, dissatisfied customer at work, I'm feeling rather feeble and tired. Enweaselment, as Ash calls it.

As good as Terry Pratchett's references to Alzheimer's as an 'embuggerment'? No, not even slightly. But it makes me smile.

I don't even know where to begin in the litany. The work situation I can't talk about, because it would be unprofessional. The wedding's pretty much under control and I wasn't altogether worried about it anyway. The Rabbi and the Bishop are meeting us for tea next week to discuss the ceremony (isn't that just the beginning of a joke?) and I'm having minor concerns about that, but only of the "should I kiss his hand?" variety. Answer: yes.

I'm so spaced out and fed up from disturbed sleep and insufficient real relaxation that I can't exercise properly and that's depressing me. I vowed I'd get myself eating healthily again and at a reasonable level of fitness. Most of the time I manage the food - then binge randomly for no reason and with no enjoyment - but last week I managed the gym at lunchtime only twice. I went on an hour-long fairly brisk walk with Ashley last night (we got home tired and sweaty which bodes well for energy expended) and a twenty minute stroll this lunchtime to clear my head. I'm determined to go to the gym after work tonight as well. Fitness does improve quite rapidly, I know, but only if you stick to a routine and I'm just not doing it. Then, depressed because I'm as unfit as ever... I give up.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to improve the way I look, too. I don't think I'm fat, but I AM flabby because I used to be four stone heavier and I lost the weight dieting, with no exercise. So now I feel like I just wobble when I walk and I'd like to feel more muscular and powerful. I feel more confident when I'm fitter; I know this because earlier in the year I'd got myself doing 30-45 minute workouts 2-3 times a week + 50 situps and 20 tricep dips daily and it was good. Now I can barely manage 20 minutes plus some desultory weights. Twice if I'm lucky. I've lost my way and partly I think I feel that now I can't really make any progress in time for the wedding anyway (four months). Not that the wedding was the reason behind it - my previous fitter moments were before I was engaged.

One step at a time, eh. I know I'm focussing on myself because I can't deal with the work situation directly and it's eating me up. I just wish it would eat up my flab at the same time.

I know what I'd say to a friend who spoke these words. But I've never been too good at taking my own advice.

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