Teacher, mother, secret lover.

I watch too much TV. The problem is that I both love and hate it (that makes our relationship sound way more complicated than in fact it is). It’s hugely entertaining and very often I’ll sit down to watch the Simpsons and find myself still gazing adoringly at it 3 hours later; sometimes with no recollection of the intervening time. It is of course possible that I haven’t actually been sitting there drooling away with a head full of fluff, but I have in fact been abducted by some pesky Greys who have been thoughtful enough to erase all traces of their visit. I fear though that the brain-dead addiction to an electrical entertainment device is the most likely cause of all this loss of time and usefulness. I just don’t know what to do about it.

I suspect that I have employed the box more enthusiastically of late as part of my previously outlined plan to put off writing my essays for Uni for as long as possible. I can then become increasingly stressed by deadlines and feel certain that I have no idea how to start, which as we all know results in panic, insomnia and caffeine addiction.

Of course TV also affects the attention span and this might be a further explanation for why I only get 3 sentences into a text book before the eyes start to drift away from the page and over to something all shiny and flickering in the corner of the room.

I like to think that it’s all a tragic result of being at the tail end of generation X, or some such culturally enticing justification. Am I Gen X? I’m not sure that I am, but I’d really like to be. I think it sounds like it explains an awful lot and will be yet another opportunity to defer responsibility without actually being a teenager.

It’s So unfair.

Me fail English? That's unpossible.

I still can’t sleep properly and my eye baggage grows ever more luxurious. I realise that the pop-psych explanation would be that the longer one goes without sleeping properly, the more anxious one becomes about it and the more anxious one is the less likely you are to get any sleep. One then starts to think of oneself as an insomniac and then once you’re one of those; of course you can’t sleep. What kind of insomniac gets a good night’s sleep and awakes feeling refreshed? I did have one of those nights once and I suddenly realised that there was a whole level of consciousness that existed above the one I usually shuffle around in.

Of course I do get some sleep and I do function, so it can’t be that bad. I got a few hours last night (with many bouts of wakefulness) which was filled with extremely odd dreams. The kind that you wake from feeling thoroughly confused. Why did I dream of someone I haven’t given even a passing consideration to since I left school 16 years ago? And why had she developed cheek whiskers? The brain is mystery.

I’m assuming that part of my problem is this rather stressful year. It’s been a nasty one so far and added to that, I now I have about 10,000 words to write before the end of the semester and should probably have got going some time ago. As you will now be aware, I have procrastination tendencies and I always think that every word printed will be laughed of campus. I have a theory that at the end of term, I shall suddenly relax so violently that I shall slip into a coma for a good 3 weeks. Upon waking I shall be a new woman who can actually remember what her name is and how to tie shoelaces. I’ll have energy, coordination and the ability to speak whole sentences without having to stop halfway through to recap and work out what I was trying to say.

Which will be nice.

Bunnies, Bunnies, it must be Bunnies.......

Today I am horrifically tired, after 2 nights in a row where I have barely slept. I finally dropped off at around 5.10am this morning and then over-slept until 7.15am whereupon I awoke in a violent frenzy of panic and confusion. I couldn’t speak even remotely coherently and once more gibbered my way to the car trying to remember how car keys worked and what my feet were for.

I just about managed all this. I didn’t forget to get dressed or leave my bag on the car roof or any of the dopey sleep-deprived things I know I am capable of. However I did get dressed without looking so didn't notice for sometime that I was covered head to foot in fluff . I then remembered that I had brought one of my beloved fluffers (bunnies) Laszlo in last night for some attention. He has been very grumpy of late and I thought he needed a hug (I am not anthropomorphising him unnecessarily, he kicks his bedroom door like a teenager when stroppy).

So, there we were bonding on the sofa when he decided to shed something nearing a ton of fluff. He of course looking no different, but me looking as though I had turned into a Remington Fuzz-away. Being a black and white bunny, of course he carefully chose to deposit the white bits only all over my entirely black outfit and quite clearly when I discarded the fluffsome t-shirt I had draped it carefully over the skirt I planned to wear today. I blame it on being unable to think as a result of insomnia.

In an attempt to resolve these issues, I am today shovelling coffee by the bucket load and periodically wrapping Sellotape round my hand and aggressively brushing my garments (rather ineffectually as it happens, the fluff having decided it rather likes its new home).

Is it home time yet?

C'mon pencil...... make words

Today, I finished my essay. That's the same one that I’ve been utterly failing to finish for some weeks now. In traditional me fashion, I did spend 8 hours on Sunday aggressively putting it off. I sat on the sofa from 10am until 6pm contemplating my next move, and when that arrived it was hardly earth-shattering, although it was in the direction of the computer. I felt heart-warmed by such affirmative action.

Then today, in between doing actual work in the office, I thought about how to get going on the last chunk of the essay. I thought about it a lot. I wondered why I was so prone to putting things off until the last conceivable moment, and beyond sometimes. I gave long and detailed consideration to this unproductive habit. I even looked up a website for Chronic Procrastinators and whilst reading about this tragic condition, I wondered “What does it say about me? That instead of writing my overdue essay, I am sitting here reading a website about procrastination.” I surmised that the person who wrote the website probably wrote it whilst they were supposed to be doing something else. And of course that the people reading it were definitely supposed to be doing something else.

I also thought about Spongebob putting off his ‘What not to do at a stop sign’ essay until 8.57am on the morning it was due in. I felt briefly much better about my own inability to get going. Perhaps I should stop using cartoon characters as a personal barometer.

Finally I arrived home and forced myself to sit and type, no matter what utter drivel emerged. I thought, “I can edit it afterwards”. Wise words indeed. Well it appeared to work on this occasion although whether it has produced anything worth my lecturers valuable time, waits to be seen.

If the essay had been called ‘What not to do when you should be writing an English essay’, I may have had an awful lot to say.

I'll take the fifth

This week I have discovered that if you sit and worry over what to write in your blog, then you’ll have nothing to say. I have been wracking my brain all week and getting progressively more irate about it. I finally gave myself a stern talking to: “Why on earth did you create a blog if you have nothing to say in it you foolish woman?” but then I just felt guilty, apologised to myself but I was even less sure what to write.

I did think of writing about another dream I had; it was bonfire night and I was driving to a Kiss gig (of course) and trying to pick up a friend on the way, who suddenly lived in a very complicated building that I couldn’t get into. But the details just sort of faded into dream fog after that and I couldn’t pick out what happended next. "What a stupid and boring dream" I thought to myself, "I can't write about that".

I then thought of writing about Wide Sargasso Sea, which I have just read and been terribly impressed by, but then I have to write an essay about it for Uni and why waste all my brilliant insights and expansive thoughts here when I should really get my act together and finish my frickin’ essay (oh god, I really have to finish that essay!!)

The upshot of all this is that I have absolutely nothing to say. How annoying!

Dinosaur

This weekend has been rather odd because (although I’m sure that many others have experienced something like this at some stage) I have been having problems understanding people. They sound as though they are speaking in tongues and are a complete bafflement most of the time. Words lose their meaning and I find myself staring blankly at a moving mouth; the sounds that emerge failing to register with the language centre of my brain. What can it all mean?

Well generally, I tend to think that my own brain’s ability to make sense of the world is hanging on by a thread and that sometimes, that thread after fraying violently for a while, snaps and I wind up on planet I-beg-your-pardon? It’s probably the psychological result of studying language (albeit briefly) at Uni and knowing with complete certainty that there IS no meaning in language, and therefore the link between the word and the meaning is convention only and as a result tenuous.

This will be a particular problem today as I have to try and finish an essay which I’ve barely started.

I think I should shut up now though and decide what to do for the rest of the Igloo.

You've got red on you.

A thing that regularly happens in life is that a bic biro in the bottom of your bag or shirt pocket will spring a mysterious leak. Nothing seems to have caused this leak but there it is - indelible ink all over something you quite like. What’s even more annoying is when this happens in the dark; you root around for something in your bag and then when you get to the bright lights of the restaurant you are covered head to foot in navy ink. No you’re not being stared at because you look especially stunning tonight, it’s because you’re doing your Smurf impression (badly I might add).

It was everywhere; hands, neck, phone, purse, random junk – all blotchy. It took a lot of scrubbing in the restaurant bathroom but there were still patches in my knuckles. I was particularly delighted when the lights were dimmed to assist with the romantic ambience.

Food was nice though.

I have always thought in the back of my mind....cheese & onion

I woke up this AM with the strangest of sensations; I felt certain that a demon of some sort had gone through my brain in the night and removed all the bits that I actually need in order to function and replaced them with out of date milk – I therefore awoke feeling utterly useless. Walking became a serious challenge, one that I only just achieved and the sense of irritation I felt kept finding its way to the surface. I’m sure I looked charmingly senile at 7.25am as I shuffled lopsidedly to my car ranting and raving like an inmate.

This feeling of annoyance took some time to subside but is now in abeyance. It was a feeling however, quickly succeeded by a craving for a cheese and something sandwich and try though I did to suppress this urge (as all terminally weight-worried types do) it was no good and I surrendered at 12.45pm to a cheese and pickle sarnie, which hit whichever spot it was that thought it needed one.

I am now neither stroppy nor hungry but I am rather bored.

Be back before dawn.

I had a particularly unsettling dream last night; I got a phone call from a relative and for an hour I sat there just listening to them cry. I couldn't see them or help them and I couldn't even be sure they were really there.

SO glad to be out of that dream cloud, although it left me with a funny feeling and I have been all interpret-y ever since. The thing is there have been a few folk who I have felt the need to comfort recently and mostly I have had to do this through some kind of electronic intermediary device, thus making my efforts rather remote.

So anyway, that got my day off to a chirpy start and a day that was supposed to be filled with essay writing turned into a day filled with feeling out of sorts and pouty.

On the plus side the Super hero Barbies I bought from ebay turned up and this cheered me enormously. It's heartwarming really, the fact that such utterly useless (although extremely cute) items have the power to disctract me so pleasantly. Briefly I suspect but nevermind.

Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

I can't deny that the here and now strikes me as a time lacking in originality. For example, I can barely think without quoting from The Simpsons. So, to celebrate the fact that all my thinking has been done for me; I give life to my very own Blog. Where, when I have nothing to say, I can always turn to Homer, Spongebob or Buffy for a helping hand.