The Perseverant Pincushion

This is my eighth post in the space of approximately twelve months. Still call myself a blogger, do I? Once upon a time, I was a much more prolific blogger than this. I was also once a much more prolific blog reader than I currently am too…

I don’t think it is fair to Facebook to blame it for all of my changed habits; lol…

When I consider it more carefully, I think it is more to do with my own headspace and thought processes… There is a vagueness and a scatter-brained-ness in me that hasn’t always been there. The things that I think about doing are filed away as done before I actually do them too… like thinking about sending a text message or writing a blog post is enough to make it happen or something. It transfers into the event of those “Didn’t I tell you that?” conversations with my man too… which can sometimes just lead to frustration and confusion about who I have these conversations with and whether or not I imagine so much of what I think I have experienced in life.

Am I just getting older? Do I have more to think about than I used to? Or do I think about the same amount of things, but have less flexible thinking time? Am I showing early signs of short-term memory loss..?
Or do I just have the Sunday night blahs..?

I have not not been tagged by Ren, but I thought I’d join in anyway…

I’m still reading Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People after last year’s Man Booker shortlist reading challenge with friends… This is not quite five sentences from the top of the page, but close enough…

‘One pill per day,’ he says. ‘If things look really bad you could give one and a half. Do not exceed prescribed dose. How many do you want?’
‘Discount for quantity?’
I go away with a plastic jar containing thirty six pills.

Now, although I wasn’t tagged myself… I will tag Barb, Sonia and… Marita (to get her blogging again!)

Books Love ‘em! I sometimes wish I could be a lady of leisure and read books all day. I have a pile of books to read next to my bed that is, I kid you not, well above knee height and almost up to my hip… and I’m not a short-arse! I have put an embargo on any new book purchases until I get through some of the ones that are in this pile, because I am running out of room for them. I also have a bookshelf full of books which I have read, because I find it really difficult to get rid of books to the op shop or to give them away. I really should though, because soon enough I will have to “merge” households and there will just not be all that much room for my extensive collection. One funny thing about my bookshelf is that on at least two occassions that I can remember, guests at parties held at our share house have asked “Did the person who owns this bookshelf study literature at Monash?” They can tell based on the fact that some of the key first-year booklisted texts are still on the shelf (inc. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, scattered Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter titles, and the more obvious, Australian Short Stories collection.) I’m currently taking far too long to read one of the short-listed books for last year’s Man Booker Prize, Animal’s People. With my return to study in January, alas I just don’t have the lazy Saturday or Sunday afternoons that used to allow for the reading of novels…
Bikes If you had’ve asked me ten years ago what my favourite outdoor passion was, I would have said “Sitting under a tree and reading a book”; however, I now have a huge love of bike riding! Not the bike riding of primary and high school days, which saw me mostly walking my Graycross ten speed up the Craig Street hill to the reserve and then riding the rest of the way (no more than a kilometre, I reckon) to school. Now I do certainly try to ride to work regularly (it fluctuates though), but I’m also very keen to complete bike riding challenges. Of highest note, is riding ~370kms around Mongolia in 2006. There was only 16 or so kms of asphalted road in that total, and there were lots. of. bloody. rocks. It was an amazing experience. More recently, we did the Melbourne Summer Cycle, also to fundraise and raise awareness of Multiple Sclerosis, and I rode over the West Gate Bridge without stopping without any lead up training. I’m not fit by any means or measure, but I definitely love the freedom of the wind in my hair (under the helmet, of course!) and environmentally friendly transportation!

Boyfriend Yep, sorry, he is still just that… even though I did dangle the carrot or elude to future changes in the relationship with my last post. Sorry to [prematurely] excite you, my readers (…oops, will that phrase see me spammed more often?!) However, I will confirm that my man and I have definitely talked about “mergers and acquisitions” — code for marriage without actually saying the word and raising his blood pressure, of course! — and we are definitely heading there… It is just a case of timing, and the right timing at that… Part of me is of the “Why wait?” opinion (that’s the same part of me that vowed and declared five years ago to live every day to its fullest and make the most of my legs!) and part of me wants to enjoy every luxuriously relaxed moment of our “courting”. Essentially, he’s clear on where I stand. I know where he stands. And the ball is currently in his court with regard to the when of it all… because we are both traditionalists in that sense. He is to be the one to get down on one knee with ring in hand … and besides, February 29th passed me by this year! (He’s been told/threatened that I’m not hanging around waiting for the question, only to have to ask it myself on February 29th 2012!) So, when I say watch this space… I mean that it is coming. Just not quickly… Thanks for the excitement for it though! … I reckon that happily-ever-after with my P will be worth the wait!

… the sounds of my love chatting with my folks during the ad break of the movie that he sat down to watch with my stepdad while I’ve been stuffing about on the internet…

…I also enjoyed the conversation that was had between my love and I on the way to the ‘bool, which centred around “mergers” and “acquistions” in our life together…

… watch this space…

… by reading the blog of an old high school friend who has just recently started blogging, and by the call for an MS-bloggers’ Carnival of link love … and, well, just because it’s late and I’m one of those people who sometimes stays up late for no apparent reason…

So, in the interests of blogging and needing a prompt to write about something (because it is late and, while I have things on my mind that I could certainly post about, it is easier to run with this easy idea…) I thought I would take up said high school friend’s idea in progress and blog the alphabet. No, not all in one post; but as a letter at a time, posting a few topics that begin with that letter as they pop into my head… so…

-A- is for…

Accounting The thing that currently keeps me occupied with my head in the books on the weekends and some weeknights, to varying success… I’m doing a Graduate Diploma in Management by distance education with the University of New England in Armidale in NSW. My first unit is ‘Introductory Accounting’. I’m learning all about debits and credits, and current ratios and debt ratios, and how to draw up the various financial statements. If I pass (an assignment worth 35% and an exam worth 65%!!) my employer will reimburse me the course fees - “Noice!” - but, I am finding that it is a lot more time and work than I had expected… Still, if nothing else, I will persevere!

Apricots I hate ‘em! … with a passion! No, really… I pick them out of pre-made muesli and fruit & nut mixes and toss them in the bin. It is due to my immense dislike of apricots, both fresh and dried, that we make our own muesli mix in this house. The apricot lovers can add the vile taste to their muesli, while my muesli can be apricot free.

Ani Difranco I love her! She has been my favourite singer for as long as I’ve had one! (Which wasn’t really definitively until I was at uni and exposed to so much more than I had been in high school listening to radio 3YB.) I still remember the amazing journey of listening to Ani’s ‘Little Plastic Castle’ album, which had been loaned to me by a friend from uni, and deciding that I could definitely listen to it forever. I still love that whole CD because of the memories it brings back to me (and because I know all the words back to front!), but favourite songs are now ‘Freak Show’ and ‘Arrivals Gate’. I’ve seen her live twice, and I am slowly, slowly introducing her to my boyfriend by not always skipping her songs when the iPod is on shuffle on a drive back to my home town.

(Hmmmnm… that was quick and mildly fun! Stay tuned for -B- soon…)

… especially when combined with an engine immobiliser and a remote that needs a new battery!

A few days ago I looked at my aging car remote and thought, “This is surely going to die soon”, because the soft plastic covering the button had worn completely through and the actual (less comfortable or ergonomic to press or something) button shows through.

Well, this evening after walking from my office to the car carrying the mail drop off for delivery to the mail room tomorrow on the way to work (easing the process by planning to do the task by car because I’d been advised, during this January time of reduced mail services, that there were a few boxes at the mailroom to be collected for staff in my department), I discovered that “soon” = sometime today after I arrived at work. So, not to be initially beaten, I unlocked the car in the traditional way, ie. with the key. I placed my box of mail and other bits and pieces on the back seat, and jumped in to start the car. “Oh yeah… that’s right… I’ve got an engine immobiliser.” When the security is active, the car won’t start without the remote being pressed first. After about a dozen tries of the button hoping that it just had one more press or emission of it’s little remote signal, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to take the bus home and bring back the spare remote tomorrow…

As I wandered from the car (carpark three, for those of you who know my workplace) to the bus stop (near the DMB), I realised that I was carrying about 55c in my purse (an excuse for Peter picking up the bill for the past few days!) and needed to go to the ATM, which would probably make me miss the next bus, thus rendering me stranded for at least half an hour and considering a taxi instead. However, as I started the path towards the ATM, I came upon a folded piece of blue on the ground. Nobody in sight to claim ownership meant that I now had my bus fare, plus $6.50 change, and wouldn’t miss the next bus by having to visit the ATM!
Now I’m just not sure whether to go up the campus tonight with the spare remote to ensure that it works, or risk that it does, ride my bike to work tomorrow morning and check the remote then. I kinda did need an incentive to ride this week, and tomorrow was my possibilty because of the increasing temperatures later in the week, and so… I’ll confer with the man and see what happens.

And I might just drop the $6.50 on the ground near the bus stop for any others in a predicament such as mine!

I’m the winner!

Now just have to decide where it will live for the next year…
On the mantlepiece? on top of the wardrobe? in my office? beside the telly with a nice display of fake flowers…? or, as L so rudely suggested, in the roof…?
Ooh, maybe it can take centre stage in P’s house renovations?! Once it has a place of it’s own, I may be inclined to take a photo and post it, mostly for the benefit of those involved in the comp, but don’t hold your breath… we all know I promised a post over a month ago that still hasn’t appeared … (It is half written, but I’ve just been distracted by things like work and Facebook… oh dear…)

FYI … I will update post-neurologist visit. And I will write about the fact that my Nan passed this week (as an exercise in grief-writing, but I’m not really grieving all that much… and because my family history is interesting) and I hope to do it tonight.

So, the concern that keeps popping into my head as I lament the fact that I am sick, again, is to do with the workings of my immune system…
I have an auto-immune disease. That’s a disease which, according to and lifted from wikipedia, “…arise[s] from an overactive immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body.” So, my body attacks its own cells; namely, the myelin sheath around the nerves, or neurons, in my brain, causing scars or lesions on the nerves called ’sclerosis’. More than one of those (six actually, I think, to get a clear diagnosis) and you’ve got the plural being scleroses, aka multiple sclerosis (couldn’t they be more creative with the collective noun, like when you have a pod of whales, a school of fish, a business of ferrets or a crash of hippopotami…?)
(I have also just learned that, in addition to being commonly abbreviated to MS, Multiple Sclerosis is also known as disseminated sclerosis or encephalomyelitis disseminata. So, I could be really cryptic and say that I have DS or ED when I get bored with MS…)
So, the question to be pondered and researched this fortnight, in advance of my next visit to my neurologist on the 10th of August, is whether my immune system is *bleep* because:
a) my immune system is so busy attacking my myelin, it forgets to fight actual foreign cells like colds and gastro bugs.
b) it is a side-effect of my ongoing medication, the one that sounds like a frog sneezing (”Rebif!”), in addition to possible adverse effects on my liver function and that my white blood cell levels are also effected.
c) I don’t eat Lean Cuisine and, “No, Dad, I’m not looking after myself”. 
or,
d) rotten luck.

A quiet weekend filled with activies enjoyable and relaxing…

Friday night was takeaway pizza and a bottle of wine, whilst cosy on the couch next to my man watching one of the many DVDs that I brought back from China twelve months ago, but had not yet watched: Walk the Line. What a great movie!
This was after a long effort to find a pizza shop in Camberwell that didn’t charge the earth and wasn’t ‘Sofia’s’ [*blech*]. We found ‘Big Al’s’ on Toorak road; $7.50 large pizzas (well, it is Camberwell after all, not Mooroolbark) with an independant bottleshop just two or three doors down the road. How convenient! The verdict, after consumption, was that we will definitely return. No more being overcharged by our last pizza joint (even if they did happily swap the olives for capers on my vegetarian pizza!) Pizza should be a cheap meal!

Saturday night was ‘date’ night, after I declared to my man that we hadn’t had a date in a while… what with me being away, him being away, him being sick, me being sick, busy weekend last weekend… so, we had a lovely thai dinner and followed it with a long-overdue trip to the movies, to see Oceans Thirteen, and then went home and [I] fell asleep while watching Le Tour… go Cadel!

Saturday during the day - to switch back and be out of order in my recap - was a lovely outing to the city with housemate and dear friend M. We went to the Ken Duncan gallery shop at Southbank, which is a really nice place to pass time if you ever find yourself with a spare half an hour at Southbank by the way, and we found gifts for two more people than we had been hoping for (making a total of gifts for three people). We had brunch at the ‘Blue Train Café’ and then wandered Bourke St-ward to browse for “the” dress for me to wear to the upcoming “aeronerd” ball (= the Royal Victorian Aero Club [RVAC] annual charity aviators’ ball). I wasn’t committed to purchasing anything that day, or anyday, but was open to the possibility of finding “the” dress; the dress that every woman wants to have in her wardrobe for various special ocassions. We popped into a little shop off Collins st, called ‘La Bella Donna’, and, on a whim, I accepted the assitant’s suggestions and offers to try on a few frocks to get a better idea of what I was after… First dress was very nice, but not quite right. Certainly not for the price tag (right enough had it been on sale though). Second dress was stunning, and I couldn’t take my eyes off myself! M would concur, but I’ll say it myself: I looked hot! Best I’ve ever seen myself. (Even better than on your wedding day, T & F!) After trying a few different options for how to accessorise it (very useful for aeronerd balls and weddings in years to come!), I redressed in my boring street clothes, a la Targét, and stepped out of the store to consider the significant purchase that I was contemplating. We popped into a number of other stores where nothing caught my eye as much as “the” dress did. With M’s helpful wise questioning and advice, I had made my decision and returned to ‘La Bella Donna’ to make the purchase of my “investment”. A picture will follow after the aeronerd ball on the 11th August, because the dress is staying safely tucked away until then, and any description I would write would not do it justice… So curiosity will have to eat away at my readers until then!

And in true weekend roundup style, let me also report that i am on top of Tony’s Tipping Competition! Woo-hoo! I’m only a point ahead of the person coming second, but I am three points clear of Daniel and four points clear of Miss Marita! …yegads! Do I have a good chance of winning the perpetual ‘ugly’ trophy…? Better make sure I’m actually at the Grand Final BBQ this year then!