Insert your own title here.

The audit appears to have fried my brain!  I’ve sat down to write, but keep coming up with…nothing.  I’ve got a couple of things in draft form, but can’t seem to turn them into anything.

So, I will leave you with a few random things that have been going round in my poor little brain today and then I’m off to visit all of your pages.

How come I went skirt shopping this morning, but managed to come back with no skirt and a new pair of shoes?!?

I really love it when it’s been so long since I’ve read a book that when I re-read it, I’ve forgotten the ending.  It’s just like a new one!

Why does cold weather make you want to wee more?

I’m dog and house sitting for Student Nutty Nurse in a couple of weeks.  They also have a donkey.  I don’t know yet if I’m supposed to look after that too.  Maybe my new rule in life should be before I agree to something, find out if a donkey is involved first!!

I really should update my blogroll.  I keep meaning to do this, a job for the weekend perhaps?

That’s it!  It seems that me and my brain are still in need of some more time to relax and recover.  I’m at a friends house for dinner tomorrow night, so I’ll be back at the weekend.

Take care and see you all then.

Just to reassure myself it could be worse!

Ok, so I don’t blog for a week and then make two posts in one day, there’s nothing like inconsistency!

I’m still vaguely obsessed with Christmas and organising the work Christmas party and remembered an email I had received from Student Nutty Nurse some time last year.

I obviously haven’t saved it, but finally tracked it down on Boreme.com. You’ve got to love the internet!

Anyway, urban myth or not, I’m so glad that I don’t have to organise a Christmas party on a large scale, else I think I’d have the same reaction as this woman!

Enjoy.

Public dancing solution!

Some of you are aware that my sense of rhythm is sorely lacking. I have made some progress recently thanks to dancing in Best Friend’s kitchen and embarrassing small children, but there is still vast room for improvement (though I did manage a Burlesque-like shimmy type thing the other day!).

I will not dance in public, unless I am under the influence of a serious amount of alcohol, and even then it’s pushing it. But I think I may have found a solution!

I have recently heard about these things called Headphone disco’s. It seems that when you enter the venue, you are immediately issued with wireless headphones. Two different DJ’s play at the same time and you can choose which one you listen to. There is no music pumped into the club, it only comes through the headphones. So if you take them off, all you will see are people dancing to…nothing.

I guess it looks a little odd at first, a bit like a Mime’s disco, but imagine the potential. No one would be able to tell if you were a bad dancer as they would just think you were dancing to different music to them. However, I guess it could also make a good dancer look bad, but I don’t really care about that!

I need to find somewhere where they are using these. Not only could I dance in public without embarrassing myself or anyone who knows me, I would willingly pay good money to see those that think they can dance look as silly as me!

One time only

This is the first and last time I will do this.

Mr Playmate and I rarely apologise to each other, no matter what we’ve done. Our friendship is based on taking the piss, playing jokes and fighting about anything and everything.

However, I will make an exception in this case.

I am sorry for giving you a blog name that makes you sound like a brand of condoms.

He will no longer go by Mr Playmate. Until he tells me what he wants to be known as, I will refer to him as Name Pending.

I have to go and lie down now to recover from the shock to my system that apologising to you has caused!

Here comes the bride (with a remote control!)

Now, I know there are some crap TV programmes out there and there are some odd TV channels, but I have come across one that just seems weird. We’re all used to things such as the shopping channels, the god bothering squad and the ‘community’ channels but this is different. I have seen an advert for a station dedicated to weddings.

Amazingly, and imaginatively, it is called Weddingtv. The advert informed me that ‘what every girl needs is an excuse to grab the remote control’ and tried to sell weddingtv as the place where I will find ‘relationships, celebrities, glamour …and everything about weddings’. Sounds…umm, nice.

I’m sure that there must be a market for this kind of thing, but I can only imagine that their core group of viewers will be made up of wedding planners, Bridezilla’s and little girls feeding their dreams of their own weddings.

Disturbingly, I spent quite a while trying to think how they would fill 24 hours of TV, 365 days a year of stuff about weddings. Not being the type that has ever wanted to get married (no, not even as a kid) my knowledge of weddings is limited to the ones I have been to, which tend to be of the get pissed and fight variety, so I struggled a lot with this.

Conveniently they had a handy website to help me. There I discovered programmes such as World’s Greatest Spas, Rich Bride Poor Bride and Weird Weddings to entertain and advise the bride to be. There also appeared to be all sorts of essential information, but by this time I was slightly scared and didn’t understand what I was reading, so I left.

I can vaguely see the point of stations such as QVC (I’ve even been known to watch it when I’ve been in the depths of insomnia and BBC 24 just isn’t making sense anymore!) but a station dedicated to weddings? Maybe I’m missing something, but I just don’t get it.

I mean, their viewers must only stay for the duration until their wedding is over. I know there is a never ending supply of brides, but surely it’s only relevant to watch this before you get married. But it seems they have thought about this. On their website, there is a nifty feature called ‘My Wedding Album’. Yes, it is now possible to store your beloved wedding photos on a TV website – doesn’t that just seem slightly wrong? They obviously don’t think so. It takes pride of place in their advert, I guess that is their unique selling point and this is their proud parent moment.

It’s the blokes and friends of the bride that I feel sorry for. Up to now, there had just been the magazines to contend with and they weren’t too bad, it’s easy to hide something of that size. But, what do you do about a TV channel? I can see Sky subscriptions being cancelled all over the place…

Food, glorious food

I had a new culinary experience last night. Best Friend was feeling down and had had a stressful day at work, so we decided to meet up for a bit of tea and sympathy. After a few drinks and a bit of a crisis debrief, it was time for dinner. Off we went, neither really sure what we wanted, so Pizza Express seemed like a good option. Looking though the menu, I found a pizza with asparagus and egg!! I’ll try anything food wise but couldn’t quite get my head around this.

I like pizza, I like asparagus and I like eggs, but all three on one thing? It seemed like a bit of an odd and random concept. Spinach and eggs yes, but this was a new one on me. When it arrived I was a little disconcerted because the asparagus spears were just kind of strewn across the top and the egg looked like it was making its escape off the side. I was pleasantly surprised because it tasted great, certainly something I’ll order again.

Unfortunately (I think) I’ll be having another new culinary experience on Saturday night. Best Friend and I are going to dinner at another friend’s, Miss Nice As Pie, house. Now, she has never cooked for me, but has for Best Friend. Slightly worryingly I have been advised to eat before hand, or at least bring plenty of alcohol – this certainly doesn’t sound good! But, she’s trying. I fear what Best Friend is more concerned about is that Miss Nice As Pie has promised us she will be trying something new and we will be the first to taste it!

Food seems to be featuring a lot in my week. I’m also going to dinner with Mr Flirt tomorrow night, which I’m looking forward to. We always have fun and eat at some pretty decent places. All of which beat what I had for dinner tonight – 3 minute noodles and a chocolate bar, nothing like a balanced diet! Thank god for restaurants and friends…

It’s not a shameful thing.

Loud and proud about your love for it? Guilty pleasure? Or complete turn off? Yep, I’m talking about porn! I love porn and use it on a regular basis, either alone or when I’m with a partner. I don’t want to go into the whole exploitation of women thing (maybe another day, but for the record, I don’t believe that it is exploitative in the majority of cases), I’m more interested in the enjoyment in it and some of the taboo around it.

It seems to be much easier for blokes to admit they like porn. They talk about it with their mates and I’ve had male friends that have watched it together (not in a sexual way, I’m not sure what it’s about – maybe a strange male bonding ritual?). In some ways porn seems to be a rite of passage. I don’t know many people who haven’t seen ‘Debbie Does Dallas’, or found their Dad’s or older brothers stash of porn mags.

Two of my friends know that I use porn – my best mate (female) and a male friend. Oddly, I’m much more open about it with the bloke (we exchange links and have quite a few conversations about it!). I don’t know if this is because it stills seems like a very male orientated pleasure. Hopefully this will change. Anna Span is Britain’s first female porn director, making more female friendly porn. And that’s the good thing about porn, there is something for everyone, whether you want hard or soft or what ever your turn on is, there will be a film about it.

I know several male friends who use porn but their girlfriends either don’t know, or they don’t want to share it with them. This seems to be because the girlfriend either thinks their bloke shouldn’t be doing it and views it as a form of cheating (I’m really not sure how that works, don’t they masturbate or ever fantasise about anyone else? It’s NOT cheating!), or they end up comparing themselves to the female star, assuming this is what their partner finds attractive (yes, of course they do, but they are with you and understand the difference between reality and fantasy, blokes are much more visual than women, who tend to go for a whole package). Sharing porn with your partner can be fantastic and a major turn on. And to be honest, I would have thought the blokes should have been more worried considering the stamina (and size!) of some male porn stars.

So if you haven’t tried porn yet and you’re curious, then give a mainstream film like 9 songs or 9 and ½ weeks a try, then go from there. You never know, you might even like it.

Just a trim?

So what kind of girl are you? Brazilian, Hollywood, or au natural? That’s right I’m talking about pubic hair. Pubes, short and curlies, what ever you call them we’ve all got them, but what should we do with them? There seem to be a few theories about why we have ‘hair down there’; mainly around showing you’re ready for reproduction and for trapping pheromones. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter why we have it, we have to decide what we want to do with it.

It seems each ‘style’ sends a different message. Leaving it alone and doing nothing, generally creates a reaction of ‘so how long exactly has it been then?’ and blokes tend to worry slightly about getting hair trapped in their teeth! There is something slightly disturbing about a brazilian. Yes, it feels nice (once it’s done! Don’t forget there are hairs ‘around the back’ that are also removed, by you getting into some very odd and intimate positions!), it’s clean and increases sensation. But it always strikes me as a disturbing cross between pre-puberty and porn star.

Then there’s the Hollywood. I had one of these, thinking this would be a compromise between the two. Not an overgrown jungle that the poor bloke would have to use a map to get to his destination and not something that would leave me feeling like a plucked chicken! All was going well, until I showed it to him and was met with “A go-faster stripe! Cool!”, not exactly the reaction I was looking for.

There are also those who create their own designs. We’ve all heard of the women who have created a piece of ‘art’, this seems to be around Valentine’s Day, when the popularity of hearts and red dye increases tenfold! I’m also sure we’ve all heard of the woman (urban legend or not) who dyed her pubes green and got a tattoo saying ‘Keep off the grass’.

Blokes don’t seem to worry so much about this for themselves. The most they appear to consider doing is a quick trim, though I suspect that this is to do more with gaining the appearance of a few more millimetres!

I’m not sure what the future of pubic fashion is; it certainly seems to change quite quickly. Maybe the answer is for everyone to get rid of their pubes and wear a merkin! I hear there are some fabulous designs out there…

43things – goals and ambitions.

Goals. Ambitions. Dreams. Wants. Desires. Whatever you want to call them we’ve all got them. Even the people that I meet that say they have no goals have them, they just haven’t been able to put a name to them yet.

I’ve always been aware of what I want from life. Sometimes I’ve got a bit confused or I’ve been side tracked, but they’ve always been there. The problem I’ve had is to keep up the motivation to do anything about it, or just be able to put a plan together. Well, all this has changed in the last month or so. I stumbled across a site called 43things and it has really changed how I go about achieving things. When I first read about it I thought ‘yeah, right, it’s just another way to procrastinate or spend more time talking about what you want to do rather than doing it’. I was very wrong. What I found was a site that really helped me to focus on what I want and how to get there, as well as a group of people who are friendly and encouraging. I have to admit there is a feeling of being accountable to other people, though there is no pressure at all, just support and no one thinks anything about it when you give up on a goal for some reason. My list is ever changing as I edit goals, complete them and add new ones. There are big goals (buy a house) and small, fun ones (learn to juggle) and I find this works best for me. I also add ones I know I will be able to complete quickly. The act of being able to tick something off always encourages me to move on with the rest.

One thing that helps is the encouragement from other people. And I’m always surprised at the number of people who have the same goals. Sometimes you stumble across a goal that you hadn’t thought about before and decide to give it a go; 43things can open up new possibilities, which can only be a good thing. The only thing that concerns me is the amount of people that have the goals ‘I want to commit suicide’ or ‘I want to be anorexic’, there is something disturbing about it, though there is part of me that feels that subconsciously they must desire some form of help as they would be aware of what kind of response they will get – though maybe it is just the attention they need.

For anyone who likes lists and needs something to help them maintain motivation and focus have a look and see if it’s for you.

Sexuality and attraction

Let’s talk about sex. Or rather, let’s talk about sexuality. Two very different things. I was at a friend’s house for dinner the other week and we (after a couple of drinks!) ended up playing a game of ‘either / or’. You know the one – two options and you have to pick one, no ‘both’, ‘neither’ or ‘pass’, you have to answer! There were three of us, all female. We had done serious options (sight or hearing, love or money) and had inevitably ended up with sex ones (including George Bush or Gordon Brown – interesting responses!). The question was posed; a beautiful woman or an ugly man?

Now, I consider myself as heterosexual, though I have certainly been attracted to and fantasised about women. I have never slept with a woman, though when I was younger I have kissed female friends. However, that was nothing to do with sex, but more to do with putting on a show and getting attention from blokes in clubs (amazing the reaction you get, silly boys!). Sex is usually based on one of two things (if you have both at the same time, then good for you!): physical attraction or attraction to the person as a whole. We’ve all done it – set eyes on someone who has made us horny just looking at them, or realized over time that the person we know and consider a friend is much more attractive than we first considered them to be – that’s attraction to a person as a whole.

But in this scenario, sex with someone you don’t know and so based purely on looks, what would you do? Aesthetics are important to us, especially with sex, when we’re operating from a very basic level. It’s certainly easier for a woman to publicly say they think another woman is beautiful (though is often nothing to do with sexual desire, more an admiration of beauty), than it is for a male to say about another male. I’d be interested to know the answer from a male perspective (though I’m fairly sure what the majority would say) – so, blokes; ugly woman or beautiful man?

Sexuality is a fluid thing. Yes, we have our general preference, though attraction (if we talk about attraction to a person as a whole) is usually more to do with the person themselves than their gender.

And our answers? Two to one for a beautiful woman. I was in the majority. Think about it, what would you answer?