to sum up ‘To sum up’ - a sum of partial thought, in parts, as summed up below.

Below, in an overlong explanation/apology, girl rationalises have lost the zing in her thing,
and having to live life more than write about it for a couple of weeks.
Sucky?
To sum up…

To sum up

A girl, or woman, of -let’s say - 25 (or so), has a weblog.
She wouldn’t call it a weblog, seeing a weblog as an altogether more helpful thing, pointing people to other places, rather than to just herself.
She, this girl, let’s call her Joanna, would rather perhaps call her site a journal.
Or a ‘thing’.

Started to give her practice in writing, and the discipline of doing so, it soon became a somehow read thing, a phenomenon to her and thereby an addiction.

Or, if thinking as addiction as a negative word, then certainly a certainty.

A reflection of life. A reflection on life. A way of seeing life while living, and from other angles too.
Seeing life through the first person, through rose-tinted spectacles, through a glass darkly and through the round, square and triangle window all at once.
An excuse to go off on a tangent without anyone looking at her funny.

However.
Sometimes life can only be seen from one angle at a time.
Sometimes, when life is a list of one-more-things, and to-do lists, there is little room for thought, reflection, observation or humour.
Or memory.
Or writing about things that are too close to the person writing and too far away from anyone else.

And let’s say, having built up this thing as a ‘thing’ in her mind, she feels an obligation to it.
Silly? mm. maybe.
An obligation to the discipline, an obligation to the rhythm, an obligation to herself and an obligation to a whole bunch of people.
Which feels…

Anyway.

Slipping out of third person, which is pissing me off, I’m not shutting down, but I’m on a go-slow.
Certainly not in the rest of my life, only here.
If anyone reads this, feel free to go and read something else.
When you hear a hint that ‘anna’s back on (some kind of) form’, visit back, in the meanwhile-couple-of-weeks-time I have to go and tick off items on that to-do list.

And I know that some of you hate bloggers that apologise, and I apologise for that.
That is, of course, just who I am.
Sorry.

I’ll be fulfilling my need for discipline every couple of days, if I can,(gosh, no, not like that, I meant the writing discipline, not the whole being spanked thing, not that kind of discipline. That sounded awful, sorry. Although it would probably be a sideline at university. “Hear about my need for discipline… 0898…”) I’ve got so many things running round my head to write down.

It’s just, at the moment, they won’t sit still long enough for me to write them down. Or actually look at them, or anything.

My head is full of pre-schoolers for thoughts.
Not in an ick way.

So. Time for me to go and continue my week of ‘lasts’.
Last candle session, last mandala session, last batik.
Last wedneday…
Last time I’ll go and watch a shit wednesday-early-morning-movie in this particular bedroom on Iona, last time on a wednesday night that I’ll slip into a fitful worry-dream filled sleep and wake up thinking of packing.

Last time….
last time…
lasttime.

Rubbish, I’ll be back in a few weeks.
You, nor the island, can get rid of me that easy…

very sorry tired and ill yet bisy backson.

displacement…(more to me then you will ever know)

You can add to the displacement, no-I-don’t-wannapack-not-even-a-little-bit, activities below;
Bad daytime television, absolutely entranced by it, I was…

Nap time. I have to admit here, I’d just managed to pack half a box and then, realising the thing I’d just packed was my sleeping bag, I unpacked it thoroughly and settled down for a sleep.

Wandering around a bit.

More work stuff that wasn’t packing.

Going to the pub. well, I have to. It’s my last week. What am I going to do without my local pub?
Go to another pub.
But that’s not the point right now.
The point is pre-emptive nostalgia.

Spend time with friends, a bit, wandering around. And at the pub. Obviously.

Sitting on the floor of room, staring into space.
Or at daytime television. Same thing.

Trying to think of things to post not dull.
Failed.

Mopped kitchen floor, unblocked sink, cleaned microwave, tidied cupboards.

Cleaned bathroom.

Bathed.

So, to sum up;
Boxes packed? - three quarters of one box.
Laundry done? - Everything I own. I smell an awful lot like flowers.
Clean? - Yes, me, my clothes, and everything around me apart from my room and my belongings.
Sense of satifaction? - Not great, I must say.

Displacement activities, so far today, in order of something….

1. Working on my day off because it’s not packing. - 1 hour and a half.
2. Talking in advance about meeting in a few days time - 1/2 hour
3. Gossiping -1/2 an hour.
4. Folding my laundry - 10 minutes
5. Folding other people’s laundry - 20 minutes
6. Moving boxes from one side of room to other without packing anything in them - 5 minutes
7. Moving said boxes back again to strip bed - 4 minutes
8. Moving twice moved boxes back to first moved place - 5 minutes
9. sitting on floor having a little cry - 3 minutes
10. email/posting on blog/IMing sister. - 17 minutes so far. I really should go and pack…

Right. Yes.
Do excuse me, I’m off to put more laundry in, beat my rugs, grab some lunch, smoke some and maybe pop down to the shops…

When talking to your line manager or boss, reflecting on work and colleagues for the last time, is diplomacy or candour the order of the day?
What’s good etiquette?

All of a sudden, with very little notice, I seem to have turned into my mother.

I remember my childhood as a series of ‘Diary’ panics.
“I’ve lost my diary!”, “Where’s my diary?”, “Have you seen my diary?”, “I need my diary!”, “We can’t go anywhere, I don’t know where my diary is!”, “blah blah blah Diary!”, “doo-dah’s on the phone! I need my bag, because in my bag is my…”

I never thought I’d get to a point where I’d love or need a diary so much.
I’d never thought I’d get to the point where I’d panic.

And here I am.
I have my beautiful little black Moleskine, page-per-day, quality paper, thin-lined, page-marker, full-moon-indicating and everything, and I’m panicking because I haven’t got it on me.
Everything’s in there, phone numbers, birthdays, arrangements, things-to-do lists, notes for the Little red boat, everything I do or want to do is in there.

And I know where it is. It’s on the bench in the craft room. 300 metres away up a big hill. And it’s safe there, and no-one’s going to steal it, read it or move it.
Yet my heart is jumping.
It’s my diary.
And I want it.

I know that the first thing in the morning I’ll be wandering into work on my day off to find it.
Rather than packing, rather than my hand-over notes, rather than all the other important stuff, I’ll be running around saying “My diary, I’ve lost my diary, I need my diary….”

I knew I’d turn into my mother at some point.
I didn’t realise it would be this September.

Nine sleeps til I leave.

All sense of tact, politeity (or politeness, either will do) and rational small talk are ebbing away. Conversation held today;
Woman; So! What brought you to the island?
grumpy-ill anna;I work here.
Woman; …
anna; I work here. That’s what brought me here.
Woman; So! What brought you to work here?
anna;What?
Woman; What brought you to work here?
anna; What?… well, There was a nice job going. And I didn’t have one.
Woman;Oh. Are you a Christian?
anna; Hah?!

Now I write it down it sounds really bad. In my head, it didn’t sound so bad.
I should point out that I redeemed myself further into the conversation. I think.
And I’m ill.
That excuses everything.

And it’s St Adomnans day.
Which is relevant not at all.
Unless he’s the saint of Colds and Bad moods. Which I don’t think he is.

You know when you cough so hard you constantly want to vomit?
Yeah. I have that.

Damn, my sister just did the same thing, but in glorious techniclour.
Great minds, etc.

Last 20 Searchengine Queries Unique Visitors

23 Sep, Mon, 00:09:22 Yahoo: scooby doo porn
23 Sep, Mon, 00:44:25 Yahoo: wet piss man
23 Sep, Mon, 01:07:08 Google: scooby doo porn
23 Sep, Mon, 01:20:17 Google: side effects penicillin
23 Sep, Mon, 03:31:21 Google: uk etiquette hug
23 Sep, Mon, 03:32:55 Yahoo: red pleated skirt
23 Sep, Mon, 03:40:13 Google: little porn
23 Sep, Mon, 03:48:08 Yahoo: Paul MaCartney Wallpaper
23 Sep, Mon, 04:09:22 Google: red
23 Sep, Mon, 05:24:08 Yahoo: “small breasts”
23 Sep, Mon, 05:34:21 Yahoo: Mr. Snowman Party Penguin
23 Sep, Mon, 06:14:41 Google: penicillin side effects
23 Sep, Mon, 06:21:23 Google: ducksMy last 20 search engine referrals.
The last 20 questions to which the universes answer was “Go find Anna at Little red boat! She’ll know!”
Only able to do this because they’re slightly less x-rated than usual.
I’m particularly fond of ‘Wet piss man’, and ‘uk etiquette hugs’.

I would say, where the uk stance on hug etiquette is concerned, not being a man drenched in wee, or a ‘wet piss man’, would be fairly high on the list.
What is the uk stance on hug etiquette?

Certainly we don’t approach random people on the street and hug them.
We don’t really hug people we don’t know, or people in authority, Teachers, doctors, bank managers (“Aw! Thanks for my loan! Come ‘ere, you! Gissa hug!”)

Otherwise, it’s fine to hug people as long as you know them.
Or rather, know them and like them.

Or alternatively if you know them, don’t like them and you’re drenched in urine.

I do, incidentally, have perfect eyebrows.

I have some questions about snot (boogers).
I also have some complaints.

I don’t know where it comes from, or why I have so much of it.
I don’t really want to know where it comes from. People have given me hints, or rather, have waved their hands around and said ’sinuses’ but not clarified any further.
As far as I know now, my sinuses are full of millions of little green cows, pooing.
Or the weather system in my sinuses is different to that outside my head, and september is the month for a thaw, the great greeny-yellow glaciers are melting and slowly returning to icky nose gloop.
Or my sinuses, and the little factory of people within them hate me, intensely, and are busily beavering away to produce enormous buckets of euw. Ah- CHOOO! excuse me.

I have to admit, I was rather suprised by the savage nature of my hangover yesterday, which was not reasonable bearing in mind the sensible (ish) amount I had drunk.
It wasn’t a hangover, I discovered, as the day went on, and the headache went away but the mugginess didn’t, and then the nose started, and then the sneezing started, and then the coughing, and the coughing, and the coughing.

And then the cough-sneeze hybrid, much less common but much more painful.

Actually, I have a friend for whom the cough-sneeze hybrid is really quite common indeed. But, then, he can’t do it without farting too, so we’ll not talk about him.

Oh, god, my head.
I have a cold. I want to stand up and shout it from the roof-tops, but I might catch a chill.
I have a cold, coughing hurts and I fear for my life.
Maybe it’s just a first-day-cold thing. I seem to have become almost male in my pain-tolerance-level.
Either that or I am, actually, going to die.

At this point I want a nice clean room with boxes packed and stacked and ready to go, a nice clean craft room, with everything stacked, counted, labelled and ready for the next person to take over, I want a clean duvet cover, a room, perfect in temperature, some kind of roaring fire, a cat, and someone bringing me Lemsips or preferaly Hot Toddies on a tray.

Failing that, I would like a tissue.
Ah-CHooooo!

I can’t remember the rest of the train of thought, that’s the thing.

It was one of those long and meandering ones, sparked off by something someone said, moving through all sorts of twists in logic, memory, knowledge, electrical impulses, all those sorts of things, however they work, all that activity that goes on behind a ponderous expression…

Anyway. The resultant thought at the end of this mysterious process, and this bit I can remember because a) I was entirely convinced by this point, and b)It was the bit I said out loud to everyone in the room.

“Wouldn’t it be great if nipples were made of velcro?”

As soon as I’d said it I couldn’t remember the rest of the thought, or why it would be so great.
It took ten minutes of brainstorming to come up with some possible reasons.

1. Tassels.
2. novelty temporary nipples.
3. Removal of need for bra, to be replaced by simple strap around the neck attached to breasts, or velcro pads on the inside of clothing.
4. If nipples had different types of vecro, hooky on one, fluffy on the other, breasts could be joined in the middle for easy storage.
5. No need to hold baby to the breast, once patent on velcro-mouthed babies is agreed.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

But then, so did the whisky. I hurt.