Love and other vices

Quote du jour: Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age. - Anais Nin


Site du jour: In honor of V-day, I thought I'd throw out this site, where the romance publisher Harlequin describes why they decided to patent the kiss.

This invention, The Essential Romantic Kiss ("The Kiss"), involves a method by which two people can reciprocate their romantic feelings towards one another in a manner that deepens attachment, provides pleasure and promotes physical and emotional well‐being. Further, this method improves with repetition, can be performed at virtually any time and, if registered by the US Patent Office, will be freely available to all persons everywhere in the interests of enhancing romantic love and generally making the world a better place.

In case you think I'm kidding, here's the seven page kiss patent.

And, in other news, there's an anti-Valentine's day movement in Malaysia. "Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said Monday's celebration of romantic love was "not suitable" for Muslims." The idea is that Valentine's day encourages vice. I don't get that. Commercializing romance is crass, maybe, but I have trouble associating heart-shaped chocolates with vice.

Hmmmn... well, okay, I guess I could think up a few associations...

Shout out du jour: Have to say, I love Xenia's Valentine's Day card. I am envious.

Exercise du jour: Really, considering the day, I should be indulging in some patented kind of vice-encouraging exercise. But I refuse to post that as a goal here. It's not That Kind of Blog. Instead, I'll settle for posting the goal of bicycling. Is there such a thing as bicycle vice? Hmmmn.... maybe I'd rather not know. Forget I asked that question. Nevermind. I really don't want to know.

FAIL. I am a failure. Or at least I feel like one. It was a dark and stormy day, with lots of rain falling vertically and wind blowing horizontally, so I guess I can give myself a pass on the bike ride. But in the evening -- of course! -- another computer crisis from a long-distance relative. Moral: exercise first thing on the elliptical. Evenings are not safe. [In this case, literally. Another cyclist was killed riding in that storm, even though he was wearing lights and was off to the side. A car, driven too fast for the conditions, "didn't see him" in an intersection.]

Rodin's unpatented version of The Kiss courtesy of Ulleskelf.

What are you looking at me like that for?

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What?

What did I do?

Okay, so I didn't blog for a few days weeks, but aside from that... what?

Geez, you keep looking at me like that. Quit it, okay?

Yes, I know I started this blog because I wanted to guilt myself into exercising.

I've changed my mind.

I want to weave my own personal version of reality and draw it close around myself like a really old, faded quilt that maybe has frayed a bit 'round the edges but is still soft and comfy and non-judgmental about how much more of me there is to cover. (It's amazing how an additional 3.5 pounds on the scale can translate in 432 pounds in my mind's eye.)

So just pretend I'm not here, 'k?

Oh hell. You're still looking. I told you not to do that.

Fine. BE that way. Just be that way. I'm going to ignore you.


Attempts to fade into the background...


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Exploding head syndrome

Pumpkin pi

Fact du jour: Apparently there really is a medical condition known as Exploding Head Syndrome. (And even more amazing, House hasn't diagnosed it in anyone.)

Giveaway du jour: Today I'm going to go through a storage box and give away everything I don't absolutely need. (I have a LOT of stuff in storage boxes.)

Gave away a belt I've been holding onto for... oh, probably 20 years. Doubt I've worn it in the last 10 years. Time to let it go.

Exercise du jour: bell, ball, and balance (balance ball and kettlebell)
Done. Note: I really did not feel like exercising tonight. Couldn't face confessing that to you, yes you over there. *waves*

Summary du Week: Vampire Dogs & Good Genes

The week was a mixture of good, bad, and surprising. I didn't get most of the exercising in that I had planned for, but on the other hand I did get some and I also got a surprising compliment.

Plus, the awful project has wrapped up, so with any luck at all I will be able to get important things done.

Methinks I tend to overestimate how much I can get done in a day. I overestimate my energy reserve and I don't budget enough for the unexpected. I refuse to get discouraged by any discrepancies between my To Do and my To Done lists. This is a learning process. I'm only going to get graded on the final exam. None of the preliminary midterms count, except for how much I learn from them to improve my performance.

One important lesson I need to keep reminding myself of is that you need to Expect the Unexpected. Douglas Adams complained that this phrase was a)glib and b) a contradiction in terms. But it isn't, really. You need to take into account the fact that things aren't always going to go as planned, and factor in some time in your schedule for the unexpected.

No matter how well prepared you are, you always have to budget for something to come out of nowhere ... like a flying vampire dog going for your ear.



more funny fail pictures at FAIL Blog

[Note: the non-photoshopped -- but less dramatic -- version of this photo can be found here.]

Thursday:
Pro: ate my vegetables
Con: two cans of V-8 are vegetables?
Summary: no exercise, but the end of the overtime is in sight

Friday:
Pro: finished the project-from-hell
Con: too tired to do anything useful
Summary: not a positive day, except for one thing*

Saturday:
Pro: got 2 out of the 3 on the To Do list done; skipped the 3rd to tread for 20 minutes
Con: just once I'd like to get everything on the To Do list done. Maybe should shorten list.
Summary: more good than bad

Sunday:
Pro: gardening is good exercise, especially if you bend from the waist to do the weeding. Also squeezed in 20 minutes on the treadmill.
Con: very tiring
Summary: More good than bad. Good way to end the week.

___________________________________________
*The incident on Friday? I had to go to a party, so I picked up a bottle of champagne.
The cashier looked at the bottle, looked at me, and said It.
Woman: "I'd like to see some ID please."
Me: "You're kidding."
Woman: "No." (She was perfectly serious.)
Me: "Oh, I get it. You have to card everyone, right?"
Woman: "No." (She was starting to look a little suspicious.)
Me: "You really want to see my ID?"
Woman: "Yes!"
Me: "I love you!"

I think at this point she was ready to back away and call for the manager, but I couldn't help it. When you've just passed the birthday that marks you as being half-way to 90, it's incredible that someone would think that you could pass for 21. I think it's heredity -- until a few years ago, my mother was often thought to be about 20 years younger than she actually was.

Thank you, Mom.

This is migraine, not yours

Headache bad
Mary sad
Writing a blog is no Iliad
Better ideas are not to be had

What, you got a problem with bad poetry?
Think you can do better?
Go ahead.

Try.

I dare you.

I should probably try to write a more interesting post, but my synapses have all got tenure, i.e. none of them seem to be capable of being fired.

Migraine photo courtesy of flickr.
Migraine itself courtesy of multifarious biochemical processes.

Useful tips and sundry trivia

Now that I have your ear, Mr. Van Gogh...
Mishmash of things I wanted to note:
Sixteen edicts of exercise
Fifteen tips to restart the exercise habit
Seven secrets of being popular
Six good eating habits that will help prevent cancer

And some sundry trivia that I found completely charming.

You are probably familiar with the concept of the odd collective nouns in the English language. No doubt you've heard of a "herd" of cows, a "flock" of sheep or seagulls, a "gaggle" of geese. You might even be familiar with some of the more abstruse (i.e. plain wacko) collective nouns. For example a collection of crows is referred to as a "murder" of crows.

James Lipton (of the "Actor's Studio" program on Bravo) published a whole book of these nouns (An Exaltation of Larks). I can see no way to work these into a regular post, but I found them quite charming, so I'm inflicting sharing some of them here:

A dish of gossips
A bellyful of bores
A curse of creditors
A Kerouac of deadbeats
A stall of procrastinators
A score of bachelors
A freeze of virgins
A hangout of nudists
A spread of centerfolds

It's hard to stop.