No more Miss No-Mates

For a long time now, I've had very very few friends. Recently, it's been bothering me more than before, so I thought it was time to do something about it.

I signed up to a website that is not a dating site or anything creepy. It's purely a site through which people can set up events and other people can join in. Anything goes, from big parties, to going to see a certain film together, going for pizza, to a museum, for a walk, doing a painting workshop.. Etc

I've signed up for my first event. It's next week Sunday and so far there's three people that have signed up, which includes me.
So..  Next Sunday I'll be going to Sea Life Scheveningen with two total strangers.

Should be fun! I hope...

That Guilty Feeling That is Flu

I'm ill. Full blown flu with a fun variety of symptoms including, but not limited to:
- fever
- headache
- muscle aches
- neck pain
- fatigue
- nausea
And..  How do I put this delicately.. Everything that goes in, gives an encore out of the nearest available exit.

I couldn't make it to my mailbox, let alone survive the hour's journey to work by public transport.

So why do I feel so guilty?

I feel as if I'm letting my colleagues down. As if I'm skiving!

After two days of lying on the couch with a bucket beside me and having eaten nothing whatsoever, my brain should surely accept by now that I am not a well bunny? But no.

Whilst my cats are enjoying their idea of Walhalla (lying on top of my duvet getting stroked day in day out) I am racked with guilt.

I should be in the office now. Hard at work.

I tried logging on to my work account via my laptop. After nearly passing out with the effort of searching for the necessary keycard, I had to abandon that attempt and crawled back under my duvet to watch My Little Pony The Movie again. (Think what you like.. That film is GENIUS when you're feeling poorly.)

Optimistically, I've set my alarm again for tomorrow morning. You never know, I just might miraculously recover overnight.

And if not.. Well.. That's what Netflix is for,  right?

Head vs. Heart

We all have moments in our lives when we're trapped in an internal struggle.. Our head says one thing, our heart the opposite.

Yesterday I was the unfortunate victim of such a dilemma.

I was at the supermarket to do my weekend shopping, full of determination to buy lots of healthy fruit and vegetables. Or at least, that's what my head thought..

My breakfast this morning, according to my head, was to be brown bread, lightly toasted, with Philadelphia Light, thinly sliced tomatoes and some fresh basil. Healthy, tasty and because of the combination of the white spread, bright red tomatoes and gloriously green basil, pretty enough to be the breakfast used in magazines, TV commercials and films the world over...

This lazy Saturday morning, as I sink my teeth into my thickly sliced white toast slathered with Nutella, I'm truly grateful that it was my heart's turn to win the battle yesterday.

*Crunch*.. *Chomp chomp chomp*..  Bliss...

The Day I left Facebook

The other day, I was watching TV and South Park was on.
As I had one cat sleeping on my shoulder and the other on my lap, whilst the remote was out of reach, I figured I'd watch an episode.
Anyhooo.. I was the one where Kyle gets sucked into the whole Facebook thing. (If you haven't seen it, you should.) The scary thing was that it resembled reality just a bit too much.
I'd initially signed onto Facebook because my school was organising their reunion through it (international school, means Facebook is a whole lot easier than any other medium).
After 'friending' a few old friends from school, my sister sent me a friend request.. then my other sister.. then my mum.. then my brother.. then my brother's girlfriend.. then his other girlfriend (no, that's not a joke or a typo).. then a real life friend.. then the father of a guy I used to go to school with (eh?) .. then a teacher who's class I'd never been in (what?!).. then a random stranger (...).. then a cousin I've never actually spoken to in my whole entire life.. etc etc etc..
All of a sudden people I don't actually have any other contact with whatsoever (or want any further contact with) are suddenly expecting me to be their friend on Facebook and share my online life with them?! No! I rejected all but the people I wasn't actually friends with in real life thinking I'd done well.

No.

I got an angry phone call from a friend demanding to know why I hadn't accepted Achmed's friend request. The fact that I had no idea who he was and had never even met the guy, apparantly had nothing to do with it...

Another person who I maybe said hello to once a week confronted me with the fact that I hadn't accepted their friend request too!

After a week or two in which various random people were really pissed off at me for a. not accepting their friend request b. not 'poking' them c. not throwing a sheep at them (wtf?) d. whatever..  I sat on the couch staring at the screen of my laptop pondering over the dilemma of whether perhaps I should befriend them after all and have done with it.. On the other hand, I didn't want a lot of people I don't actually know being able to see all my messages, photo's etc. It's none of their business..

And then the phone rang. My dad...  demanding to know why I'd refused to friend the daughter of one of my cousins on Facebook. She (a girl I've never met and who has never tried to contact me in any way before) had complained about this to her mum, who had complained to her parents, who had complained to my parents, who took it upon themselves to complain to me.

That was the last straw that cleared up my whole dilemma: I told my dad that I hadn't added her because I was deleting my Facebook account. This seemed a reasonable explanation to him.

Problem solved? Sort of.. it still took me about half an hour to find the "remove account" option on Facebook, confirm that I wanted to delete it about a million times and was then informed that there was a month waiting period for it! Why?!?!!?!!!

Naturally, a few weeks later I got a phone call from a guy I used to go to school with. He'd got my number via another guy I used to go to school with, who got it via his mum, who got it via another mum who's kid used to go to our school, who got it from my old maths teacher, who got it from my parents...
He called to ask if I was still alive... When he'd noticed my facebook account was gone, he figured I'd probably died and wanted to call to check, just in case...

O. M. G. ...

Hark, the bells!

I'm not a religious person. I don't believe in God, don't go to church, temple, mosque or any other religious buildings to pray or such.

And yet... When I hear those church-bells chime in the distance (usually on a Sunday morning), they always give me a sense of peace. To me, they like a town crier in medieval times, swinging his bell through the streets shouting "9 o'clock and all's well!".

It's a reassuring sound that makes me feel safe.

Furry Friends

After a rather stressful day at work, a bus home that smelt of ripe BO and a shove in the back which nearly sent me flying when I got out of the bus, I had pretty much hád it for today.

Just as I'd finished picking my stuff off the pavement, I heard a familiar mew and felt something head-butt my leg. Yes, it was my little furry outdoor friend, a cute little deep brown kitty cat with a white tip of the tail, as if he's dipped it in a pot of paint. He's not there every day, just on days when I really need a friendly face.

So, after stroking him and begin mewed at some more, he saw my smile and trundled off again.

Once home, my own two furry friends accosted me with head-butts and purring. Right now one can't decide between eating the corner of my netbook or head-butting my arm whilst purring loudly and drooling a little every time I pause my typing to stroke him.

A friend of mine once said that cats are evil. She was wrong.

Nature's Healer

Today, I bought an aloe vera plant.. Can't wait to try it out on a cut or something. So, I guess I'm playing with my cat tonight. That'll do the trick ;-)