Cracking good time

I've been seeing another man recently. Nothing sordid, you understand (although it does involve me stripping down to my bra, something that now adds an extra 10-15 mins to my morning ritual as I desperately try to source clean lingerie from my poorly-stocked underwear draw (those new pants were a long time ago)). This new man in my life is giving my life a new lease thanks to his amazing skills in the back and neck cracking department. Yes, that's right, he's an Osteopath, and he's a fucking miracle worker.

Years! Years now I've had back and neck pain, cracking my way through life with hypermobility and joints that pop in and out at will. I finally went to see an Osteo after stupidly doing the full Locust in my yoga class (see Nanette doing it here, second pic down on the right). Thing is, being hypermobile (there's no such thing as double jointed, but it's basically what it means) makes you great at yoga, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. It certainly helps with the back pain, but I know full well I shouldn't be doing things that involve my neck. That's what you get for taking your ego to your yoga class.

Anyway, I've been seeing my lovely Osteo, Michael, and suddenly I discover that I don't have to live my life with constant neck pain anymore! Turns out, I stand all wrong, hold my head all wrong - haven't read the manual for correct body usage. Fantastic, think I, I'll be fixed up in no time once I've learnt how to stand all over again. Oh the joy! The rapture!

But there's a catch.

In order to correct my posture I need to:

1. Pull my head and neck back so that it's in line with my spine. Head should be tilted down.

I pointed out that this gives me a double chin, makes me look like a chinless wonder, and obliges me to look down all the time. Michael scoffed at my vanity and told me to open my eyes wider to help with the looking down thing.

2. Tilt my pelvis upwards.

This makes me look like I'm perpetually trying to avoid having someone pinch my bottom.

3. Bend my knees.

My legs over-bend and lock too much. Now I have to bend my knees, which has the benefit of ridding me of bow-legs. Of course, now I look knock-kneed instead.

4. Cross my eyes and bloat my stomach out into a pot-belly.

I made that last one up, but I may as well - in for a penny in for a pound. After all, I'm now a chinless wonder with bug eyes and knock knees.

Question is, is it worth suffering the misery of constant neck pain if I have to live out my life actively making myself look worse? Truly, there is no god. Although, if there were, this is just the kind of "test of your faith" shit he'd pull.

Joan Baez at the Barbican

Took Milway's parents to see Joan Baez at the Barbican yesterday evening. Well, I say that, in truth it was all just an elaborate ruse to hide the fact that we wanted to go to see her, but needed something to blame it all on if she turned out to be bum-clenchingly bad.

We have a habit of going to see performers where the average age of the audience is 60, which I don't mind in the least (some of my best friends are old people) so long as the act is good. When we saw Macca a few years back I went in with pretty low expectations, being fully prepared for Sir Thumbsaloft to make me feel embarrassed on his behalf within the first 5 seconds. Miraculously, despite the fact he played Band on the Run, I found the whole experience to be hugely exciting and could well understand what induced those young females back into the sixties to scream themselves into a bawling husk.

Old Joannie rocked my world almost as much, but the sedate surroundings of the Barbican made it feel slightly more like we were the polite audience at some BBC recording when compared to the shriek-friendly environs of Earls Court. It was a shame really - all the polite clappping and half-hearted nostalgic cheers when Joan said something vaguely protestish made it feel a bit like we were in a room full of ex-hippies who now own barn conversions in Surrey, a chocolate Lab and a Subaru. Which, of course, we were.

She sounded great for her age (clean living Joan gets the last laugh over her husky contemporaries) and the warbles of her voice didn't get wearing as they often do when you're listening on CD. When she wasn't plucking away masterfully on her guitar, or rousing her sleepy audience to laughter with some sharp gags, she was miming along to the songs with dramatic movements that made her look like she was on strings - or attempting to walk through treacle. A great gal and a great gig - and all over at the very civilised hour of 9.30.

I am still alive

Just not doing such a great job of actually writing this blog. But who can blame me - blogging is a bit of a busman's holiday for me to be honest. Funnily enough, though, writing about crocheting is an entirely different matter, which is why this now exists.

Good Hooking

I hate it when my friends become successful

So there I am, minding my own business, mooching about on the internet when I should be working, and what do I find? A certain lady named Laura Solon has gone and won the Perrier Award. Obviously, I'm a bit behind on this one, but bear with me. I knew a woman had won but I'd skim-read her name every time. It took till yesterday for me to realise that I went to primary school with this girl. In fact, not only did I go to primary school with her, I also entirely hero-worshipped her. It's nice to know I have good taste in school-girl crushes, but I really could have done without being reminded that at the age of 6 I wanted to be her. I've no idea if her show is any cop or not, but since I remember her as being hilarious, I'm guessing it is.

I did actually bump into her a few years back at a bum-crushingly embarrassing primary school reunion that my friend organised by accident (long story). She was quiet as a mouse and painfully thin, and I didn't pluck up the courage to speak to her.

As soon as I saw the news, I rang my friend (the one who organised the reunion by mistake) and caught up with her. She was on TV herself, in fact, last year. She was the only sane one in a show about Findhorn and she's still living there now, on the beach. While I laugh at the hippy dippy faery frollicking stuff that goes on there, I am actually rather jealous of her rural, idyllic existence. Which is why I took the opportunity to invite myself up there at the next available opportunity. Good old Laura Solon.

In case you haven't noticed

I'm not very good at keeping this thing on the go. There's plenty of reasons for this, but really it just comes down to the fact that if I want to blog (sort of) anonymously I can't write about all the interesting things I get up to without someone catching up with me, but if I blog out in the open I can't write truthfully about all the things I get up to (ie I can't be rude in case I get caught in the act). So I'm left with blogging about dull things that are best left for a personal diary or blogging about professional things (and there are already plenty of journo bloggers writing (mainly dull and/or catty) blogs about blogging and other journo bloggers and RSS feed issues and the politics of outbound linking). Or I could blog only nice things (ie. lies) about how I met the editor of so-and-so magazine and wasn't she just super. I could steer clear of my own life and pick another topic to blog on (TV, film, Porn, etc etc) . But I already do enough topic blogging for my day job. So until I think of some way round this leetle problem, I will mainly be here, here or here, but very rarely here.

Thanks for that

Well done to all the bombers. You made your point eloquently and persuasively. There's not a soul out there now who's not willing to listen to your views and opinions after this - because, after all, it's a tactic that's worked so well in the past, isn't it now. Yes, what better way to get what you want by attacking innocent people and causing mayhem and chaos? After all, the UK is renowned for buckling under pressure from terrorists and generally getting all hysterical about the threat of bombs. Yes, yes, we're not at all used to dealing with maniacal egoists who indulge in their violent tendencies under the guise of a righteous cause. We Brits can't help but go to pieces as soon as any violence occurs, and we're famed throughout the ages for wimping out at the slightest little thing. Yep, there's no doubt about it, we're going to take this one lying down and you terrorists have certainly shown us a thing or to. Well done you.

What Katie did next

Christ! If I'm not marrying the execrable Billy Joel, I'm cycling naked down a road in America at the age of 83

Katie Lee, 83, decided a few years ago that the townsfolk of Jerome,
Ariz., needed a good laugh. So she rode her bicycle down the town's main street
wearing nothing but socks and a helmet.

She's got blisters on the soles of her feet

Yes, it's that time again! Time to put on your flip flops and reacquaint your feet with agony as you discover ever more new and interesting places to develop great pustules and sores. After months of sensible shoe-wearing my softened feet have taken the summer footwear policy badly and now almost every inch of them is covered with a red welt, gaping wound or weeping sore. And you can guarantee that by the time everything's healed up and toughened up, it will be time to put my socks back and protect my toes from the cold. And then comes the peeling as my newly thick-skinned tootsies shed their protective layer of hide and revert back to their original soft leather finish. And so the circle of life goes on.

Sour Milk

I wrote a very hasty post on Shiny yesterday about binary manicures (with a very weak gag in it, I admit). In doing so I apparently managed to offend nail varnish wearing men the world over. The blogger I've upset, Milk, emailed to ask "Are you saying it's wrong for males to wear nail varnish?" And pointed out that "claiming that certain aspects of life are out of bounds to either males or females is rather base sexism". What he failed to grasp, of course, is that I write for a site that's aimed at women and was merely distinguishing between the super-geek girls and those females who are just casual gadget admirers. That it had nothing to do with men at all was apparently too hard for Milk to compute (after all, isn't it always about men?).

Exhausted

Dear beloved Sister 4, you know how you told us that there was a bit of loose plastic hitting the tyre on your car that "sounds like the exhaust's coming off". Well, that's the sound of your exhaust coming off and nothing to do with the innocent bit of loose plastic. How many days it had been slowly sounding its irregular death knell I'm not sure, but didn't it just have to pick the day that we'd borrowed the car and were bombing down the motorway, to finally drop its unwanted metal piping. Luckily, the nice AA Man arrived in 20 minutes and told us just to drive it home: "just keep the windows shut and stop if you feel sleepy".