So I’ve got one ex definitely out of my brain – woot. It’s about as confirmed as it can be: Mr T no longer floats my boat in that way. As I said, woot. Now if only that meant I’d also worked the other “tall, ginger(ish), good collar bones, climber” out of my system…

Hand on my heart, if the CC asked me back today I would say ‘No’. Not that he’s going to ask me back, but you get where I’m going here. I’m logically over him and probably about 85% emotionally over him as well. But that leaves a treacherous 15% of gooey, icky, soppy heart that’s whimpering in the corner, remembering the good times. Damn it. I blame Valentine’s Day.

It used to be I didn’t get many daily reminders. There’s something to be said for your ex winding up on another continent as you can be pretty certain you’re not going to run into them down the supermarket whilst you’re looking particularly fetching in your tracksuit. I finally got rid of the football he’d left kicking round the flat at Christmas (figured Moose’s nephews might get more use out of it than me). Somehow his favourite glass has managed to survive fifteen months in the Meadow Towers kitchen which is a miracle considering my clutzy nature, but when (note the when, not the if) it does break I won’t be devastated. I can even wear the earrings now without immediately feeling conscious they were a gift.

But… I’m not as there as I figured I was. I was trawling through my hard drive looking for a particular picture last night and I stumbled across a batch of photos I’d forgotten about. The little lurch in the pit of stomach was a good indicator all was not hunky-dory in Cas’ head.

Why, when I’d convinced everyone including myself that I was like, so TOTALLY over him, do I now realise I was perhaps protesting a bit too much?

Because Facebook friends collided, as they are wont to do, and suddenly there’s the CC’s profile, in all it’s cute, Canadian glory, connected to my profile. I deleted his blog from my rss reader a while back because I’m really not up for that whole masochistic “does he still think of me, will he write about me, I hope his life is miserable” gig. I didn’t delete it straight away because I didn’t want to seem petty but then one particular post got written and I decided I wasn’t over him enough to want to read about his new partner. There are more enjoyable ways I want to spend my free time – college work, cleaning the bathroom, having my left leg amputated. And I never signed into IM programs so I never saw him online either.

Of course, I’m now signing into IM programs a lot more so, not only is he there in my Facebook list, he’s also there on my buddy list. Silent. Not plinking me. Why?! Yes, I’m not plinking him either, but… He ended it with me. Does online etiquette mean he has to plink me first, or I have to plink him, or is the accepted thing for both of us to sit there on our respective sides of the Atlantic, studiously ignoring each other?

Why should I care? Why do I feel it’s like the elephant in the room when I talk to mutual friends now? Why, when I am actually at a point where I am moving on, does my heart just want to look back?

And more importantly, what can I do about it? They say time heals all wounds and recent experience running into Mr T. has proven this to be true, but I’m not sure I want to wait three years! Plus, if time to get over is related to seriousness of the given relationship, then I’m doomed to be single and hung-up till *does some rapid calculations on the handy Dashboard calculator widget* 2010 at least. Let’s say 2015 to be on the safe side.

That’s really not a viable solution. I should just bite the bullet and plink him, right? Be all cool, calm and confident? Oh, that won’t work, because the blithe confidence thing was part of what attracted him in the first place. I guess I could just hope he still reads Bright Meadow and realises that, appearances to the contrary I’m really still a ditzy bundle of neurotic insecurities. But then, that was partly what kept him hanging round so long…

I’m doomed. I wish I wasn’t, but I am. And you’d hope I’d learnt my lesson, but I really haven’t. What *is* it that I find so bloody fascinating about rangy ginger guys? Seriously, it’s like a disease or something 😕

One hundred and one subscribers to my RSS feed? Wow, where did y’all come from? Not that I want you to go away again, just… Man, it’s good to see you.

If anyone fancies delurking and introducing themselves, please do. Everyone’s lovely and friendly here 🙂

So the new iPod shuffle is meant to hold 240 songs. Not bad going – definitely more than enough music for a trip to the gym or the daily commute.

I just hit ‘autofill’ for the first time out of curiosity to see what I’ve got in my collection as I know I am guilty of just listening to the same five bands over and over. iTunes has decided that my shuffle can actually hold 463 songs. It’s busy copying them across as I type. (Sidenote – dear lord it’s taking a long time! The old iPod could have copied my entire collection of 4000+ songs over the firewire connection in the time it’s taking to update 400+ songs via USB2)

This discrepancy confused me somewhat till I had a look at what quality I’ve been importing my songs in on: turns out, I’ve been using 64kbps. Yes, that’s right, half the 128kbps that Apple recommend and use to work out how many songs your new iPod can hold. Here’s the kicker – I never noticed this supposed drop in quality and would still be ignorant it if weren’t for the silly way my brain remembers odd numbers and facts.

So I have crap hearing in the upper range and never made any claim to being an audiophile but really, it might be worth bearing in mind importing at lower rates if you want to get more music on your mp3 player. The average person probably isn’t going to notice the difference. And a true audiophile is not going to be listening to music on a shuffle with Apple’s earbuds anyway.

I’ve been pondering for the past year or so getting another tattoo. I’ve even played around with a design. I’m pretty much sold on ‘yes, I am going to get one’ and I’m pretty much decided where it’s going to be.

But there’s always room to canvas opinion from my Internet Faithfuls.

Due to the location of the last tat, I can go for days at a time before I remember I’ve got one, till I see it in the bathroom mirror and go “ooh, there it is!” However, considering the amount of time I spend barefoot (which is considerable, including at the office) this one’s going to be a LOT more visible than the last.

Most people I see on a daily basis at work can’t wrap their heads round the idea of me with a tattoo – you could have knocked the Energizer Bunny down with a feather when he caught a glimpse last summer (his words). I’m not quite sure why this is, but I must portray a bit too much of the good-girl vibe on a day to day basis or something. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with a tattoo or that my colleagues are judgmental, but am I prepared for comments and questions that are bound to be more frequent with a visible design?

<tangent>True story: I’ve got a friend who was training to become a tattoo artist. He gave it up because he couldn’t face putting ‘tramp stamps’ on an endless stream of chav girls for the rest of his life.</tangent>

At the same time, I’ve not regretted for a moment that I got the last one as I adore it and the story behind it. I’d wanted to get one from the age of 14, after my godfather proposed the idea as a way to get me to accept some fairly major scarring as a part of me I could like and take control over. Somehow in the intervening six years a snake up the scar morphed into a dragon on the back, but the whole idea of using ink as a way of reclaiming ownership of a recalcitrant, and frankly fairly broken, body held true. I don’t think I’m alone in this justification for tattoos or piercing. I’ve no desire to turn myself into the painted lady, but I can fully understand the drive people have.

So my hesitation isn’t to do with “am I going to get bored with it in six months?”, it’s more to do with questions over whether the art I want fits with my own body image. I think it does. I want something lighter, more frivolous, and if I’m being honest here, prettier. Not girly-girl, heaven forfend, but definitely feminine. It’s no longer about trying to reclaim my body but, if I close one eye and kinda squint at the whole situation sideways, it’s about putting a stamp on who am I now and going “yes, this is me, and I like me”. The first tat is secret, intensely personal, and with sub-text I don’t think I am explaining very well. This one’s going to be public.

It’s not about aligning myself with certain sub-cultures, though those questions are of course going to be raised, and if I’m being truthful here if I didn’t move in the circles I move in, tattoos might be less acceptable to me. It’s not about branding myself a rebel. Nor, as my mother is convinced, is it a mark of a deep self-loathing and my incipient downfall (she does worry, bless her). Rather than all that it’s just ink on my skin. Something of my personality made visible and public, and an affirmation for me that this is where I want to be. Life has shat fairly heavily on my head in the past and this is just me sticking my tongue out and going “No, you’re not going to win”.

This is me. I’m a work in progress. I’m going to get things wrong, that’s pretty much guaranteed, but I’m going to have fun doing it, and by god I’m going to do it how I want to.

And get a kick-ass tattoo in the process 😉

p.s. 1 – you know those posts you start wanting to say one thing, but then end up talking about something completely different? Yeah, this was one of those. It started with a whole “shall I get a tat?” theme, and ended with a whole “I’m getting a tat, like it or lump it, but here’s my justification”. Ah well, it’s what wanted to get written I guess.

p.s. 2 – To be serious for a moment, if you are seriously getting a tattoo of your own think it through carefully. Don’t get one because you’re friends are, get one because YOU want one. Go to the parlour before hand, talk to the artist, make sure you feel comfortable with them. And talk to other people who’ve had work done there (recommendations are the best way to go). Most importantly, check the place is clean and safe. Some councils license tattoo parlours: make sure you go to a licensed one. Tattoo’s can be removed (eventually, after a lot of painful laser work) but hepatitis and aids will be your friends for the rest of your life.

It’s been comingfor a while. The Apple Store in Southampton that is.

Is was walking through West Quay today on my way to my rendezvous with Curious George (and boy did it feel all clandestine meeting outside of college 😉 ) and saw that the Apple store is ‘coming’ no more. It is very much here.

We had a quick scout around – it was heaving in there, not surprisingly – and Curious George got to see me with a full geek lust-on at the shiny Macs… Mildly embarrassing, but he needed to find out the truth eventually.

Anyway, there were lots, and lots, and lots of shiny things to tempt me. Luckily, I’ve just got a shuffle and my disposable income doesn’t quite stretch to a new Mac, so I should be safe! (Note the use of the word ‘should’ in that sentence…) And there’s a (small) genius bar in there as well, so should something go wrong, I no longer have to trek to London. Shiny 🙂

Why is it always when you have posts you want comments on, something goes wrong?

If you’re getting an error message that says “Could not process submit, please try again“, you are not the only one. Please bear with me whilst I try and get to the bottom of the problem.

If you have anything you want to say, email me on cas.brightmeadow[@]gmail.com – if it’s a comment, I’ll get it posted as such once normal service resumes.

When comments are back up and running, I will let you all know!

*goes and starts to dig through WordPress code and prod her server with a pointy stick*

Oh, and *waves* hello anyone who has been directed here from Antiquist – trust me, things aren’t normally quite this badly disorganized. My timing is just supreme as always 🙂

UPDATE
Things seem momentarily fixed. If you notice it going again, PLEASE email me to let me know?

UPDATE 2
And then again, not… Any ideas what could cause a WordPress blog to allow trackbacks through, let spam through (in that it reaches the Akismet queue), but doesn’t let proper comments through?

UPDATE 3
Well, it looks like our old friend coComment integration might be to blame. I’ve (once again) stripped the code out of the template. If you want coComment to track your conversations here for a while, you’ll have to do it manually. Sorry.

Now I’m hoping you will all disregard the mammoth post that slipped through from ‘private’ to ‘published’ late last night. It’s not for public consumption yet, so delete it from your RSS readers. Please!