Fiendishly complex computer systems hold no fear for me.

So why can’t I get a bloody stapler to work?!

Turns out, I disappointed Moose and Illyna when the CC and I went our separate ways – I just wasn’t bitter enough for them apparently. They were laying in supplies for mammoth anti-men bitch-fests and there was I being all… philosophical about the whole thing. Sorry, I’m just not built that way. In the past, yes, I indulged the dark side a bit. This time around, the circumstances really didn’t warrant it.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t put virtual pen to metaphorical paper and try and put what I was feeling into words though. Enjoy. Don’t enjoy. I wrote it so I might as well share it 🙂

It’s really rather humbling when you realise how easily something as everyday as the ending of a relationship can knock you for six. You like to think you are special, somehow better able to cope than the hoardes, yet when it comes down to it you live out the cliche from Bridget Jones.

*Zap* One conversation, and the brain shuts down. Then revs up into hyper-speed. Then shuts down. A very monotonous cycle and highly depressing for me, my flat mate, all my friends, and you having to read about it. And I’ve had quite enough of being pedestrian, thank you very much. Really time I stopped dwelling on what has gone before, and started to focus on what is to come.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Easier said than done, but long experience has taught me that if I WRITE it, soon enough I will start to believe it. Or at least pretend to believe it, and that’s close enough for now.

I had fun. I loved him. I still do. Whether he was deserving of that love is a topic better reserved for a girly night in with a couple of bottles of wine and lashings of chocolate. Would I change it? Nah. Of course, I’d rather things had gone down differently, but I’m glad I have no real regrets, other than why did I wait so frelling long?

Have I cried? Yes. Will I cry again? Undoubtedly. (Am I crying now as I write this? Trying very hard not to. Tears and PowerBook keyboards really don’t mix, darlings). But I know soon enough I will stop crying and start laughing. He did make me laugh more often than not.

Am I angry at him? Hell yes! If he was within reach I would cheerfully deck him, but coward that he is, he lives in another country, so he’s safe. Distance sucks. Takes all the fun out breaking up. I don’t get to flaunt in front of him all that he is missing. It’s very hard to stage elaborate “take me back, please!” stunts from across 3000 miles of ocean. These are, of course, all good things. Again on the plus side for distance, at least I won’t run into him in the supermarket when wearing laundry-day clothes, or when I’m having a bad hair day.

The most mundane things remind me of him, which is very annoying. Most of the objects around the flat trigger some memory. Think I’ve still got an old football of his lurking behind the sofa somewhere. (I’m saving that for when I’m feeling really down and need to stab something with a carving knife). I’m now also out two rather pretty pieces of jewelry that I won’t be able to wear for months because they were gifts. Damn him for having taste in jewelry! Damn me for being such a sentimental bloody fool.

Would I take him back if he asked? In a heartbeat. The brain says “don’t go there!” but the heart, infuriating organ that it is, says otherwise. But as I seriously doubt he will be asking, I think I’m safe. I even think, somehow, I’m safe from writing the begging email. I have too much pride, and common sense. At least, that’s what I tell myself in the cold rational light of day. When it’s gone 2am and I’m all alone in the big double bed then other thoughts start to creep in… 😉

I blame him, I blame myself. Already I can see where it started to go wrong. At the same time, I can’t see where along the line we should have done things differently to make them not end this way. My bad. His bad. Our bad. At least I wasn’t dumped by SMS this time, and I can be pretty certain he’s not gonna end up engaged to my brother’s ex girlfriend. (Yes, both of those things have genuinely happened to me. This is the soap opera I call my life).

Ah well, we live and learn, right? Then again, I’ve been down this road a time or three before, and I never do seem to learn. Perhaps I need to tattoo on my forehead “long-distance relationships are not for Cas”. Though in my defense it wasn’t long distance when we started.

Damn his sexy collarbones. I expect there will be a good story or five in this somewhere. I always did do my best writing when feeling a little down.

In all I had twenty months of friendship then love, and that I certainly don’t regret. He stood by my side through a pretty rough patch, and for that I will always love him. He made me laugh, he held me when I cried, he shook his head in incomprehension at some of the things I did but supported me anyway. He made me think perhaps I was worthy of being loved. I think I’ll always have a soft spot for the foolish boy. He did the most amazing rendition of the “George of the Jungle” theme. He was my Cute Canadian. He’s gonna be a hard act to follow.

I’m off back to the Homestead for the weekend and I’m not even taking the PocketCalculator with me *gasp*. I’ll be back late(ish) afternoon on Sunday, so look for the Roast a bit later than usual.

Sorry there’s been no real posts this week – work has been a bit more hectic than I had planned for. Apparently I am a ‘godsend’ and oodles of other nice things (I was even described as the dream temp :O !) but unfortunately, the Energizer Bunny is of the opinion that I can handle whatever he throws at me.

And I can handle it. Just at the expense of having working hands at the end of the day that are able to type blog posts. Bloody RSI.

My apologies to all you new readers who are starting to appear – we’ll have to postpone getting to know each other better till Monday now. Have a play in the archives whilst I’m gone, why don’t you?

Anyway, I’m away to do fun things with hedge strimmers, attic-emptying, and possibly a bit of gentle wallpapering. You never know with my family… See you in a few days 🙂

I don’t care what it says. I don’t really care why it was made. I couldn’t give a flying monkeys why the person who made it chose the soundtrack they did (though it is a good track).

All I care is that it is penguins playing football.

My thanks JB for finding this. If I ranked my minions, this would probably get you gold status or something! 😀

My minions rule!

I just noticed someone tagged me on Ma.gnolia as a “possible designer”.
If wishing would make it so.

Which made me think two things – one, how to get in touch with this chap to say “sorry, no I’m not a designer”? I can put you in touch with some great designers, and I wish I was a designer, but I lack the ideas. All of a sudden I had the feeling I was living in a fishbowl with people looking in and making assumptions about me, and me having no recourse to set them straight. So nothing new there – people have been making assumptions since the caveman next door went “oooh! fire!” – it just struck me that instant is all. I blog, lay my life out for all to see, yet somehow I get surprised when I stumble across misconceptions.

Then again, if he’s tagged me once, it’s possible he’s reading the site. In which case – Hello 🙂 *waves* Sorry, I’m not a designer.

The second thing I thought was – I need to sign up to Ma.gnolia. I used to use del.icio.us a lot, then… I stopped. It got too slow and buggy on me, and I just didn’t need it. I no longer have the nomadic life between computers that I did last year, so static bookmarks work fine. Now most of my browsing is through sites with RSS anyways, and if I find something I like, I just subscribe. A good 90% of the time the only things I bookmark are sites for the Sunday Roast, and they get deleted at the end of the week to start over.

I can’t see Ma.gnolia fitting into my browsing life right now, but I still have this urge to play with a new toy. Anything to get me out of writing things for the blog (setup is not ideal at the moment due to a breakdown in communication between laptop and wireless keyboard). And the interface is just so pretty! That was always del.icio.us’ downfall for me. It worked and did things great, but it was a bit… plain. Plain works too, appearances aren’t everything an’ all that, but clearly I am more superficial than I like to admit. It’s 2006 – elegant and simple is one thing. Looking like I’ve just fallen through a time vortex to the mid 1990’s is another thing altogether – it was all those blue hyperlinks you understand. *shudder* So I like things to look good. Does that make me a horrible person? I just believe that form often-times is as important as function. Why deliberately make something ugly when it is just as easy to make it a pleasure to look at as well as use?

Which got me thinking on interface design and the number of times I’ve looked at a site and been turned off in about three seconds flat. And the other times I just look at a site and drool, wishing that I could make Bright Meadow look like that. I couldn’t quantify what I like, nor do I have the foggiest idea how I would go about changing this site, but I do know I am not happy with what I’ve got. I know it could be better just… Maybe inspiration and skill will strike overnight? Probably not. As I said, I’m not a designer. I don’t have the ideas.

Then I had a fourth thought – what gave the impression that I might have been a designer in the first place? I had a quick gander at the about page thinking it might be that. Writing, jewellery design, and quilts yes. Web design, no. My content? Sure I brush on the topic because it interests me, but I’ve never once lain claim to any skill in the area. At least I don’t remember doing so… Perhaps it is the company I keep? I won’t deny a lot of the sites I read and link too are by designers and/or are about design – but that’s more because they are interesting people than because of what they do to pay the bills.

So I have no idea really why I’ve been tagged as a ‘possible designer’ but I’m glad I had a look in my referrer stats now, because I was wondering what I was going to blog about tonight 😉

Of course, now I’m also wondering what other misapprehensions about me people are labouring under? Scary thought, that…

ma.gnolia, del.icio.us, designer, assumptions, misconceptions, interface design

Ooops. I just did a silly thing. Rebuilt my Vienna database to take care of a legacy bug and… forgot I had about 100 articles ‘marked’. Bollocks.

*toodles off to see if she emptied the trash yet…*

I keep telling myself I won’t blog after a night out, but I always end up blogging after a night out. Just goes to show that when tired and mildly tipsy, I have no self control.

Let’s not go there, shall we?

Those of you who knew me in the old days when I ORP’d over at WotC will get a laugh out of the following — I just asked about a job in a bar.

This was only shortly before we were very nearly thrown out of the bar for being a bit rowdy, so I don’t think I’ll get the job. We weren’t actually being rowdy. We were just a group of seven female friends out for a night out, not eager to have every man in the bar go “Way Hey!” at us every five minutes. We, um… stood up for ourselves. The mum of two poor lads even came over and told us off for being mean to her sons on their 18th birthday. Seriously!

So yes we were the only women in the frelling bar (apart from the boy’s mother), but that does not give every man in a 500 m radius license to turn into a complete Neanderthal arsehole.

Come on! Show some class here guys — the way to my heart and/or my pants is not via lad-ish behaviour. I know we females keep saying this, but talk to me, not my cleavage. Don’t insult me. Funnily enough, that doesn’t endear me to your cause. Don’t try and ply me with strange drinks either — in this day and age, if I didn’t buy it myself or at least saw the barman pour it into the glass, I’m not going to drink it. I might have big breasts but that does not make me stupid.

Oh, and yes, it is flattering that you have staggered all the way across the bar supported by your mates, but that does not mean I am going to swoon at your feet. Please don’t be surprised when there is a distinct lack of swooning.

I am not a shrinking violet. I’m a single girl in my mid twenties who knows her own mind, as are all my friends. It’s not the school disco any more — if I liked you, the chances are I would have come over to your table. Scared now? I know it’s hard but we women got the vote a while back now. The kitchen sink is firmly behind us. We’re classy, sassy women. We deserve, well, better than you.

I will tell you that you are being an arse if it’s deserved. I’m not being rude, I’m just telling you like it is. If I’d come out on the pull I would have 1) worn a shorter skirt, 2) worn a tighter top, and 3) not been sitting in an alcove chatting and laughing with my six mates clearly showing no interest in you when you came over to our side of the room.

My apologies to the two boys whose 18th birthday we ruined, but you gatecrashed my leaving party. Anyway, you were out partying with your Mum. I’m sure she’s very cool, but what were you really expecting to happen?