Bruises

I mentioned the other day that I keep a photo record of my best bruises (and other injuries), accumulated in various sporting activities.  There have been zero requests to see any of the photos, but here is a selection anyway:

1.  The fantastic knee of many colours.

I managed to bash in at taekwondo, and then again at breaking a few days later, so it was a riot of colour with various bruises at different stages of development.

2. Blood blisters

From training in bare feet on a very dirty floor.  I think they’re quite cute – like little birthmarks.  Cute little blood-and-pus-filled birthmarks.

3.  Blood blisters – a few days later

Hmmmm… not so cute now half the skin on my big toe is hanging off.

4.  Matching stigmata-like bruises on feet.

Not a sign of the second coming.  I just can’t seem to avoid people’s elbows in sparring.

5. My biggest blister ever

From a run of only about 4-5 miles I think.  I used to have cheap crap trainers, never got blisters.  Then I got some professionally-fitted, gait-analysed, expensive running trainers and this is what happens.

6. Hand blister

My first b-girl injury – a proud moment.  My second was a egg-sized bump on my head from trying to balance on it, but that didn’t really photograph.

Things I like a lot more than I should

I got something delivered the other day in lots of bubble wrap.  Oh deep joy!  I know everyone loves bubble wrap, but it started me thinking about other things that make me a lot happier than seems sensible.  This is not a list of the things that make me happiest.  It’s a list of things that by rights I should get no pleasure from at all, but I do.

1.  Along the same lines as bubble wrap, depressing those little buttons you get on the plastic tops of drink cups at the cinema.

2.   Doing long-winded interest calculations – the best thing from when I was a trainee in the property department.  So satisfying.  I used to love doing accounts exercises on the LPC as well – when it all balances at the end.  Orgasmic.

3.   Spirit levels.  Not that I’ve ever had to use one, but I find concept behind them beautiful in its simplicity and it makes me happy whenever I see someone using one.

4.  Ice cream cones - ice cream is obviously awesome, but then someone invented ice cream cones – food packaging that you can eat!  Genius – no waste, why don’t we do this for all foods?  It makes me cross when you get a napkin to hold round your ice cream cone – not necessary and introducing waste into the equation again when it had been so successfully removed.  Also, now you sometimes have the option to have a little cardboard tub instead of a cone - that’s a step back people!

5. Beeping my oyster card – boop!

6.  Making lists.  Could you guess?

7.  Eating food that’s been dropped on the floor.  Yes, I do know that that sounds weird, and no, I don’t drop food on the floor on purpose, but I do get a sort of smug satisfaction at not wasting food, having confidence in my immune system and knowing that it will make Mr Beet cringe.  Ditto having a relaxed attitude to sell-by-dates.

8. Being called “sir” at tae kwon do.  There are several advantages to being a blackbelt – it impresses some people, you get bowed to a lot, you get to teach the class sometimes, but the bit that really pleases me is being called “sir”.  I didn’t think I’d ever be a “sir” without a sex change so it’s a unexpected bonus – and a weird combination of being respectful and slightly silly at the same time.  Highly preferable to “miss” – I’m not a primary school teacher.

9.  When you have an itch on your eyeball and you scratch it very gently.  I guess because it’s so sensitive it feels amazingly satisfying.

10.  Getting a good bruise – I keep a photo record of my best ones, although the photos never really do them justice.  I’m jealous of Mr Beet, who bruises like a peach.

Caffeine Overdose

I did an all-nighter the other day (work, not partying alas) and by 3pm the next day I was seriously struggling.  Desperate times and all that, so I decided to have my first ever cup of coffee.  I don’t like the smell, or coffee cream chocolate, or coffee cake - so I’ve never even tried it before.

BLEURGH!!!!!!!

I put 4 sugars in and downed it in big gulps, all the while making a face like a toddler presented with broccolli.  Next time I think I’ll just try to score some speed instead.

30 Things – Paint a picture

One of my 30 things is to paint a picture.  To be honest, it’s one of the things I stuck on the list when I was struggling to come up with ideas, but I used to really enjoy art at school and I love getting my pencils out when it comes to the annual drawing of the “pinning stuff on other stuff” picture for our Christmas party, including such artistic triumphs as pin the nose on rudolph and pin the carrot on the snowman.  Here they are – just to give you an idea of my base line in terms of artistic ability!

My friend Sarah is an awesome artist - here’s some of her work - so I asked her for some guidance and she’s very kindly given me some bits and pieces and some tips to get me started.  I’m going to have a go at acrylic as it’s meant to be the easiest to manage.  Sarah’s given me some boards and an actual canvas, so I’m going to have a play around with different subject matter on the boards and see what I like best, before choosing something for the canvas.

I’m going start by doing some pencil sketches, just to practice getting my eye in before I complicate matters by getting actual paint involved.  As soon as I’m brave enough to actually get started on the paints, I promise to put up pictures of all my attempts no matter how embarrassing.

WTF? 2

Shop assistants who say “enter your PIN please” when you are already poised, fingers hovering over the card machine waiting to do just that.  Do they think I’m going to try to send a text message?

WTF? 1

I was giving someone my details over the phone the other day and they asked “do you have a surname?”.  Not “what is your surname?” or “can I take your surname?”.

Who did they think was on the other end of the phone?

Maybe the Artist Formerly Known As Prince regularly rings up to book a badminton court.

Correction

I recently posted a blog entry in which I described Mr Stephen Mulley as a beginner breakdancer.

Mr Mulley (aka B-boy Slide) has contacted me to advise that he is in fact an expert B-boy extraordinaire with sick skills and that.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly to B-boy Slide for this error.  It was not my intention to disrespect him, nor any member of his family.  I will take steps to ensure that my punk ass is more careful in future.

Errrr…..no.

Breaking

A weird thing happened at breaking the other day.  Our teacher was stuck in the snow, on the day when I’d brought along a couple of friends to give it a try.  Being January, there were a few other first-timers there as well.  I felt bad letting my friends down, so I wanted to just show them a few moves so they hadn’t completely wasted their time, but in the end me and my friends (we’ve all been going less than a year and consider ourselves beginners) ended up teaching a whole class!

I think we did all right – Josh did top rock and indian step as a warm up, Steve did some stretching, I did some up-rock and Mark went through a basic freeze and six step.  So it was a real team effort.  That’s quite a lot to take in for your first lesson, but everyone seemed to enjoy it and it gave a taster of what to expect if they keep coming, which hopefully they will.

We were pretty pleased with ourselves afterwards and dubbed ourselves the “Ad Hoc Crew”  (although I think it’s officially spelt “ADD-HOKK”) in honour of our achievement! So sad…

To celebrate here is a picture of me freezing in the very cool hat Mr Beet got me for Christmas (and my taekwondo suit – I’m not a beautician, which is the other group of people who favour the white trouser), don’t I look pleased with myself?

Life Skills 1

If you’re feeding coins into a machine and it inexplicably rejects one, lick the coin and try it again.

I was with someone the other day who didn’t know this tip and I was shocked – I thought everyone knew that!  I thought I’d share, just in case there was anyone else out there who didn’t already know.  Your quality of life will improve no end because of this tip – everyone knows how annoying it is when you have enough change but still can’t pay for whatever you want because the machine has taken a dislike to one of your 20ps