Mouth O' Flames

I enjoy a good mouthwash because, especially now living with Mr. Bond, I like to keep my mouth minty fresh in case of spontaneous smooches.

Anyway, I tend to stick to Listerine because I feel it is a challenge - one I have never conquered. If you have ever purchased Listerine, you may already know what I am hinting at. If you have ever bought Listerine and been bored whilst stuck on the toilet, you definitely know what I am hinting at. I am talking about the Listerine directions of usage on the bottle and their website.

I have included them for your background knowledge.

 Adults and children 6 years of age and older:

• Use twice daily after brushing your teeth with a
  toothpaste
• Vigorously swish 10 ml (2 teaspoonfuls) of rinse 
  between your teeth for 1 minute and then spit out
• Do not swallow the rinse
• Do not eat or drink for 30 minutes after rinsing
• Supervise children as necessary until capable of 
  using without supervision

I don't think so Listerine, or should I say...Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Products Division of McNeil-PPC Inc.

Sure swishing around in your mouth sounds easy enough, but they don't tell you 10ml soon becomes 225ml with a chemical agent that produces copious amounts of foam. How can I swish something that becomes infinitely larger with every swish? Whenever I use it, I feel like I am in grade 10 science, calculating the doubling life of a protozoa.

Also, 1 minute isn't a very long time considering how long it takes me to get my hair did in the morning but it is a LONG 1 minute if you are gargling flames. Listerine is not rinsing your mouth with water - it is bathing your gums in bleach, mixed with ammonia, with a dash of jalapenos, and a side of draino. Within seconds of the liquid entering my mouth, I feel my flesh peel back on my cheeks. Any company can boast killing 99.9% of germs when they also kill 99.9% of healthy tissue. Using twice a day would leave me looking like Harvey Dent post Joker incident.

Lastly, no eating or drinking for 30 minutes after is simply torture. Eating or drinking would be the only thing to soothe the pain. My dentist told me once that rinsing my mouth out with water after completely negated me using Listerine. Is this medical fact? I have never known a substance's chemical nature to be altered entirely by a quick gulp of water. Isn't water one of the most neutral substances on earth? That's how they get you though, more times you attempt to withstand and cave, the more new gulps you take - steadily decreasing your supplies.

I will keep trying to meet this challenge head on, twice daily. And when I do - I will let them know!

Old Gray Mare

So I turned 25. Yuck.

I used to think I would be married to Brian Littrell of the Backstreet Boys by the age of 21 and would have my first child by 23 because any older than that would be gross.

As I got older, my daydreaming continued but my dream ages steadily increased. "Oh ya, 25 is a good age to get married, ya, that's JUST as good as 21. It's also definitely still doable."

Well here I am, content with my life which is good but I am starting to see some definite signs of aging. My test of youth really came to me whilst I was on holiday with Mr. Bond in Paris. I say holiday, but if I had blinked, I would have missed the entire trip...and believe me I wish I had a second to blink/slumber.

The weeks prior to our two week break, Mr. Bond and I pondered over some activities we could do. Having both seen an add on the tube for Megabus - trips to Paris for £1 - we looked it up. Oh what a great idea! We can travel on the bus overnight so we can get a full day in Paris and our accommodation is covered! Oh and here's a fun adventure, let's just make it a day trip to save even more money!! Let's come back on the same bus THAT night. I can not express enough how big of a mistake this evolution of ideas was. As many of you are probably already thinking, yup we didn't get any sleep. Just as I was getting comfortable and slightly snoozing, the bus stops and we have to get off for border control. Then back on - get off for the ferry ride - stay on a boat for over an hour - get back on bus - adjust - then try to rest. So awful. After a long while, and many adjustments to my posture so now I look like a proud falcon perched on a trainer's leather arm guard, I drift into sleep. What feels like minutes later, I awake in the Sahara desert, oh wait... it's just the broken heating system on the bus. I felt this odd sensation and experienced something I never had before. A pool of sweat had collected on my neck/upper chest. How does this happen? This is not a crevice. That was how hot the bus was, sweat collected on flat surfaces, joining to other sweat to try to cool down.

Anyway we arrive, near death. Zombie-ing around Paris is not as much fun as one would think. However, we did find a cosy nook to slumber in for a while in the Louvre. That's socially acceptable, right?

Then we return, exhausted and hours early to catch our bus. The only problem is, we were told on the way TO Paris, that we did not have to check in while IN Paris to return home. So after waiting 3.5 hours in a bus station, we get turned away at the bus by the driver because we need a plastic tag on top of our actual boarding passes to say we have a soul or something. Needless to say, when we manage to get back on, there are no seats for Bond and I to sit together. Except 1. At the back. Squashed together. Above the heater. Beside another couple in a row of 5. At this point my emotions have been put in a bag, dropped from the Eiffel Tower, punched by the Mona Lisa, and have eaten way too much rich food. I am a dairy-dump of disaster. Bond sees my unbridled rage and tries his best to adjust his body so I am sitting next to a memory foam pillow, however it doesn't work. There is not even enough room to cross my legs.

When we managed to traipse back into our flat, we slept 7 hours. This is how I know I am old. This entire story shows age. I used to sleep for 2 hours a night during exams, then after they were done, smash some beers to celebrate. Now if I am awake 2 hours, my eyes hurt looking at a computer screen.

In case you didn't believe that I was getting older, I have compiled a list of pathetic tendencies that prove my near-death. You're welcome:

- deciding to start separating laundry - After Bond's white v-necks continue to get noticeably more gray with every laundry load, I have decided to separate. I have never before. My black pantyhose, tights, bras, and dresses will just have to steer clear.
- grey hairs - I used to have 2 maybe 3, so they were easy to pluck. Now if I plucked all my gray hairs out, I would only HAVE 2 or 3 normal hairs. My hair catches sunlight and blinds the children with its silver rays. Back to the hairdresser.
- mishearing book/movie titles and repeating them incorrectly in front of many people. I have REALLY wanted to read/watch Crown of Thorns...Crown of Games...Game of Crowns...Games of Throne Crowns for a while now.
- needing at least 8 hours of sleep but only managing to force my body to sleep 6 at most (as long as those 6 hours start between 10pm - 11pm, anything after that still leaves me exhausted all day). This bullet can be completely disregarded though if my sleeping will go passed 9am. Like clockwork, at 6am I get up to go pee, then can fall back asleep until 9 only. At which point, I lay in bed exhausted by can't even manage to close my eyes. Nothing will bring sleep to me. Well...almost nothing...
- this brings me to a show. The above point can be disregarded if there are any episodes of Blue Planet in the house. If I slap on some David Attenborough it doesn't matter if I have woken up from a 12 hour uninterrupted slumber, I can always go into a coma with his soothing man voice. This point was included because although it removes proof of my oldness based on sleeping patterns, it proves I am getting older by falling asleep to an episode of a tv show.
- getting drunk off of 1 glass of wine (I used to have to sneak away at parties to quickly drink in the bathroom so they didn't see me gag down my first few drinks fast and thus party harder) but now one glass is enough to get me to have me singing Cher at the top of my lungs. Only point of pride: my wallet is much fuller after a night out.
- having to pee 4 times before bed - WHY DOES MY BODY DO THIS?? Nothing comes out the third time!! Why even go a fourth?? But I can never talk my mind out of it - I might have to get up in the middle of the night to go!
- calculating how much water I have to drink in a day so those 4 pees at night won't burn coming out
- thoroughly enjoying crosswords. Not a single event gives me more contentedness.

I am sure there are more, but I think this is enough proof to convince you I am as old as dirt. Now, it is getting late (8:40 pm) I must be off to get ready for bed.

Heart of Slumbers

Just a quick update:

I never finished Heart of Darkness nor would I recommend anyone to read it in this day in age. I give myself a gold star on my fridge for trying. I made it to page 60 yet only managed to grasp the most superficial and vague idea of what the plot may or may not be about.

Embarrassing part:

I was reporting my failure back to my mother and Sean and in a passing comment about the book I saw their faces freeze. They then approached the conversation carefully. I simply said that the book reminded me too much of Apocalypse Now and how silly that this Kurtz man is so sought after and mysterious EXACTLY like Marlon Brando.

Fact:

Apocalypse Now was based on the novella Heart of Darkness. They are so similar because they are the same story. The movie has just been set in an more recent war.

Result:

Sean thought I was using incredible wit to create a very dry humor joke. His shame was all that remained when he realized the truth. Mum sheepishly corrected me - thanks Tips.

Near disaster:

If I had gone to book club and mentioned this silly "link" on Tuesday, I would have definitely been asked to leave and never return. Maggie would have cut up my library card then lit it on fire in front of me.

Crisis averted.

Return of the Mack or...Mr. Bond

Tomorrow is the long-anticipated and most-exciting return of Mr. Bond. You will all be happy to know I survived my week of abandonment independence with style and maturity-ish. I have become devishly addicted to the Hunger Games trilogy and spent many a free minute whizzing through the books. I have also spent the time working. Not as much fun, but still a worthwhile experience. That and worrying.

Worrying is in my blood. I am at several intersections of heritage that have led me to this life and if you look at where I came from, it's not hard to see why I spend much of my life worrying. Not that I have had a stressful life but I have been surrounded by worriers. My life has still been pleasant with my family, however I find most of my relatives are worriers and also Hungarians, which naturally brings them into mental loops of worry. Glenn Turner once said "worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it gets you no where." How true it is, as I have worried about everything in the past week and I am still exactly where I was before. Worrying is so common in my family that when I told my stepdad that I was writing a post on worrying, he emailed the quote that has been stuck to our family fridge since as long as I can remember. Worrying is somewhat similar to my high expectations - outlandish and unfounded. I don't worry that Bond won't have a warm enough jumper for the week, I worry that while swimming in the Sea, he somehow managed to be consumed by a shark.

Anyway, I anticipation of his return, I had to make sure my schedule would be clear tomorrow so I have had to complete all my lesson planning today. I spent all day working, yet have managed to not complete my lessons. I have been distracted by the hair on the carpet (THAT needed to be vacuumed), dust floating in a sunbeam (how beautiful and wonderful! I wonder, is the dust always floating like that or only in this beam of the sun...), the state of my eyebrows (this sunlight picks up the hairs on my face too), and obviously this blog. Now I must get back to devising a scheme for teaching 2-dimensional symmetry, maybe I will worry about how my distracted lesson planning will impact the future educational studies of my children...

Here is the family quote:

When you worry, you go over the same ground endlessly and come out the same place you started. Thinking makes progress from one place to another; worry remains static.
Walker, Harold B

My Heart of Darkness

I have made it another day! Although today was altogether uneventful. I have begun Heart of Darkness for my book club which meets next week and I am not sure why I have agreed to this torture. I sadly left the novel to the last minute so reading it coupled with my isolation is enough to make me start to rock in a corner.

As a teacher, I push my children to focus, be better, learn more, and cram as much knowledge into them as I can before they fly off into the world of...year 3. However sometimes, I catch myself becoming one of them and I wonder why I am so demanding of their little minds. As adults we forget what it is like to read, write, or do anything that is beyond our capabilities. It is not like anyone is currently forcing me to complete an algebraic calculation or solve for x. Adults choose what they succeed at to continue doing for the rest of their lives. For books, if we don't like a novel for whatever reason, we put it down and choose another one. I find more often than not, I put down a book because it is out of my grasp, not because it is bad writing. I will read any poorly written book (Twilight) as long as it has a gripping storyline (Twilight), and an intense love affair (Twilight) usually between an immortal and a human (Twilight). However, throw me a copy of...well...Heart of Darkness, and I approach the book with resentment, boredom, and mind-wandering.

Children don't have the luxury adults have. I make them read nonfiction. I make them jump to the nearest ten before continuing to add the units. I make them research on sharks, light and dark, and insects. I of course don't have an issue with exposing them to things they might not be interested in or good at, I am all for that because you won't know what you like or what you are good at until you try it and practice makes perfect...there is also no I in team and absence makes the heart grow fonder, and any other cliche you want to throw in there.

I am just stating that sometimes we forget that a child might not be perfectly engaged when listening to the BFG because they don't friggen care. They may find Roald Dahl's made up words hard to decode and inaccessible. But it is adults that demand them to stay focused and try harder when it is something they would not expect of themselves. I am obviously not going to change what I teach the children because they drift off, but this new found awareness will make me call in to question how I teach certain topics and allow for some mental drifting without the harsh snap-out-of-its.

I do also now sympathize greatly with my teachers from the past and present and mostly my parents and my partner. I certainly wasn't and am not the easiest pupil but I am trying and isn't that what we also hope from our children? So back to the book. I read it because I know it is a significant piece of literature, but I do it with great turmoil. Averaging one page a fortnight isn't all that bad but it will be come Tuesday when Maggie asks my input on the author's take on good versus evil and the destructive nature of colonialism. Because after all, I may be a new generation of teacher but I guarantee Maggie is plain old school and I am sure I will get my knuckles rapped if I don't come up with the answer or if it starts to look like I am off with the fairies.

Here goes nothing. Zzzzzzzzzz

Peaks and Valleys

Anyone who knows me, knows my emotions tend to peak and valley more than Frodo's route to Mordor. With age I have gained the wisdomosity to recognise when they will be valleying, which is of course a great step. They always say the first step is admitting you have a problem. Well done. Now what to do with that information.

First of all things that I now know set me off:
- loud noises
- bad smells
- crowded spaces
- disappointment
- shattered expectations (which goes hand-in-hand with my "problem" of setting extraordinary expectations, leading to my hopes always being shattered. For example a typical night out would result in a daydream of starting the dancing on the dancefloor, being watched while I complete an outrageous routine in a circle - usually involving several others joining in to my steps, being signed to a dance team, and as a result hosting SNL...it could happen.)
- douchebaggery
- snarky comments - from others, never my own
- hunger
- not being able to get a hold of someone by either phone, text, email
- negative feedback

That is a small list considering some people are set off by women in the work force...right?

One of my moment's of revelation was when I worked at a call centre and boss made all the supervisors take a personality test as a part of team building. We all found our results dead ringers of who we were and I was quite pleased with mine until I got to the second last comment "often plagued by dark thoughts, if you hear 99 positive comments and 1 negative, the 1 will stick in your head to fester." The test was overall positive and things I happily related to, but this one seemed to just stay in my mind. I turned it over and over in my mind and made a list of my so-called "dark thoughts." What a bullshit test.

Anyway, I have come up with several coping mechanisms to overcome my mini-rages such as

- watching episodes of Seinfeld (this is interesting to mention that this is opposite for my mother. In fact, this could be added to her list of things that set her off. One day I was home sick on a day that coincided with one of her mornings off. Just as my mum was about to sit down - cheeks centimetres hovering over the couch, I flicked to an episode of Seinfeld and she sprang back up like a Jack in the Box. She unleashed a slew of curses and refused to watch such "infuriating garbage" and if I didn't turn it she would withhold love from me from the rest of the morning. My mother feels very similar to South Park)
- reading - fiction, non-fiction can never break me from a funk, who wants to get out of their mood by reading about other people's struggles? Not me.
- writing
- dancing to Whitney Houston's I wanna dance with somebody...RIP
- looking at pictures of baby animals particularly kittens, puppies, pandas, piglets, and rodents (odd choice, I know, but have you seen a baby mouse? You are dead inside if you don't at least let out a sigh)
- speaking to my family and Mr. Bond - obv

I have recently been put to the ultimate test of emotional strength and positivity. My partner in crime, Mr. Bond has ventured to the lovely Mauritius for a work trip. Now before you start to groan, I want to clarify I am a fiercely independent person - I live in England away from all my family and friends for Christmas sake, so give me some credit. As I look out the window of my London flat, I think I recognise one of the emotions at play - jealousy. Bond has already messaged that he is starting to tan while I am here with my British tan (white as snow) and looking at a Spring grey sky.

I am also nearly in complete isolation this weekend. I spent a lovely Friday night with my closest friends in London and had a fabulous time but I needed to return to the flat to lesson plan and get back to life. The weather and workload are keeping me from exploring the city but now I know why solitary confinement is a severe punishment in prisons. I have begun to scratch out a daily tally chart on the wall with my fingernails and I swear Pinkball is following me with her eyes. I will play a game of monopoly with her later to make sure she stays happy enough to not kill me in my sleep.

Coupled with my beginning insanity, I do generally miss Mr. Bond as he is very fit. And funny. Oh and I do generally love him. Also, I am beginning to starve as he does cook the majority of the meals to ensure my bones don't crumble by the age of 30, my teeth stay in my skull, and I have something called an "immune system" to fight "sickness". I have begun to boil and chew my shoe leather as I saw it in an episode of Due South once.

I have begun to notice a slight shift in my positivity and I believe I might, just might, be heading for a valley. In preparation I have made my desktop a picture of a baby piglet, purchased the Hunger Games trilogy, made a Whitney playlist consisting of I wanna dance with somebody, and planned out a rigorous skype schedule. I am also writing this blog daily to see how I do. Check back daily to see if Pinkball has locked me in the bathroom and supplied me with only my wellies for a meal.

Now for a cheer-you-up, take a gander at what I mean:

Baby badger. Awww

Payback

Well there have been no further mouse spottings or deaths in the Haus of Mousie. so this is a different kind of payback.

I love to read. I need to read everyday and before bed or I can't sleep. I have stacks of books on my bedside table and reading lists from 2009 that always seem to carry over to the next year. One problem great thing with London is that there are bookshops everywhere and every station I go into has a bookstall close by for me to creep through. This inevitably leads to me purchasing new books and expanding my reading list. Sadly, the moment I feel I have control over the books I am going to read, WH Smith has a book sale (buy 1 book, get 6 free) and I have another huge stack to get through. I have been meaning to read Wuthering Heights for months now, but a new We Need to Talk About Kevin comes out and I have to snatch it up.

 

Why I read.

My book club doesn't help this sick addiction either, because 80-something year old ladies refer to me all these life-changing books that I just HAVE to read. This also brings with it their movie adaptations that I must see because it-is-nothing-like-the-book-but-just-as-poignant-and-life-altering-as-its-literary-match. Book club also messes up the order of the reading list, because there is a time pressure that comes with it. I have to read and research my latest book before our next meet, otherwise I will look like a chimp when Maggie (the 70-something year old retired English professor) says "the book has sweeping metaphors and symbolism similar, but not equal to that of Poe. Don't you agree Katie?" leaving me blank-faced and awe-inspired over these brilliant and revolutionary women. Something in their British accent also gives them an authority that makes my North American twang sound Neanderthal, "I think dem der books are mighty fine reads ma'am and I likes de looks of dem pages with all thurr words on it." So I am left to read book review after book review, and wikipedia pages of authors, publishers, print dates, etc.

One anthology we read in October had the ladies referencing the time periods the short stories were written in and they were comparing their previous works to this snippet. The women had of course NOT read the book in order from start to finish, but instead read by author according to those they liked the most to the least. They also referenced printing presses, cultural influences, and the authors' pets who undoubtedly shaped the entire text. I was baffled. I had read the book from start to middle and begrudgingly so as the stories used too many words like whilst and henceforth and I couldn't make out if the main character was happy or sad most of the time because the subtext was too coded.

Anyway, the point is, I have a lot of books and I search out only really classic, literary novels to read that will shape me as a person or entertain whole-heartedly. This is why I am deeply disappointed, if not disgusted, if a book misleads me. If I pick a shit book because I am in a hurry and don't put in the time, then it is my own fault. However, if I put in a solid 20 minutes into selecting your book, it better damn well be worth it. The last book I read had this on the front "Winner of the 2011 COSTA Novel Award" and "'Irresistibly compelling' - Daily Telegraph" "'Gripping' - The Times" and on the back a blurb of

Paris, 1785. A year of bones, of grave-dirt, relentless work. Of mummified corpses and chanting priests. A year of rape, suicide, sudden death. Of friendship too. Of desire. Of love.. A year unlike any other he has lived.

I think...win. This will at least be a thrilling novel, something like a Dan Brown to occupy my mind and rip me from my rut of non-fiction texts. The front of the book even has gold shiny bits! GOLD! The front-illustration is enough to draw me and many a ferret in. 

So when I get halfway through the book I am enraged. Halfway is about when you know, just know, this book won't pick up. It isn't getting any better and you have resigned yourself to boredom. Now, I am not as near death as some older readers, who might say "you don't have long to live, put it down and choose another." I still feel I have endless time so I NEED to finish a book. If I don't it's blasphemy AND it might turn into a Life of Pi, having a huge twist at the end, which completes my life. So I, of course, read a few book reviews and get a resounding womp womp from fellow readers. It is as boring as it is long. I express to Bond my boredom and how I am dragging through it just to finish and be rid of it. 

Now here comes my payback. In 1999 Mom and Sean gave me, A Book Lover's Diary which I have written in since. The front is inscribed, "Merry Christmas Katie! Keep on reading!" which I can't help but read in a Southern accent with intense twang, so it turns into a "keep onnnnnnnn readin!" It is here where I harbour my vengeance. I give the book half a star (can you believe it!), with a malicious review and undoubtedly tearing the author a new one. Ranting about pointless words, and plots that never amount to anything; unable to draw the reader in if it had my own name woven into it. I know it might seem small to you, but I give a maniacal laugh after I place my last full stop on the page, writing something like "Who should read this book? No one." MUAHAHAHA! Revenge at last. Eat that boring authors! I will recommend your book to no one! MUAHAHAHA! It is the ultimate shame to be placed in this part of my book diary. They WILL never know my rage!

2011 Fall 2012 Spring Booklist