Tott(er)ing It Up

• Hours spent asleep out of last 48: 8
• Average count of despairing plunges of head into hands/onto desk: 1 per 20 minutes
• Pairs of tights ruined by being unable to put them on without laddering/ripping them: 3.
• Coffees drunk: 6 (am not yet onto double espresso shots but am, for the first time in my life, considering them) plus four cups of Yorkshire tea.
  
• Drop in temperature between Las Vegas and NYC: 40F, more or less (about 22C)
• Self-pitying thoughts: incalculable.

There are some jobs that provide you with some of these, but for genuine self-pity, mine right now is the best.

Blooming

I tend to take various different routes to work in my stomp across town (I take the train south and then walk across), but they invariably mean I go past the deli where they all know my order and have it cooking as I walk through the door (which is awesome - I bypass the queue most days and it rocks). But from there, I always take the same route, because I always seem to catch the same part of the traffic lights' cycle. This morning, I didn't, and I hit Park Avenue a street lower than normal. And, for once, I looked up, looked south, and noticed outside St. Bart's an unbelievable sight - Leaves. Blossom. I looked north, and outside my building, six trees with leaves and flowers growing.

It has made me more than happy--I'm buoyant with the thought of spring, everything shooting out and growing. It'll soon be time to hit up the blossom at the Bronx and Brooklyn Botanical Gardens - hooray.

Now, if only it weren't so fecking cold.

Self-Referential

So, a friend had to write a bio for her new post and welcome dinner (and jolly good for her, too!). I thought I might try a stab at mine. [clearing throat noise]

[Your faithful author] has no life. It is sunny today, 60F/15C (roughly) out and the only time outdoors was the walk from the subway to her office. She is miserable. She is procrastinating and writing this instead of making the dreaded phonecall she needs to make in order to find out what more work she should do. She will not be watching the opening game of the baseball season because she will, again, be stuck in the office.

Not much cop that. How about less self-pity and more bio?

[Your less self-indulgent author] is from Catford, whose claims to fame are Gary Oldman and a giant cat on top of the now seedy and desperately sad shopping centre. She spent her formative years, like many a 90s youth, obsessively listening and re-listening (thanks to the power of cassettes) to the Evening Session and Mark & Lard on Radio 1. Unlike many, she also managed to watch Starshaped, the Blur film, every single day for a year between the ages of 15 and 16. During that time she also went out with cousins of both the Rebel MC and Kenny from Grange Hill. She wanted to be an astrophysicist at King's College, Cambridge. That has not happened. University didn't lead to the career she wanted, but did help her reclaim her Catford accent after hearing the public school overprivileged brats without a trace of a Dorset accent because Mama didn't let them play with locals.

Through various twists and turns, she ended up being terrible at physics but ok at the history thereof, combining her two loves of feminism and war in her undergraduate and graduate theses, for which the Arts and Humanities Research Board was trusting enough to award her a grant. She has done nothing with her theses. She may not even have a copy of either, although the graduate one is, in theory, in the Imperial College library.

After periods messing around as a personal assistant and being a terrible teacher of English as a foreign language to unsuspecting Catalan children, she is now a lawyer. This is all very much Once in a Lifetime territory. How she found herself here is not clear, but is undoubtedly linked to a big Yorkshire oaf with an extraordinarily kind and generous heart who still gets up to make her tea before 7 in the morning most days, even after a decade of being together. Despite currently working ungodly hours and seeing far too little of her family and friends, both in NY and from back home, she is a pretty contented person.

She hates camping, has no known allergies, and thinks that Chime by Orbital might just be the greatest record of all time.

Arrivals

Babies, babies, everywhere. Today arrived the third of a trio of munchkins born to friends and family in the past seven days. It seems that everyone is getting sprogged up these days. I have two good friends getting married in the near future who plan to start trying pretty much as soon as the vows are done - although hopefully not as visibly as in The Wedding Banquet - and several other friends who are indeed up the duff.*

I am still - even despite my advancing years and ticking clock - very much of the feeling that sprogging is not something I want to do. Nonetheless, if everyone's doing it, I'm very happy that people I think will do wonderful jobs as parents are among them. Particularly as today's arrival was something his parents were told would and could never happen, with or without medical assistance. So he is, for want of a better term, a bit of a miracle. Which should put a spring in your step today, as it has to mine. Because good and much wished-for things can happen to good people.

* There are many fabulous ways to say the horribly coy "with child," my favourite being "up the duff," which is how my dearest HJ told me.

2009: March's Update

1. Use the blog as active forum to update resolutions. Clearly not.
2. Lower body fat. Well, for once, yes. I have been not very committed to the gym of late, but yesterday's session certainly can be felt right now. Not smart for my squash match tonight, but what can you do? It seems to be paying dividends, as I've picked up a bit in the last week or so and am lifting serious weights. As a result, 29.3%, so down 1% from last month. Can't expect results like that all the time, but I'm rather pleased and it hopefully will inspire me further, once the threat of wearing a bikini in Vegas recedes...
3. Run a 10k. Hmm. At the moment, I'm not sure where I'd fit this all in. As a friend is running the London Marathon in a few weeks, I resolve to have at least scheduled an appointment by that date. Ahem.
4. No TV one night a week. We're not even in the house to watch tv at the moment - I get home so late and we've been here there and everywhere. Hopefully this weekend I will get some time to myself. Hopefully.
5. Read 6 books from Observer 100. I am still waiting for Anna Karenina from the NYPL - currently 6 out of 14 holds - and when that arrives, that's my next one.
   
6. Watch at least 12 movies from the IMDB top 250. We have The Seven Samurai sitting waiting for us; reasons for not watching yet, see 4, supra.
7. Not go onto the internet for recreation until midday every day. Clearly not happening, seeing as I'm doing it now. Right - start again. Seriously.
   
8. Cook a new recipe twice a month AND (to make different from last year) recount the successes/failures on the blog. See 4, supra.
   
9. Eat one piece of fruit a day every day I'm at work. Sticking to this pretty well - I'm definitely eating more fruit than usual.
   
10. Win a game of squash! Well, I played my first game in ages and I lost 3-2, in the squash ladder. Having had 4 match points. Maybe I'm a loser, not a clutch player. A choker. AAAAAAAAAARGH. I'm playing two matches this week, and hopeful I'll win at least one of those.