Haaaaaave you met Barney?

Does ‘Increased Sex Drive’ from the charting symptoms list include sex dreams? Because Oh. My. God. last night was hot.

I’ve professed my love for a certain tv character before, and it shows no sign of diminishing. I have a photo of him behind my screen at work, which does zero for my productivity levels. Lots of people look at the photo and are a bit “meh, that’s just grown up Dougie Houser”. Which obviously it is. He’s kind of short and kind of skinny (although he took his top off a couple of times in HIMYM and his body is smoking hot), and I’m usually not a fan of blonde guys at all. But, while the body helps, it’s the character I’m really attracted to. He’s such a bad boy it just turns me into a giggling 16 year old girl. Also: Marshall joined us at the beginning but bowed out before anything much happened because…ahem…he’s married to Lily. I was clearly single in this particular sex festival. I also had an awesome apartment.

I woke up exhausted – it was one of the most vivid dreams I have ever had. We’d been drinking these fancy gin cocktails at the tail end of the dream and I swear I could taste them when I woke up! Back in the real world we then discovered that our semi annoying next door neighbours are moving out today (woop!) and a young sexy doctor is moving in (hello!). Ok, I added the sexy part of the description. But he’s a young doctor, he’s bound to be cute! The best thing about my last job was that I got to have a lot of meetings with Specialist Registrars, who were all wide eyed and enthusiastic in a kind of  Dr Carter season 1-3 kind of way. So it took a lot of my will power not to bunk off work this morning and spend the day watching him unpacking his boxes. Maybe I’ll make him a cake at the weekend.

Old enough to know better

I think alcohol and I are growing apart.

And this isn’t just the hangover talking. I’ve never been one to denounce the evil substance during the painful mornings which follow a big night out. Yeah, I’ll moan about the things it makes me do. Like: not having a single sip of water before my head hits the pillow, eating quite so many pieces of dirty chicken, and my propensity to shower 1am love on the unsuspecting members of my blackberry address book. But I also recognise that it’s responsible for some of the stupidest (and therefore funniest) acts committed ever. And then there’s the gossip. My god, the gossip & scandal that comes out of the bottom of a bottle of gin.

Even so, I’ve cut down significantly in an attempt to aid the conception process. And I’m beginning to see it as a good thing. Last weekend I fell into old habits through a combination of not being knocked up, peer pressure and the taste of apple vodka tonics. And while the Stevie Wonder impersonation I left on Curly’s voicemail entertained the office for a good 10 minutes on Monday morning, the whole thing just left me feeling a bit ‘meh’.

Having grown so used to not drinking for the majority of each cycle, it was difficult to shake the unnecessary guilt of getting back on the wagon. And, even though it was pretty obvious that my period was literally minutes from landing, I took one more pregnancy test before my first sip of Cosmo just to be sure. That is, I tried to take one more pregnancy test. However in the eight hours that had passed since my last negative result, I’d somehow lost the ability to pee on a stick.

This is not something I normally struggle with. Granted, along with the stick I normally pee on my hand, up my arm and on anything within about a five mile radius, but I get the job done. And let’s face it, I’ve done it a few times now. But for some reason the act of taking a test in someone else’s house just threw the entire process into chaos. So I sit down and start opening the pack. And while I’m tearing open the pack? I realise I’m also peeing. So I have to stop myself while I (agonisingly slowly because those foil packets are a bitch to open) get the test ready to go. Which almost makes up for the fact that I haven’t done my pelvic floor exercises in 3 weeks. (If by almost you mean 5%.) But when I’ve finished going and pull the test out to replace the cap, I realise it’s bone dry. Which is confusing. And I wonder if maybe I held it in the wrong place while I was peeing. Like under my armpit or something. 30 minutes of frantic water drinking later, I finally conquer the stick. 60 minutes of frantic drinking after that, I’m reacquainted with the world of inebriation.

This weekend I’m going to take it easier. At least, that’s the plan. I’m tired enough as it is, and we have two weeks of ‘not trying’ fast approaching. I also have to master the art of celebrating without the use of alcohol – I just worked out that if I get knocked up on this cycle then my due date will be my 30^th birthday!

Another month, another single pink line

Good think I got my pregnancy tests on buy one get one free. I shuffled to work in a mardy and googled ‘how long did it take you to get pregnant’, hoping to have some perspective kicked into me.

Unfortunately I managed to stumble into the one forum frequented solely by Valley Girls who all got knocked up simply by batting their false eyelashes. “I wasn’t even trying, me & DH* just had a really fun week! Wink wink!”. And “We had sex once. A couple of weeks later I took a test as a joke!” And “Totally unespected [sic]”. It’s the kids with illiterate parents I feel for the most.

Luckily, I also came across this insightful piece of advice: “Stop trying so hard and it will happen straight away!”

Genius. I mean, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!

Stop having sex? Only have sex at the times when it’s scientifically impossible to get pregnant? Take up chain smoking?

I’ve tried to find an answer to this ambiguous suggestion but Google isn’t feeling so well since I punched it in the face with rage. It seems while many people throw this statement around, no one can actually quantify it. And, frankly, I don’t buy it. “We tried for years to get pregnant and as soon as we stopped trying, we got pregnant!” Look, I’m a technical moron and even I know that is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!!

I can only assume that what these Virgin Marys mean is that while they stopped endlessly obsessing over charts and temps and OPKs they actually continued to have regular sex without protection. Which actually strikes me more as ‘disorganised trying’ or ‘trying without focusing on it’ – kind of like the way you’d approach a magic eye picture. ‘Not trying’ to me is falling asleep face down on the sofa with hairy legs and a stained t shirt, long before Mr B has considered going to bed. The fact is, we’ve been together for 10 years. We’re too old and tired to be getting down & dirty every night. We expend a lot of energy on things like the house, our jobs and dvd box sets. A bit of guidance into the optimum period in which to have sex is useful, so we can spend the rest of our evenings on getting so drunk we pass out in our clothes, or a good book and an early night.

Thankfully, I eventually found another article which told me “There are no penalties for trying too hard”, just as I was ready to give up on the internet altogether. I’m going to read this every day. It’ll give me a five minute break from looking at my chart.

Oh the bright side, I guess this latest test result alleviates the need for me to cast a web a lies over the next two weeks of birthday drinks & plans that have suddenly appeared in my diary.

*this acronym makes me want to puke violently. Maybe I am pregnant after all?

Productivity is a dirty word

I’ll tell you I’m efficient, but in reality I love to waste time. If I’m supposed to be working, blogging, sleeping or tidying my house, these are ten things I’m most likely doing instead.

1. Devouring easy peelers like popcorn, even though they’re probably not in season and own way too many food miles.
2. Phoning my Gran to ask for gossip. This usually consists of a rundown of today’s Loose Women panel. She will get 85% of their names wrong.
3. Filing a (coffee) thermos cup with boiling water and spending an inordinate amount of time deciding whether to add green tea, Earl Grey or honey & lemon.
4. Reading the Dooce archives and saying “ha!” too loudly and too often.
5. Fast forwarding through trash tv, as if watching it at speed won’t have such a negative impact on my brain. If I’ve viewed 2 hours of Strictly Come Dancing in under 18 minutes, I’ll consider it a very productive day.
6. Systematically toasting, buttering and eating an entire loaf of bread.
7. Firing off emails complaining about products, the local council or customer service. Following up said complaints.
8. Logging in to my chart for no real reason and staring blankly at the graphs as if they will somehow make me pregnant.
9. Handwriting ridiculously long letters to my sister in law, to the point where my fingers have cramp. Taking about a week to get round to posting them.
10. Blowing my nose. According to Sharp Suit, I do this a lot.

Gangster doughnuts

My new year healthy lifestyle kick has taken a bit of a beating in the last couple of days. While I’d like to think my overeating is a result of being knocked up, it’s more likely that I’m getting over a cold and am using the opportunity to stuff my face.

Work doesn’t help. We get good food at The Company. Together with the usual workplace biscuits and birthday cake, we have an endless supply of delights such as bombay mix, hot buttered toast and rocky road. Our office also gets a lot of lost people traffic. Although we’re nowhere near the front of the building, people treat us as a reception/tourist information/citizen’s advice bureau. Probably because our room looks like so much fun they can’t help but walk in.

Yesterday we had a visit from a guy who begged my colleague use of an office phone. He was seriously grovelling. He didn’t have his mobile and he couldn’t find a payphone (there’s one practically opposite the entrance to the building) and he’d made it all the way here in this weather and he wanted to let people know he’d got here safely and it was only a local call. Now, granted, the weather is pretty shitty at the minute. I have been bitching a lot about my journey to work. But, annoying as it is, it doesn’t generally warrant a phone call home to “let them know I made it in”. (Mr B just knows to give me space to rant about the council’s disregard for icy pavements when I get home. Every night.) However this guy was being super polite, if a bit crazy eyed, so she handed him her phone. He dialled the number and said “Hi. This is Leon. I’m just calling to let you know I made it in safely.” The person at the other end must have said something like “huh? Who is this?” because he then repeated the same thing three times over, each time making it sound less like he was actually reporting on his own well being and more like he was giving out some coded message regarding the success of a drug deal. Or, you know, something else. He eventually hung up, said thanks, and left. At which point we all ridiculed him for being such a wuss about the weather. Imagine our surprise, then, when he shows up at the same time this morning, flags down my colleague again and hands her two huge packets of doughnuts as a thank you for use of the phone. Because that’s normal behaviour!

So either this guy is just totally melodramatic about the weather, to the chagrin of his family. Or we’re eating gangster doughnuts for dinner. His name wasn’t really Leon either. It was probably Bobby Bacala.

The jobs paper

I used my blog for work!

That is, I needed to recap on something that happened around the time I was so stressed out I wanted to throw myself into the canal, and my blog helped me find the right date.

I had my annual review at The Company where I had to lay out my objectives for the next 12 months. Since my main objective is actually ‘get knocked up, lay around on maternity leave watching Loose Women and maybe never come back’, it was difficult to get too involved in this process. However, since boss lady doesn’t know about my intentions, I had to show willing. Luckily everything work wise is a little up in the air until we get a decision on something at the end of this month. So I was able to put my vagueness down to that. I also got praise, which is always nice to hear. Go me!

There’s a lot I could write about work, but I won’t. I’ve read too many horror stories about people getting fired for doing the same. And generally the annoyances come from individual people, rather the place as a whole. I have high standards and unfortunately (for them) a lot of people don’t cut it. But it was only when completing the Review of the Year list that I realised work keeps me sane. My job is not hugely taxing. I can go in, do a good days work, leave and forget about it. Canal day aside, it doesn’t stress me out, and I work with some amazing people. After the traumas of the last year, many of which have been left undocumented on this blog, it’s nice to have that. There’s a Gervais/Merchant quote on my categories page. While I’d like to think I make a difference, I definitely have the other two things.

Interesting side note: When Mr B uprooted his life and ran away with me, his (now estranged) Mother wrote on his leaving card “good luck in quickly finding gainful employment”. It’s funny how she considered that the most important of the three. But that’s a story for another time.

2009. Remember that?!

I know it’s nine days in and everyone is so over the whole New Year thing. But I’ve been working hard by day and trying hard by night. A sports filled weekend afternoon is the only chance I have to blog. And I can never resist the opportunity to make a list.

I found this on Gemma Cartwright’s marvellous fashion/blog emporium, though I guess it’s doing the rounds generally.

The 2009 Meme

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Unprotected sex! After 10 years popping that little yellow pill (and balking at the price of condoms on the rare months when I wasn’t), this was a weird one.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
Like I can remember that far back! I would guess the obvious was that I wanted to lose the bit of weight I’d put back on since The Great Weight Loss of 2007. I set myself revised deadlines, as the big events of 2009 (Oldest Girl Friend’s 30th, Glastonbury, Mr B’s 30th) came and went. I never managed it. Mainly after the decision to start trying for a baby sent me into a spiral of overeating crazy. This year I’ll be happy if I keep up my blog, pay off my credit card and maintain a generally healthy lifestyle. And the other thing, natch.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
One of the girls at work had a little girl. Her visits to the office are the biggest giveaway ever to my colleagues that I want to have a baby. I’m sure they all talked about me behind me back after my latest kid hogging session at the Christmas buffet.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My uncle died last month. That’s still too terribly sad to talk much about. Oldest Girl Friend’s beautiful cat, the perfect companion to our wine & tv nights, was put to sleep. I miss her.

5. What countries did you visit?
We took a break from holidays and had a summer of music festivals instead. We did make it to Scotland & the Czech Republic though. And we briefly drove into Wales by accident while lost.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
I’m trying not to make this totally baby themed but, you know, duh! I’d also like more money, more patience and more hours in the day. Maybe this could be the year I give up sleep.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I would say the date we moved away from The Ghetto, but I’d have to check my filofax for the correct weekend, so that could hardly be considered ‘etched’. I guess we’ve moved house so much over the years it’s hardly an event anymore. It was important though. Mr B’s 30th (week) was also pretty special.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
One single thing? I don’t really go in for big grand gestures. Preferring, instead, to make a small difference to the world every single day. Ha! I’ve done well at work, which isn’t hugely difficult. I broke my blog curse, which I’m quite pleased about. And I arranged rather awesome 30th birthday parties for two of my favourite people.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Again, hard to pick out a single big incident. I’m sure I could look back and roll my eyes at a lot of the stupid stuff I did or said. But I’m also learning slowly not to sweat the small stuff. I didn’t go on a diet but, you know, story of my life!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a cold for about a month and a half. But I deftly dodged swine flu which, considering my place of work, is commendable.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
The most comfortable bed in the world, ever. It took an entire evening to build, it takes up a disproportionate amount of our bedroom, but it’s truly awesome. Just as well, considering how much time we ended up spending in it. (Honourable mention also goes to my Blackberry.)

12. Where did most of your money go?
Gin. Will I ever learn?

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Sitting in a field, eating corn on the cob and listening to live music. The greatest feeling ever.

14. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Pet Shop Boys – ‘All Over The World’. Saw it performed twice live. Exceptional. It’s one of those songs that will always have an emotional attachment. I love that.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?
2008 was easy. 2009 was an eventful year, and not all great. I think I’ve come out of it feeling pretty positive and am very happy and excited right now. (That doesn’t answer the question, I know.)

b) thinner or fatter?
Meh. I’m the same post Christmas bloatfest I always am at this time of year.

c) richer or poorer?
We spend less on takeaways, more on deli brunches. This house costs more, but we get broken into less. Overall I’d say we’re still breaking even.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Having sex! I could’ve been knocked up by now…

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Stressing. 2009 saw the start of my semi regular problems sleeping. I am gutted about this – I love sleep.

18. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Hello Barney Stinson! I fell hard, proper teenage crush style. I even had sex dreams about him!

19. What was your favourite TV program?
The Thick of It, Peep Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Gossip Girl and Dollhouse were highlights. ER ending was one of the most traumatic events of my life. And we finally started The Sopranos.

20. What was the best book you read?
I didn’t read enough to give an accurate assessment, though my favourite blogs of the year can be found here. I did enjoy the Christmas Radio Times immensely.

21. What was your favourite film of this year?
In The Loop.

22. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
The big two nine. Hmph. I celebrated for a week, as is standard. Swanky dinner with Sharp Suit, Blondie, et al. London with Curly. Pedicures. Presents. Cocktails. Cupcakes. My favourite people.

23. What kept you sane?
Work. It’s easy, chilled out, and some of my favourite people are there. I actually look to The Company as a place of relative calm when other things get fucked up.

24. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
See 18.

25. Who did you miss?
Josh Lyman. Mr B & I spent much of 2008 watching The West Wing, and finished it just as the year ended. We’ve seen a lot of great stuff this year, but really nothing has come close.

26. Who was the best new person you met?
Sharp Suit. Although I’d known him since I started at The Company in 2008, this was the year we became friends. It’s been great. We’re having a semi weird patch at the moment, but I expect us to come through it intact. He gets me in a way that a lot of people don’t. Plus he introduced me to his amazing sister, Blondie.

NB. It pains me that this list is 26 questions long. Isn’t that a slightly weird amount?

Keep your friends close, and your secrets closer

I was going to blog about our two week nonstop* sex festival. Unfortunately I cannot claim 100% attendance on that one. Let’s just say late nights and alcohol have a lot to answer for. We’re not doing bad considering it’s the first week back to work after the break and, unlike many of my friends who are turning up mainly to moan about their poor heating systems, we both have a heavy January workload. Still it’s proving a nice way to keep warm & entertained this month without spending too much cash.

I have been informed, second hand from Oldest Girl Friend, that one of our circle has decided 2010 is the year she is going to have a baby, and has informed her boyfriend that this is the case. I’m not sure this is exactly the way it went down but, knowing them, it’s actually pretty plausible. She’s a couple of years old than me and her biological clock has been ticking ever since I’ve known her, and long before she met her boyfriend. While they’re not yet married there is apparently a surprise proposal planned for later in the year (something else I’m sworn to secrecy over) and I know that wedding and babies are the two things she’s always had her heart set on. I wish them luck. Though obviously not to their faces – as with most information passed on by Oldest Girl Friend, it’s unclear if I’m supposed to know or not. I hadn’t planned for her to feature in this blog, since we’re not that close and I don’t see a lot of her. But I guess as another member of The Competition she is bound to crop up. I’ll have to come up with names for them both. The Teacher & The Teacher’s Pet immediately spring to mind, because she is, and so is he. I can be a bitch sometimes, I know. Blame the hormones.

I’m mildly surprised by her announcing to people that she plans to have a baby, and I do wonder if she’s woefully unprepared for the agonisingly long time scale ahead. Obviously they might be lucky enough for it to happen right away (assuming her boyfriend is on board for what was apparently quite a unilateral decision), but either way I’m glad we don’t have that kind of pressure on us. Aside from myself, Mr B and you, my dear reader, precisely two people know that we’re actively trying to get knocked up: Curly & Sporty. Curly knows because she spends longer with me than anyone else on the planet and, as such, has to endure my daily mood swings, furtive avoidance of 2010 social planning and ill-fated attempts at a healthy diet. The only thing I’ve kept from her so far is my chart, and I’m sure that’s only a matter of time. She is supportive to the end (she even did a bit of research yesterday and advised me to eat some oily fish over the weekend – how cute?!) and an absolute angel. Sporty knows because, although we don’t see each other much since she moved to another branch of The Company, we have surprisingly frank conversations when we do get together. She & Mr Sporty have been together a similar amount of time to me & Mr B, and we generally have a lot in common. She’s great. It would be brilliant if we got knocked up at the same time and could drive each other mad with our neurosis.

I’ll be seeing The Teacher and that group of friends at the end of the month, so I’ll get all the details then. Without revealing any of my own, naturally. If we’re successful this cycle, I’ll be in the very early stages of knocked-upness when we see them. But, again, that’ll be something for the vault. Not that I’m particularly hopeful for January. I’m growing cynical as time goes on, and will be happy this month if my one achievement is surviving the snow.

*once a day

Technological wizardry

I still have no idea why all but my most recent post are in italics. As punishment for even glancing at the HTML button on the dashboard, I guess. I wish I knew how to fix it.

I also had a comment on one of my posts saying “I wanted to inform you that it’s not showing up properly on the BlackBerry Browser”. I’m not sure what they expect me to do about that. I have a Blackberry, and occasionally use it to view the internet. That’s where my comprehension of this issue ends. Thankfully WordPress tells me that the comment is spam, so I can ignore it in good conscience.

Other than that, the last few days have been a bit of an ‘I heart blogging’ fest. Apologies. I shall now return to the subject in hand.

In which I gush about other blogs

I’ve been kind of ashamed at the number of books I read last year. It’s more than one and less than, well, a number very close to one. That’s not to say I haven’t read other things. My twitter obsession means I have probably read the equivalent word count of a handful of books. And, in response, written enough to fill a novel. If only publishers were interested in producing a bound succession of sound bites about West Wing, hangovers and the contents of my lunchbox. (Who knows? 2010 may be the year when such a gap in the market appears.) I’ve also read blogs pretty much by the truckload. And will continue to do so this year. Blogs have choked me up, made me laugh out loud and, on quiet days at The Company, have been consumed for hours at a time at my desk. The same cannot be said for my current collection of hardbacks.

Certain blogs have struck a chord with me to the point where I’ve sat down and read them end to end. They are as good, in a lot of cases better, than many of the books currently lining my shelves. I’m kicking off my new year reading list with A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Home. I adore AM’s stream of consciousness style of writing, her desire for comments (which I will contribute when I am caught up – I doubt she really needs feedback on her November 2006 posts) and her ‘unusual’ family situation. I have one of those myself and, after recent developments, I’m sure it’s going to feature prominently on here before too long. After that I’m moving onto Bluesoup (and follow up Soupemes). I like Soupy because she writes so eloquently, and has handled her own difficult family situations better than I have handled my own. I think I could learn a lot from reading her blogs. I have a few more stacked up in my bookmarks and am constantly searching out recommendations.

Highlights of the blogs I read in their entirety last year include Diary of a Disillusioned Dater, who cracks me up to the point where I wish he was my friend and could tell me his tales over beers. Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist for exceptional career advice, should I ever decide to grow up and get one. Belle de Jour, a clichéd choice I know, but beautifully written nonetheless. Alright Tit which was my favourite blog of 2009. Her writing is poetic brilliance and her end of year post made me sob. Bonus points for that! And finally, Forever Amber. I immediately identified with Amber as she also referred to her neighbourhood area as a ghetto. Amber is some kind of blogging superwoman and, from what I’ve seen, produces crazy amounts of stellar content in the time it takes me to think up a blog title. (Seriously, I do put thought into these things!) And yet only today she’s complained of getting shit from some disgruntled asshole of a reader. Who gets to read her wealth of online offerings. Almost every day. For free. Duh! What is with people? I feel so lucky that all these random strangers bother to type out and upload stories from their lives. Stories that make me laugh and cry and understand my own stupid situations just a little bit better. It’s like therapy. I should be paying a lot of money for this!*

I hope none of the people mentioned above mind that I have immortalised them in such a way. Nothing but praise is intended. They shouldn’t worry. It’s not like anybody but me is reading this. But that, I hope, is going to change. Now I’ve proved to myself I can keep this up I may actually get out there and start cultivating some readers. And hey, if this blog ever make it past its one year anniversary and someone goes back and reads it all from the beginning, give me a shout. You’re probably entitled to some kind of prize.

*Ok you guys, please don’t make me pay to read your blogs. I’m trying to save for a baby here!