How Not to Cure a Broken Heart

They say that time cures all things. I can see how that applies to hams, hangovers and the flu.

But, the problem with time, as many of us know, it that it’s a tricky bugger. On any given day there is both not enough of it and far too much of it. As previously discussed I have a Things to Do list as long as a very long-armed person’s arm, in fact both their arms, and there is never enough time to do all the Things to Do. On the other hand I’m busily waiting for time to cure all. And whilst I’m busily waiting for time to cure all I’m finding it tricky to do the Things to Do because I’m busy. Waiting for time. To cure all.

Now, Einstein had a theory about time. He claimed (although I believe he never actually tested this) that if one was to move very quickly, I mean very very quickly, like quicker than a van driver on a roundabout, quicker than Superman on a trampoline, even quicker than the time it takes for a Beloved to break a heart, then time would slow down. Even go backwards.

But, in my case, since I am waiting for time to cure all, I want time to go faster. Being a bit of a scientist (the other bits of me are strictly bits of artists) I’m thinking that if I go very very slowly, slower than the slugs that enjoy my lettuces, slower than a van driver on the M25, even slower than a Beloved takes to mow a lawn, then time would speed up. And thus cure all quicker.

So this is my cunning plan:
Only move in slow motion (this will also help time to cure my broken foot)
Only drive in first gear (and again, since I won’t have to change gear that should help the foot)
Sleep – a lot (yay, another foot cure too).

Should this plan not work (although I see no reason, scientifically speaking, that it wouldn’t) I have another plan to make time pass without me actually noticing it doing so. And thus cure all.

I have got the entire 10 series of Friends on DVD. The Lawyer, being a kind-hearted self-sacrificing sort of girl, has agreed to join me in this scientific experiment into the nature of time.

I’ll see you all in 2009 when I will surely be cured.

How Not to Just Fucking Sort It

Well, Just Fucking Sort It September is over. And it’s time to take stock of just how very sorted everything is now. My world should be as sorted as an immaculate filing system, an accountant’s underwear drawer, a tube of Smarties after it has been sorted into different colours and then eaten in just the right order. Whatever order that is. Blues last I think.

So this is what happened:

At the beginning of Just Fucking Sort It September it was September 1st. Good start I feel. It was a Saturday, again an auspicious day. It wasn’t raining, or not much anyway, well, not enough to make the shed roof leak.

There were things that needed sorting-
The leaking shed
My underwear drawer
The flowerbed
The thousand other flowerbeds that inhabit my garden
The garden
The cupboard under the stairs
All the other cupboards
The house
My relationship with the Beloved
My life

On September 1st this didn’t seem un-ambitious. On October 6th, which happens to be today, I realise that maybe I was just a tad over-optimistic.

This is what happened:

The shed is still leaking. I fixed the roof. But then it turned out that all the walls were leaking too. Which isn’t a problem as long as all rain in the next foreseeable future remains strictly vertical. Could happen. I will therefore classify this in ‘Just Fucking Sorted’

I have given a great deal of attention to the garden. Mostly by removing most of its contents including trees, shrubs, grass, children, lost items belonging to the Beloved, small unknowable grey things, and large knowable brown things. It is now not so much a garden as a wasteland that abuts the house. Again, fucking sorted.

I have also given a great deal of attention to the house. Mostly by removing most of its contents including the most of the cupboards, my underwear drawer, furniture, spiders’ webs, walls, doors, ceilings, lost items belonging to the Beloved, small unknowable grey things and large knowable brown things. The house now resembles not so much a house but a handy building site, which could attract attractive builders. Perhaps. So, fucking sorted.

The Lawyer removed herself to her bedroom. The physicist removed herself to Uni. The snotty cat removed himself to the after-life. The Beloved removed himself to swanky flat in Radyr to cavort with his new beloved therefore ameliorating the necessity to sort my relationship with him. Tick that one off my iGoogle Things To Do List.

So, really the only item that is still left outstanding at the end of Just Fucking Sort It September is my Life.

Buy hey, given how successful I’ve been sorting everything else out, surely a life can’t be that hard?

How Not to Write a ‘Things To Do’ List

I’ve been making a Google ipage. In the spirit of Just Fucking Sort It September. The two events may seem unrelated. It may appear that an ordinary Google homepage is already quite tidy, sorted and generally acceptable. The excitement of occasionally having the bods at Google add a few little festive seasonal thingys might seem sufficient. But this wasn’t the point. The point was my ‘Things To Do’ list.

I have always had an endearing fondness for a ‘Things To Do’ list. This is mostly because I always seem to have a lot of Things To Do but my memory seems incapable of remembering more than three things at a time. Thus, if my ‘Things To Do’ list comprises of:
Wash Kitchen Floor
Write Novel
Start Strange and Obscure New Business Involving Thailand Bhats
and
Pick Lawyer Up From School
things can go seriously awry. In my eargerness to do the things to do on the list I may spend over a year writing a novel and starting a strange and obscure new business involving Thailand bhats and the poor Lawyer waits at the school gates and essentially starves to death.

So, to my great joy I discovered that one can put a ‘Things To Do’ list on a Google ipage. So every time I go on the internet my list appears, there, before my eyes, in front of my face and generally writ large in a comfortingly inescapable manner. Starvation of my loved ones no longer is an issue.

So, I have been making a Google ipage. This is what happened:

I put up a ‘Things To Do’ list. Good. Then I’m offered more. More sounds good. Perhaps with even more than a ‘Things To Do’ list my life will be even more fucking sorted. Hooray. There isn’t just more, there is lots more. How exciting. So I choose –

A fortune cookie – handy for predicting the future and doubles as a starvation prevention.

A clock – useful in case the billion other clocks I’m surrounded by suddenly implode.

A sticky note – in case my ‘Things To Do’ list is not sufficiently yellow or sticky.

A currency converter – you never know when you might need the price of a loaf a bread in Thailand Bhats.

Freebie o’the day – an obvious essential for the impoverished single mother, today I can get free shampoo, a poster of Eminem and 15,000 kitchen-tested recipes. How fine is that?

A water tracker – which I’d hoped was going to tell me about the leaks in the shed roof, or maybe why the upstairs tank was so determined to store its water downstairs. Disappointingly it was to keep track of how many glasses of water I’d drunk today. I already have a gadget for that called a bladder.

A Shakespearian insulter – today’s insult is ‘Thou bootless dizzy-eyed malcontent!’ Have already used that a number of times, mostly to address the leaking shed.

A Google technology newsfeed – mostly because I felt sorry for it because it had less than 1000 useres.

Chat in Chinese – well it could be useful.

A spider – just to keep all the ones in the house company.

A new body – don’t need to tell you what that’s for.

A hunky man – ok, desperation has hit in a serious way.

So, my ipage was looking pretty damn exhilarating. What with insulting translations in Chinese, hunky men playing in Shakespearian with my new body, and sticky notes telling my fortune in Thailand Bhats I discovered that my ‘Things To Do’ list was really quite unimportant. I deleted it with a jolly cry of ‘Hence rotten thing! Or I shall shake thy bones out of thy garments.’