Dead Lines

Forgive me - tonight's entry is gonna be short and to the point. I say at the top of this blog that there will be ranting, there will be laughs, there will be a bitchslap or two.

There will also, just occasionally, be days like today, where deadlines are pressing and very little happens and much as I'd love to try and think of something funny to say about getting my teeth scaled and polished - the highlight of today - I don't really have the microseconds to spare, and I hope you'll all bear with me as I don my white bunny costume, look at my alarm clock, shout "FUCK! I'm late, I'm late, for a very important...erm...deadline...and bog off down my own little rabbithole of self-involvement.

Actually, thinking about it...I don't believe in karma, because it tends to lead to concepts of just desserts (mmm...desserts....) but there's a little resonance about today, now I come to think of it, which would be the kind of thing that people who do believe in karma (Karen Pulley, I'm lookin' at you) might appreciate.

When I was a kid, I was a know-it-all, opinionated, independent brat. I once decided, halfway through a haircut, that I didn't like what the stylist was doing to my pudding-basin coiffure, and jumped out of the chair and ran home...with a fringe that didn't so much slope as positively step down. Empowered by this, I followed this up with a similar exploit at the dentist. Having been told "this won't hurt a bit", and being a trusting know-it-all, opinionated, independent brat, when his needle stung like a sonofabitch I fixed him with my best hard stare, burst into tears, jumped out of the chair and ran all the way home, with a jaw hardening into numbness with every step.

Today, I went to get a scale and polish, and the hygienist dutifully carved away about a decadesworth of tartar from my bottom row. Having done so, she adjusted the chair, told me to spit and said we were done.
"What about the top row?" I said, spitting out chunks of accumulated chalky crap.
"Nah," she said. "Our time's up. Make another appointment and I'll do the top ones..."

Karma? Well no, clearly not, but a nice bit of resonance all the same.

Oh yeah, it's Tuesday, isn't it?
It might as well not be - all that walking round the park, plus the 15 miles on Sunday, had precisely zero impact, and I weighed in today at
16 stone 12.75.

Sigh. Deadlines, you see. They mess up everything.
Anyhow, there's been a new development. Somewhere on our 15 mile walk, I mentioned to Lee my prior intention to get back to playing badminton when we came home, and how, one way and another, it hadn't happened yet.
"Oh, great. I'll go," he said. Tonight I've had a text from my pal Rebecca - Lee's ex, and an international superstar in her own right, to say "Woohoo - Badminton Tuesday?!"

So - Badminton Tuesday, to add to the mix and try and break through the wall of excuses which still, it seems, cling to me like Triffid-ivy.

And now, if you'll accept these dead lines from a pretty dead day, I'll bog off back down the rabbithole and get on with the stuff I really don't have time enough to do in a universe with such a strictly limited number of dimensions.

"FUCK! I'm late..."