Sceptical About Everything

This picture of Supreme Court non-nomines Harriet Miers will haunt my nights, now and always.

Why isn't she wearing her own face?

And she would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky right-wing Republicans! *shakes fist*

Tears Of An Idiot

This is a good article - I read it because I thought it promised an amusing discussion about crying (something I do often enough to count it among my hobbies), but then I found myself won over by the writer's argument. Which, if you can't be bothered to read the whole thing, runs thusly: When men at work are cross, or wounded, or desperate, they shout and scream. Now, this may not be ideal behaviour, but such shows of aggression are almost encouraged in some areas of business. Whereas women, typically, cry. And this is NOT acceptable in the world of work. All your credibility is gone. We all know the feeling - you're having a heated discussion, from nowhere you can feel the tears coming, and ...you know you've lost the argument.

To double the unfairness, if a man cries, they get applauded. Politicians show this most clearly - the author cited both Clinton and Bush (and I've seen Blair do it too) as masters of the well-timed well-up.

To quote: The woman who cries is pitied for being weak, the man who loses his temper is often admired for making those around him seem weak, and himself the more passionate and committed to his job. Yet if crying is seen as silly and childish, isn’t a temper tantrum, if anything, more so?

Hee! I like that. Mind you, I throw temper tantrums and crying fits pretty regularly, so clearly I am a horrific male-female hybrid. combining the least acceptable traits of both sexes.

I was a public crier - nay, renowned cry-baby - for years. At primary school, I would burst into tears over EVERYTHING - it became a self-fulfilling prophecy: something bad would happen, I knew everyone would expect me to cry, and that would frustrate me so much I'd start crying. I hated it - it was so humiliating. So when I went to secondary school I determined I would NEVER cry there. And I didn't (well, only once, when someone told me they'd heard my dad was gay. Which - what a stupid thing to cry about), for the whole seven years. That's one of the first things I can ever remember putting my mind to, and achieving. Hmm, might be the last too, come to think of it.

However, I continued, and continue, to cry a lot - just not in front of lots of people. During my teen years, my parents got the brunt of it (my Dad and I can go both from 0-60 in seconds flat - from mild irritation to screaming insanity in the blink of an eye. My father is the only grown man I've seen actually jump up and down in rage), now it's my boyfriend. These tears are always hot and painful - because they nearly always come out of angry frustration. That's to say they're the rainstorm that follows the thunder and lightening of a mega-strop (English word for a temper tantrum. See also: wobbly). Sometimes, they are heartbroken (read: melodramatic) sobs of distress (read: neurosis) when I feel my boyfriend is being impossible. However, on reflection, these are nearly always occasions on which I have worked myself up into such a frenzy that there is no way down than to blub for ten minutes.

I do not enjoy these tears, although I daresay they are therapeutic.However, they are very different from my OTHER tears. At a certain time each month, I am almost constantly lachrymose. EVERYTHING makes me cry. An old man walking slowly down the street? Perhaps he's a war veteran, now widowed, who children are too busy to visit, but he still puts a shirt and tie before he shuffles out to the shops, and dusts the picture frame holding his wedding photo....waaah! See an ad for pet insurance? Oh, look at the dog's big sad eyes, and oh! look how sad his owner is, and oh! the doggie's leg is in a cast, and ah! the cast is off and the dog is racing through the fields again...waaah!* Needless, to say, adoption and infertility blogs, can spell almost total devastation on a regular basis.

So, well, I've lost my point a bit here. My original premises that (a) I thought it was a good article, and (b) I cry quite a lot aren't leading to an interesting conclusion, or indeed any conclusion...so I will ask you a question: would you consider yourself a 'crier'? How often do you well-up? Have you ever cried at work?

* I do not even like dogs.

This is a good article - I read it because I thought it promised an amusing discussion about crying (something I do often enough to count it among my hobbies), but then I found myself won over by the writer's argument. Which, if you can't be bothered to read the whole thing, runs thusly: When men at work are cross, or wounded, or desperate, they shout and scream. Now, this may not be ideal behaviour, but such shows of aggression are almost encouraged in some areas of business. Whereas women, typically, cry. And this is NOT acceptable in the world of work. All your credibility is gone. We all know the feeling - you're having a heated discussion, from nowhere you can feel the tears coming, and ...you know you've lost the argument.

To double the unfairness, if a man cries, they get applauded. Politicians show this most clearly - the author cited both Clinton and Bush (and I've seen Blair do it too) as masters of the well-timed well-up.

To quote: The woman who cries is pitied for being weak, the man who loses his temper is often admired for making those around him seem weak, and himself the more passionate and committed to his job. Yet if crying is seen as silly and childish, isn’t a temper tantrum, if anything, more so?

Hee! I like that. Mind you, I throw temper tantrums and crying fits pretty regularly, so clearly I am a horrific male-female hybrid. combining the least acceptable traits of both sexes.

I was a public crier - nay, renowned cry-baby - for years. At primary school, I would burst into tears over EVERYTHING - it became a self-fulfilling prophecy: something bad would happen, I knew everyone would expect me to cry, and that would frustrate me so much I'd start crying. I hated it - it was so humiliating. So when I went to secondary school I determined I would NEVER cry there. And I didn't (well, only once, when someone told me they'd heard my dad was gay. Which - what a stupid thing to cry about), for the whole seven years. That's one of the first things I can ever remember putting my mind to, and achieving. Hmm, might be the last too, come to think of it.

However, I continued, and continue, to cry a lot - just not in front of lots of people. During my teen years, my parents got the brunt of it (my Dad and I can go both from 0-60 in seconds flat - from mild irritation to screaming insanity in the blink of an eye. My father is the only grown man I've seen actually jump up and down in rage), now it's my boyfriend. These tears are always hot and painful - because they nearly always come out of angry frustration. That's to say they're the rainstorm that follows the thunder and lightening of a mega-strop (English word for a temper tantrum. See also: wobbly). Sometimes, they are heartbroken (read: melodramatic) sobs of distress (read: neurosis) when I feel my boyfriend is being impossible. However, on reflection, these are nearly always occasions on which I have worked myself up into such a frenzy that there is no way down than to blub for ten minutes.

I do not enjoy these tears, although I daresay they are therapeutic.However, they are very different from my OTHER tears. At a certain time each month, I am almost constantly lachrymose. EVERYTHING makes me cry. An old man walking slowly down the street? Perhaps he's a war veteran, now widowed, who children are too busy to visit, but he still puts a shirt and tie before he shuffles out to the shops, and dusts the picture frame holding his wedding photo....waaah! See an ad for pet insurance? Oh, look at the dog's big sad eyes, and oh! look how sad his owner is, and oh! the doggie's leg is in a cast, and ah! the cast is off and the dog is racing through the fields again...waaah!* Needless, to say, adoption and infertility blogs, can spell almost total devastation on a regular basis.

So, well, I've lost my point a bit here. My original premises that (a) I thought it was a good article, and (b) I cry quite a lot aren't leading to an interesting conclusion, or indeed any conclusion...so I will ask you a question: would you consider yourself a 'crier'? How often do you well-up? Have you ever cried at work?

* I do not even like dogs.

Guilt-Tripping

Oh my God, you guys....first, let me apologise in advance for this entry, because its going to come across bitchy and mean, and even a tad ungrateful, and you're all going to be like 'Well, I wish I could sympathise, but you're just a cow' but no, no, no, honestly I am just decompressing, you see, this weekend I went to Germany with my boyfriend and his parents, and even though I know them well, I still cant be completely myself with them, and I also can't turn around and scream at my boyfriend that his parents (who he is VERY close to, but also, because of his Jewish-Catholic lineage, feels permanently guilt about not being close enough to) are driving me batshit-crazy, and I haven't had a chance to catch up with my girls yet and bore them with this so, well, I'm just going to vent at you lot and please bear in mind that I really am very fond of my 'in-laws' (and they seem to like me), and that I did not spend the whole four days in a grump, and, and, gah...............

...so, now, The Most Annoying Moments....

1) After a loooong morning sightseeing, the in-laws finally turn their attention vaguely towards lunch. It is between half two, and three in the afternoon, and I am feeling faint. Boyfriend is also grumpy with hunger, and, I can sense, turning uncooperative. Taking charge, I march them through the streets of this quaint medieval town, pointing out possible eateries. Everyone's getting tetchy - all around us, restaurants and cafes are closing for the afternoon, boyfriend wants 'a proper meal', I need to pee, we've been walking for around five hours, and his Mu is, not unusually, peevish about something. We stop for some time to examine the menu of a fish restaurant, which has tables free, looks reasonable, serves sandwiches, salads, and hot meals, and, most important, is RIGHT THERE. I can't seem to get any real feelings on this from ersatz-Ma & Pa ( literally, they just sort of look at it and say nothing). So - unwilling to press my views upon people neither blood-related to, nor voluntarily sleeping with me - we walk on. After another five minutes of fruitless searching, Pa pipes up. 'Do you know what I feel like?', he burbles, 'A herring sandwich.'

NGGGGG!

I bite back the temptation to screech 'A what? A herring sandwich? Herring? Of the fish family? Of the genus piscinus, known to live in the sea? Where oh where might we find one of those?'. Instead I tentatively murmur, in my most self-effacing and non-strident manner 'Oh. Well, did you, I mean, not like the look of the fish restaurant we just passed? Because, well, I mean, I don't know, there's no guarantees, but they might do a herring sandwich'. 'Fish restaurant?' he asked, for all the world like a less-together version of my last-stages-of-Alzheimer's grandmother, 'What fish restaurant?'.

2) I feel EVIL for this one, its not even that bad - what it really reveals is that, just because his mum isn't exactly the same as mine, she rubs me up the wrong way in certain situations (its a real problem I have - just because I think my mum and dad are great, doesn't mean that things other parents do differently are wrong. Or even if they are, it doesn't really matter!). We drove past what looked like a pretty bad pedestrian/car accident - saw the woman on the ground, being attended to. Obviously, it was really horrible, and we all stopped talking for a bit. And then, came the cliches: Life is so fragile....just so fragile...Isn't it cruel.' etc. etc. Life's fragile, eh...gee, you think? Tell me more about this life can be cruel opinion you've got - I've never heard anyone say anything like that before.

You see? It's not that bad, I'm irrational I know. It just bugged me. I was also bugged when she mentioned how she hates people that are 'on diet's (well, lucky for you you don't need to be on one), and when she used a whiny little girl voice that is NOT cute in a woman of 55, and when...oh, its no good, the guilt is too much. Ok, moving on....

3) On our final night - during which almost no time, other than sleeping, has been spent not in a unit of four - I inform my boyfriend that I have put in enough family time and deserve an hour with just him, at the village pub, between returning from sightseeing, and dinner. Hoorah - he readily agrees.

We go to his parent's room to let them know we're going out - or, as Boyfriend puts it 'break the news' (yes, I know, ominous, ain't it). As soon as we tell them, Ma starts mocking the plan (as we'll probably go to the pub a quatre after dinner as well) but that's her way, so whatever. But THEN, she says 'Why not see if the wine cellar [cute little single producer wine businesses, that let you taste their wines in small quantities, very common in this part of Germany] in the village is open. If it is, give us a call, and we'll all go there instead together'.

AARGH! Can you believe it? Surely even the most thick-skinned monster-in-law would understand why we wanted to go to the pub on our own, and would have the sensitivity not to demand to be included. I mean, really! Am I crazy, am I crazy in the head to think that? Truth be told, I was so flabbergasted that I just smiled, hemmed and hawed and scuttled out of their room, and outside the hotel before I either weakly capitulated, or said something rude (ha! as if - it would only be the former). I don;t know what Boyfriend said to them, but - thank fuck! - we went to the pub, and they did not join us.

SO! Do you think I'm awful? I do! Writing it down makes me feel HORRIBLE - I am going to post this, but I might not leave it up for long. Although. I would say I love them, I do spend a lot of time in my head complaining to myself about them and their slightly controlling relationship with their son. I thought writing it down would make me feel less bad, but I feel worse! Hey! Perhaps I should write about it whenever they irritate me - then instead of being pissed off with them, I'll despise myself. Problem solved!

A Conversation I'm Glad I Didn't Have to Have

Girl, my age, walking, and talking into her cell phone: No, everyone knows that, Mum. And yes, you should be using condoms. Yes, you should.

Wow! I Found Something Else Already!

Something Else That Irritates Me, I mean. Though in this case I'd probably put it a little bit stronger than that:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101202104.html

And just to show this shit happens everywhere:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1500735,00.html

You know, thankful as I am that I no longer have to write a philosophy essay once a week, sometimes I still think that if I'd gone on to take an M.Phil I would have done it on 'The Epistemology of Sexism' (or something like that). In the Criminal Justice System, or the National Health Service, or another institution, it seems that, if a man says something it's believed, and respected. If a woman says it, it comes with a shadow of untruth attached to it, purely by virtue of the speaker's gender.

I know this isn't a new idea (I think we all know what happens to the rape victim in court). But, philosophically, its an interesting question. Why do we know (or believe, but I think 'know' is the more useful term), what one person tell us to be true (about something we cannot be sure of ourselves - such as the state of that person's marriage, or more prosaically, when we ask someone for directions), and yet we do not know what another equally (un)qualified person tells us. Sometimes, we have good reasons for this discrimination - if the person is drunk, or from out of town (in the 'directions' example), or suffering from dementia. But what about if our reasons rest on the fact they they are female? Or black?  How do we know what we know if our justifications rest on this?

I wrote that very fast, without thinking about it,  because of a violent reaction to the Washington Post story. Would you call that 'blog-vomit'?

Things That Irritate Me, And About Which I Will Whine. And Yes, Some ARE Entirely Justified.

1) My boyfriend is not sufficiently thankful for the food I cook for him. Every night, I get home and make us a delicious - or certainly edible - dinner from scratch. I shop for fresh, seasonal, vegetables daily, and we eat a range of fish, meat, and vegetarian dishes. I cook around his nut allergy, and take into account his dislike of olives, capers, and anchovies (naturally, three of my favourote ingredients), and 'eggs you can see'. Oh, I am exhaustingly perfect. I don't even moan about it, because, vomitously, I believe cooking for someone is an act of love. And I love him.

But does an act of love deserve no thanks? (I know it doesn't require it...).. He has NEVER once said 'thank you' for any meal without prompting. That's rude...isn't it? It's surely only polite to thank someone who gives you your supper? Doesn't everyone? Not him! And it seems now to be a point of principle not to express some gratitude. Because otherwise, surely he'd just save himself the hassle of scenes like this:

Irritating Boyfriend: *gobble gobble*

Me: Do you like it?

IB: Yes, very nice.

Me: Well then...

IB: What?

Me: 'Thank you'?

IB: (in irritated manner) Yes, yes, thank you, thank you.

Me: Why don't you just say thank you? I cooked it for you. It's weird not to just thank someone who gives you a plate of food. It's weird not to say it's nice if you think it is. I'm not holding you hostage, and feeding you only to keep you alive. I'm not your mum! It's not my job to feed you.

IB: Why does it matter?

Me: It hurts my feelings! You're so ungrateful!

IB: You're mental

Me: You're a rude freak.

Much later...

Me:....Cooking is an act of love! You take me for granted! You're an immature twat who's never had to take care of himself...*sob sob*

Sigh. Of course, this is the boy who, before we lived together, asked me after the third meal I ever cooked him (just a bog-standard weekday meal by the way) said 'Isn't there any pudding?'. When I, slightly shocked by THE RUDENESS, said no, he replied 'My Mum always makes me pudding.' Nggggggggggggg! And, of course, this is the Mum who, after he thanked her for a lunch she'd made (see, he can do it), while we were visiting, said 'Don't you dare thank me!You're not a guest!' and almost started crying. So, it's not like I don't know where he gets it from. But, my god, it winds me up.

2) The fact that some part of my body is always hurting. For years it has been my feet. Recently, they've been joined in the attention-demanding stakes by my left hip, which starts to ache after a strenuous walk of, oooh, five minutes. This is an exciting new development which may or may not be the first sign of a rapid decline in old age, osteoporosis, plastic joint replacements, and senility.

3) When I see a cute baby (OK, the work 'cute' is redundant here) or toddler and coo, my boyfriend or friends will be all like 'Step away from the baby, Jenny. Repeat. Step away from the baby' because, obviously, I am a baby crazed LOON and will attempt to steal it. High-larious!

4) Girls (well, people, actually, I mean it's usually girls who do this but I do have a male friend who does this so let's not be sexist here) who claim to want advice about a problem, but then just restate the issue 3000 times, with absolutely no interest in my advice AT ALL. This drives me mad! I am, apparently, a total boy, in that I hear a problem ('he never calls and he cheated on me and he stays up to til 4 every night smoking dope') and want to find a solution ('Dump him. Well, dump him, and leave a bag of prawns behind his radiator'). This isn't to say that I won't listen to you explain why your boyfriend is a wanker, or how your job is so booo-ring for hours on end. I'm your friend, and there'll probably be wine involved, and I trust you'll at leat try to make it funny. But ladies! Seriously! You know what to do. I've told you what to do. So do it. And then can we talk about something else, pleeease!

5) Men who wolf-whistle, or shout, at women in the street (usually from the safety of their stupid white vans). Hardly an original complaint, I know, but seriously? Shut up, dickeads. The newest way to intimidate and irritate women on the streets of London, it seems, is to hiss at them (my first thought is always 'leaky gas pipe! Run!').

I particularly hate this - it doesn't even do us the courtesy of talking to us - it's almost what you'd do to get a dog's attention. Also, what's the point? Do they expect that I will turn around and say 'My goodness! Are you hissing in a sinister way at me? *blush* Here, take my number! I'm free every night to have sex with you'. No, of course he doesn't. He just, for some unfathomable, misogynistic reason, needs to make me feel uncomfortable. At times like those I (gun control-lovin' me) just wish I had a weapon. I would love to turn around and snarl 'say (hiss?) that again?'. Of course, I'd look pretty pathetic, saying it to the back of a white van that was speeding off down the road, but its still a nice idea.

6) People - my age! - who walk into a Starbucks or similar and say 'a cappuccino please'. And then the server has to say ' Which size?' and they say 'um...normal, and then the server has to work out what that means and then say 'Here or to go?' and then they say '..I think I'll have it here actually'. Meanwhile, I'm behind them tapping my foor and counting down the minuts until my train leaves. I mean, people, come on! They've been serving 'exotic' coffee in this country for over 50 years, and, the last time I checked, there's been a Starbucks or similar in every high street. The fact the coffee comes in all sizes and varieties should no longer befuddle you. Even the worst stand-up comedians no longer do a 'what's with the venti triple skinny dry latte with soya and a twist?!?"' thing. Times have moved on. And you must too.

Ok. I feel better. But that's only six! I promised you ten moany-baby items. I will keep thinking. There is a world of irritation out there - I just know it!

(AKA Part 4 of 100 things about me)

Blonde Ambition, Or What's To Become Of Me?

So, for the third time in my 'career' I am staring down the barrel of redundancy. This time, at least, its 'voluntary' - meaning they'll offer it to a range of dispensable people. If none of the turkeys vote for this exciting early Christmas, we'll move to 'compulsary' redundancy, where they really start identifying the dead wood. To avoid the indignity of being pitched against my colleagues, I am 99% sure I will take the voluntary option when they offer it.

It's not just because I'm so so lovely, and wish to spare my colleagues their jobs, of course. It's time to move on. I'm about to publish a report, which, along with the one I published in the summer, will form a nice little portfolio of my research skills, writing style, and views on social policy. In theory, the iron is now hot, and the time is right for me to hawk this around desirable employers intoning 'One Policy Researcher, Policy Researcher for Sale' much like Harry Secombe in Oliver!.

This should be exciting. This government is very much in tune with my area of expertise, and are keen to continue chucking quite a lot of money at the under-threes. I have strong ideas on how that money should be spent. An ambitious girlie should be dancing a jig at the obvious possibilities this entails - and the redundancy is the kick in the arse I need to get moving and capitalise on the situation. But *le sigh*...lets break down this feeling of ennui, shall we?

I'm not an ambitious person. I'm sure there are people out there who would laugh their heads off at this, looking at my academic credentials, interesting job, and commitment to the field in which I work. But I'm not. I'm not interested in working 10 hours a day, or working at weekends, or taking it home with me. I like to knock off at 5.30, get home for a bit of cleaning, and put the supper on.* I don't see this redundancy as the chance to take the next step in my career, or grab some more responsibility for myself (though I like the idea of a new, bigger paycheck). Rather, I feel fearful - what if I can't find a job I like as much, which lets me leave at 5.30 pm, and doesn't seem to care if I check infertility blogs at my desk? What if I take a job that's too hard? These are not the thoughts of the thrusting young executive about town, I suspect.

(I should point out that, in the light of my baby-hungry whining somewhere down there, I'm not a frustrated housewife kicking my heels in a job until I have children. Rather, I'm so totally into the idea of me as supermum. Of course, this idea is based on my own mother, who really IS supermum (a doctor, and an amazing parent all round), and I probably won't be able to live up to it - I've long suspected she feeds off stem-cells, or some such,at night, such are her energy levels and unflagging cheerfulness. But anyway - I always plan to work.)

My friends and I are pretty academic - we went to schools and/or universities where it's assumed you'll have a glittering career, and if you don't, if you just have a job you like, and pays the bills, and might not ever get you to CEO, then, what are you, a dropout or a failure? We live in a world where your worth to your company is measured in how many hours you work - and your worth as a person correlates pretty closely too. To put it mildly, I think that's a sucker's game - an emotional trick employers play to convince you it makes sense to stay at your desk and basically work for free . Usually, I trundle along doing my work, not thinking about 'Could I ever be a manager? Does that mean I'm stuck at the same level untiI I retire?', or 'Why don't I network more? Shouldn't I be better known in my sector by now?', or 'Why an I never that stressed about my job? Why have I never worked past nine?'. But, sometimes, like right bloody buggering now, I feel like a lazy failure. Its not my fault I'm being made redundant, but it is my fault I'm not excited about it.

* I'm also partial to drinks and other excirtements after work too. I'm not a hermit.

TROIS

1) My youngest brother is severely handicapped, mentally and physically. This means my mum and dad's lives are not what they should be, and their old age will not be what they deserve. My mother describes having a severely disabled child as similar to having a child die - a grief that hits you every day when you wake up.

2) My middle brother is very intelligent, but somewhat troubled. I wish this weren't the case - I don't like to think about it too hard, because I do not like to think about him being unhappy. At the same time he frustrates me, because I feel some of his problems are self-inflicted.

3) I am the eldest child. If you met me, this would not come as a surprise.

4) I have shoulder length curly hair. I spent a good 15 years of my life wilfully denying the true nature of my hair, resulting in some truly appalling haircuts, including the 'mini-curtains' with shaved back and sides.  Now, I live in peace with my hair, and I hardly ever have frizz.

5) Rain is still my enemy though.

6) I would rather be deaf than blind, if I had to choose. I think. 

7) Living without music does not appeal.

8) But living without easy access to literature AND not being able to see anything else would be worse.

9) I was obsessive about music as a teen. I still am, in a 'music trivia geek' way, but I don't think its possible to be as obsessive about things as an adult as you are as a teen. I felt sorry for my friends who weren't obsessed with anything back then. And, no, I don't think boys, or your weight, count.

10) Talking of when I was a teen, my first boyfriend was 11 years older than me. Don't think badly of him - I basically stalked him into going out with me.

You Know What Annoys Me?

My inability to write a blog post without leaving in 20 spelling/grammar mistakes, that's what. I mean, come on! I write for a living - I know the rules! I know that if you want to reference the house in which both your mother and father live, you don't call it your 'parent's house'. Bloody hell!

Laziness and sloppiness is all it is. I don't even run the posts through spell-check, let alone read them through in a proof-readery manner. I am SO BAD, SO LAZY AND SLOPPY, that I am writing this at half past two in the afternoon. That's right. I'm writing it at work. Rather than writing my behind-schedule report on pregnant women in prison.

Sigh. And I probably won't even check that when it's finished either.

Part The Second

11) I'm a big old liberal. I'm 'pro-' all the usual stuff - abortion rights, stem-cell research, gay marriage blah di blah. Of course, living in the UK, these things aren't 'big' issues, the way they are in the US. For which I'm very grateful - it means I don't have to be a single issue voter when election time comes around.

12) That might sound like a swipe at the US . But another thing you should know about me is that I LOVE the US. If I don't make it for a holiday there at least once every two years I get grumpy. However, I do think its odd that the U.S. is (rightly) proud of being, in name, a meritocratic republic, but also seems to totally be in thrall to political dynasties I mean, I've got a lot of time for Bill n' Hill, but if the list of White House incumbents 1990-2010 ends up reading Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton? Please - it's like 'the divine right of the rich/well-connected to rule'. America deserves better.

13) I have a big (extended) family, and I'm a big family person. I'm very content with peace and quiet, but I love the sound of 30 people shouting over each other, laughing, running round after kids, and telling me I should just grow my hair long for heaven's sake!. That's Christmas, Easter, and any other special occasion at my parent's house.

14) I've been with my boyfriend for two years, and lived with him for one. And that's all I have to say about that.

15) Oh! Except that he says I infantilise him but calling him baby names. Which is true. But if he let me have an ACTUAL baby, then he wouldn't get all my frustrated maternal love.

16) I love red wine, the bigger and more tannic the better. I'm the only person I know who likes Pinotage - especially the ones that taste like petrol and cigarettes. White wine - bruck! It's just for girls!

17) I love actual cigarettes too. I used to hear people say 'I wish I'd never started', and I didn't get it because, you know, why not just stop? But I know better now - when I finally do make quitting stick, I'll miss cigarettes for the rest of my life. Doesn't that suck? NOW I wish I'd never started.

18) I think all drugs should be legalised. At least, I do most of the time.

19) The thing is, the older I get, the more 'pliable' I get. I find other's arguments more persuasive, and I can argue with myself more persuasively too. By the time I'm 40, I will have no opinions left at all.

20) I have never lost a game of Trivial Pursuits (at least since I reached the age of majority).