Just in time...

Right as I was considering running away from it all I saw this.

Thanks Miss J. It was your fb profile that I found it on.

Pictures that will restore your faith in humanity

Earthquake

Yesterday there was an earthquake that shook Melbourne.  All very exciting.

The concerning thing is that I felt my chair shake, and thought 'oh dear, I think I'm having a seizure'. Then I thought 'actually, I doubt this is what a seizure feels like. Maybe I've just finally gone mental'.

Everyone else I know thought 'oh my God the earth is swallowing us'. Brilliant. Instead of jumping to the obvious conclusion (earthquake), I assume I've got brain troubles.

The weirdest part is, after the chair stopped shaking, I thought 'oh good' and kept doing what I was doing. That's right, I assume I've had a brain-hop and once it ends I happily continue with what I'm doing.

Anyway, it was less dramatic than it sounds. A friend over the other side of Melbourne had some cookie boxes fall over in the cupboard. Another friend seemed sad that none of his stuff toppled (although I suspect he'd be like me and wouldn't be able to tell).

As Hawm said, it was just a tremor. Nothing to see or feel here.

How to tell someone not to text you again

How do you tell someone to stop texting you? Don't send them a lame error message. Do it properly. Unless you're under 15, in which case an error message is legit.

A year or two ago I met a guy at a birthday party. He was a bit odd but he was quite nice and we talked for maybe 10 minutes. Mr G left to go to the bathroom, and I got up to leave as well and the guy asked for 'our' number. I gave mine to him. I figured maybe he'd text if he was around the Brunswick area with our mutual friend or something.

Anyway, he started to text me regularly. And they weren't your average text. They always gave me detailed information about what he was doing. I gave some dull responses then just stopped responding because the texts were getting weirder and weirder. Eventually they stopped. Then yesterday I got another one. Finally I decided to harden up and just tell him to stop texting me. I considered saying 'I met you once, for a short time over a year ago. That does not make us friends. FUCK OFF, you're being weird.'

Instead I went for: Hey, sorry but I'd really prefer it if you deleted my number. Thanks.

That's where a normal person would delete the number. It's awkward sending those messages. I wasn't happy doing it, but all social conventions had been ignored and to be honest, as a librarian, I know enough socially awkward people.

Instead of just leaving me alone, he wrote back asking "So do you remember who I am? I will delete your number if you are asking the right person". He told me his name and described where we met (he threw in Mr G's name for good measure). I spent ages wondering if it was worth writing back. After deciding that I was old enough to be able to deal with this, I texted: Yes, I do have the right person.

Case closed. He hasn't texted back, and I really hope he doesn't. I also hope I never have to see him again. Why hasn't someone pulled him up on this kind of thing? A friend of mine who also attended the party says he's done this to quite a few people - so why haven't his friends explained the finer points of social interaction to him?

What else should I have done? I'm not sure if I could have gone about it a better way. I probably could have been kinder, but I'm not sure how.

Brave enough to use an oven

I've been baking! I think Hawm is psychically influencing me.

First I made a huge chicken, leek and bacon pie. It was AMAZING. It's pretty hard to mess up pie, but this really was a winner. Unfortunately I was using the Miss A cooking system, so I can't replicate the pie because I have no idea how much of what I put in.

Then I made gingerbread men. Miss M gave me some lovely cookie cutters - men with bites taken out of them. I was a tad nervous since I've only eaten gingerbread three times, but they went really well. I had a lot of problems rolling the dough out to the same thickness, and it was really sticky and kept clinging to the baking paper. I used more flour but I'm pretty sure my problems would have been solved if I'd used measuring cups. I know full well that I can't judge how much half a cup is. No clue.

I feel like after all the baking (and eating), I should write a bit about this morning. I had a lovely session with Sam. For the first half we did the usual running and body weight stuff. Then he made me do real weights for ages before the boxing in the hope that I'd tire my arms out a bit. It's actually very cute, he gets frustrated because I punch too hard. Who would have thought I'd finally find my sport and it would be something so feral. From ballet to boxing.

Anyway, despite the arm work, we did 400 quick and hard punches in a row. Jabs and uppercuts - I've never done that many in one go before. Almost killed me. Plus, he kept yelling at me, telling me to concentrate and lift my arms higher. Then we did some random combinations he thought up. That was fun until I came close to punching him (by accident - I wasn't concentrating).

Then I wrote a lit review and got caught dancing around the lounge room, brandishing a mixing bowl, to Big Audio Dynamite. All in all, it was an excellent day.