Mummy said: "Don't go to school"

It's been a little while since my last attempt at blogging on here. I've been sort of caught up in life, well more like laziness has taken over again. BUT I'm fighting back! There's a little note on my desktop which tells me to write two blogs a week... minimum. So this is number one. (By the way, don't any of you try to hold me to doing the twice-weekly blogs, if I don't feel like doing something I don't tend to do it - the Taurean in me!)

Okay, so I've been a bit cheeky and got around the whole two blogs a week by having one blog which is about what I will be doing :-/ Oh dear! But really everybody should be quite proud that I've bypassed my laziness and even been able to sit here and write one about bypassing my laziness...
This new found chic, sleek me - like Daffy Duck - is down to some conversations I've had with friends over the weekend. I was bemoaning about my existence/life etc as usual. The sad thing is that this wasn't something they were hearing for the first time. They've pretty much been hearing it on and off for the past year-and-a-half (poor sods!). Though it does have to be said moaning and being melodramatic about a situation has been pretty much my thinking since the first day I was supposed to go to school, only to wake up and say to my mum: "No, please don't send me to school. I don't feel well". And my mum being my mum, despite not being educated to a "high" standard used her classic reverse psychology on me, which was to say: "Okay, don't go. Stay in bed. You'll fall behind then".

Instantly I would get my chubby cheeks out of bed, still with a miserable face anyhow. Pretty much like that little picture of me on the right. That's the little drama that we played all the way through to even college pretty much.

But now I'm 25 years old, and it's pretty hard to keep doing that - I've finally cottoned onto the little game. And Mum's weary of her job too so we both just wish we'd have a duvet day. I think they only thing that ever stops either of us is the innate part of our personality which doesn't like to let anyone down, or be seen to be liars.

So in a way the whole idea of this blog starts with Mum's reverse psychological tactics. We did it for long enough, so I must be able to carry on for a while!

Until next time. daffaduck.blogspot.com

x <3 x

Facebook

You're reading this, but the second tab you have open is duh-duh-duh... FACEBOOK. Do I have psychic abilities that I am able to tell that you are on there? Well, not really. It's more a case of I have it open too. Not as my second tab I might add, but my third... I like to be a little different.

FB - as I like to call it, sometimes Arsebook if I'm feeling guilty about it - is the "social networking site" that has taken over all the others, and proved itself as being the best. But I'm frustrated with it now. There used to be a time when I would quite happily spend hours on FB (yes I have admitted that in a public forum). I would browse friends of friends list, just hoping to see an open profile that I could peek into, calling the Facebooker stupid for leaving it open with their dodgy pictures. Ah, those voyeuristic days - reading people's wall comments, piecing together the life and gossip of people I didn't want to add. I even used to check up on my other half, which caused a few arguments with mis-read wall messages, due to not being able to read the other side of the conversation as there were some clever sausages who had restricted their privacy settings already.

I even enjoyed the status stories - they were amusing. But slowly, a dislike for FB has set in. Not because of the issues surrounding people stealing your identity - I couldn't give a shit about that, especially as we now have biometric passports, and we're the most heavily CCTV'd nation in the world. But because the same people update their status, and their Facebook practically every couple of hours. They are so insanely into Arsebook that they even do it from their mobiles! Am I the only one that thinks the trend has passed now? Should we not dedicate our time back to meeting our mate's down the pub, instead of sitting around poking them?

I'm also getting sick of grammatically incorrect status updates. Okay, I give people a little leeway - sometimes you mistype, or you're not very good with apostrophes etc. But I watch them (well not watch, more like they keep popping up on my FB home page) and they keep making the same mistakes repeatedly. Or worse than the grammatical errors, I've seen people start having status fights - what the hell is that about? I don't want to know about some scummy girl from school who I didn't even like back then talking about how small her ex's dick is.

Hmm. I've noted a little contradiction there - I can't claim to have liked that voyeurism before, and now despise it. Maybe it's like a lover, you need time away from them to appreciate how much you enjoy it.

So bye bye FB for a while.

Writing

For my job I have to read other fantastic writers every day; subbing them and re-packaging them for the magazine I work for. I sit in wonderment at how they manage to write over 1,000 words of great prose. In my head I hope that I can achieve that, but I suffer from a certain problem that hinders me - laziness.

I think I've always loved the romantic idea of being a writer sitting in my study, smoking a skinny cigarette, looking out at the sea and just whiling away my time. But the discipline and the words escape me - so how do I rectify something which has been a feature of my personality for so long?

Every time I think I'm heading down the right road when it comes to writing something will come along and bite me in the arse. But I'm getting weary of the fight. You have people who are sons or son-in-laws of the top dog and they get promoted left, right and centre. Then there are people who are seemingly talentless, but because they fill a political agenda they're chosen over people who aren't filling that agenda. Why oh why does it have to be like this?

Smack! Snap out of it lady! The world does not owe you a living. You have to go out there and fight every step of the doggone way, especially if you feel this is your path in life. If it isn't then get off the dusty road, and let someone else's cart trundle on by. <-- That was my sister's voice, superimposed with mine!

So I guess I'm heading back to the cage to fight again. This time I'm hoping I'll be like Ed Norton's character in Fight Club and kick good, solid ass.

There's something shiny I can see on the floor... let me go and investigate................

Spit or swallow... that is the question?

Do you spit it out or do you swallow? It’s the age old question and it probably didn’t help that your mum always said that swallowing is bad for you. And because of those myths many of us have probably spent endless years wondering what happened inside our stomachs when we did swallow... Would my intestines get clogged up, and miraculously an organism would grow out of my belly button?

Could swallowing chewing gum (it's not what you think, you dirty people. Okay I admit I misled you a little in my first paragraph on purpose), really make a Wrigley's-shaped tree grow? Having choked on, and swallowed a strawberry flavoured Hubba-Bubba at work, (and heard the boss say: 'You'll have a gum tree growing now') I decided to do some research on this very important topic. I just had to put the swallowing myths to rest.

Wrigley’s say: “Chewing gum has five basic ingredients – sweeteners, corn syrup, softeners, flavours and gum base. The first four ingredients are soluble, i.e. they’ll dissolve in your mouth – probably explains why Hubba Bubba’s lose their flavour after five minutes. The gum base which is the chewy part is the only ingredient that isn’t dissolvable. But if gum is swallowed it will pass through your system pretty much like any other piece of roughage – think sweet corn here, and the gum that freshened your breath will pass through freshening your derriere… well, we could hope.

Though I must add a note of caution, as pointed out by Mr Barnes, from the Clinic of Healthy, Unspoilt Mastication (CHUM): “I think the danger of swallowing is gum is sticky - so if it gets caught in your windpipe it is hard to get out again - and you die.

“Also not all non-dissolvable stuff passes through - it can stay in you belly and cause appendicitis. But the appendicitis thing is based on something a friend's mum told me about biting nails when I was nine, so it may not be true.”

So folks, I think that’s cleared up one old wives’ tale, albeit we’ve probably scared you about choking – neither I, nor the people at CHUM can help you with that.

So carry on swallowing if you do. If you haven't started, I suggest you do.