Glutenous

Before I worked out that gluten is not my friend, I was 20+ kilos heavier, tired all the time, constantly feeling like I was coming down with a cold, achy, prone to mouth ulcers and experienced frequent abdominal pains (I shan't go into detail regarding the bowel movements, but they weren't optimal). However, that was normal, so it seemed okay.

Now I know better, but I also know that I can get away with *small* amounts of things I shouldn't eat. The only problem is, I rarely know if I've eaten too much until several hours later. Then the discomfort that used to be "normal" becomes quite noticeable and somwehat inconvenient.

So when I'm going to go somewhere where I know I'll want to eat many things I shouldn't be eating, I'm faced with a bit of an awkward choice:

A) I could try to stick to a "good" diet as much as possible, splurge occasionally, then pay for the splurge with accute discomfort, OR

B) I can just eat stuff I shouldn't eat all the time, and try to zone out chronic discomfort. (In preparation for this, I start eating wheaten things a few weeks in advance, so I'm good and "normalised" before I go. It's delicious, but I feel like crap.)

I've done both in the past. They both suck. But I wasn't going to go to Europe and not eat the pretzels in Germany or the pizza in Italy. And I'm not going to go to the UK and not eat the pasties in Cornwall.

Pedestrian

I sometimes wonder about the pedestrians in this town. Apart from the fact that most of them can't walk in a straight line to save themselves, they act like they've never seen a bike before in their lives.

When you ring your bell coming up behind them (to warn them that randomly wandering from one side of the path to the other is temporarily a bad idea), they get this look come over them as if they're thinking:

"A bell? I'm almost sure I heard a bell. But what could possibly make that sound? Why am I hearing a bell on a bike path?"

And they slow down and start drifting across the path in the direction a bike is most likely to pass them.

And then get get incredibly startled, and sometimes downright cranky, when a bike "suddenly" overtakes them.

It's bizarre. I know they know it's a bike path, because everyone in town calls all of the off-street paths "bike paths". And that does indicate that bikes might use the path. Also, bikes use the paths all the time, and when they overtake people without using a bell, they shake their fists at the bikes and mutter things about "use your *bleeping* bell, you bleeping beep!" under their breath.

Or really loudly.

But when you do use a bell to give them plenty of warning, I'd say about half the pedestrians I encounter are just thoroughly confused.

The remaining half is split between people who seem offended that you would have the audacity to ding a bell at them (but they look like the kind of people who would be offended by the fact that you exist and are on a bike), and people who step neatly to one side, let you pass, and then go back to wandering aimlessly across the path.

I like the last group. They're pretty neat. Occasionally, one of them will even give you a cheery wave and say "thanks!" for giving them the heads-up. Those are my favourite people.

I've just ridden to work for the first time from my new place, by the way, and while I still have a few kinks to work out with the route, and will have to work with a few more hills than I'm used to, I'd say the experience is O.K.

Which is good, because one of the reasons why I bought this house was because it's close enough to ride to work.

A bad day, by all accounts

Yesterday was not a good day for my cat. It started with someone locking her in a room while strange men walking in and out of the house making noises - and when she was let out half the furniture had disappeared.

Then someone came back and vacuumed the area where the furniture once was.

Then someone tried to put her in a box to take her to the vet (she knew) - and then that someone got really cranky that she (the cat) clawed her way up over her shoulder and down her back to escape from the dreaded box, and chased her around the house yelling at her for a bit.

And then she still ended up in the box, and was taken to the vet.

She hadn't forgiven me by the time I had to leave.

Mind you, those scratch marks hurt for hours, so I hadn't forgiven her either.

Things given

I've recently bought a house (Yay! Finally!) and I'm in the process of moving all of my many, many, many belongings into the darn thing. It turns out I have a lot of stuff. Some of it isn't even mine.

Actually, quite a lot of it isn't mine. It turns out that my family has been waiting for this opportunity for years, and have been holding on to various things with the ultimate goal of "one day giving it to Sharon".

This is nice... I guess. Only it means that I'm stuck with a slight dilemma: What do you do when you have something that is perfectly good, does exactly what you need it to do, and was given to you by someone you love and respect... but isn't what you want?

Many years ago, when I was a child, my mother and grandmother collected a dinner set for me. It was a promotional thing by some grocery store, and shopping trip by shopping trip they collected an entire 8 piece set of plates, saucers, cups and the like. It's an okay set. The bowls are too small for cereal, but okay for dessert. That's really my only legitimate complaint.

Only it's really boring. If you had put me in a room of place settings and said "pick one you like", I probably wouldn't even notice this set was in the room.

What I would do, given the choice, would be to run around the room and pick six or eight different patterns (with actual patterns) and get a complete single setting in each (dinner plate, bread-and-butter, saucer, bowl, teacup...). Then I'd keep myself amused for months by flitting between the different patterns every time I ate something.

I'd like a whole bunch of different interesting patters. Like this one I saw in a shop a few weeks ago:

You may notice it's not white.

Personally, white plates aren't my cup of tea - they're not what I'd choose for myself. But now I have a perfectly good white dinner set (a whole 8 settings' worth) that was lovingly collected for me (by two people whom I love and admire), and diligently kept aside for me for decades. Literally, decades. There's a lot of love in those boring plates.

My mother also decided to celebrate the purchase of my new house by buying me a new cutlery set, meaning the set I've had in storage for years (and was kind of hoping to use one day) is now redundant.

I feel ungrateful and churlish for complaining about these things. I have something that I need, that I didn't even have to pay for. There's nothing wrong with any of it. Heck, the cutlery set is better than the one I brought back with me from Tasmania.

It's just not really "mine", you know?

Buddhist philosophy would say my problem is wanting stuff. If I didn't want something with a pattern (or a bunch of patterns, as the case may be), then I would realise that I have everything I need and much more besides. And then I would look at my plates and utensils and realise that it's foolish to think anything could ever really be "mine" anyway. Solomon would probably agree with that.

But still... I want the pretty plates. But I don't need any plates. Aren't I lucky to have such pointless problems?

As for the stuff my uncle has been keeping for me, well that's a whole 'nother post.

Words of power and positivity

You sometimes hear about people who receive messages from God. They talk about how, when they needed it the most, they felt certain words spoken to them deep in their soul that seemed so powerful, it was almost as if they heard them out loud - even though they didn't. They know that no one actually said those words with a human voice, and yet the words were spoken. They were deep and personal and for them, and they made the difference in a situation.

I don't know how many people have been fortunate enough to experience this for themselves. For all I know, everyone gets this at least once in their lives.

About 12 years ago, it happened to me. It was a message that I really needed to hear, and it was spoken to me with a real power and meaning. It was also something I wouldn't have thought of telling myself at the time - a real revelation - but I've been trying to remember this message ever since, and every time I do I feel it's making my life better, and making me a better person.

Those words?

"Don't take it personally. You're not that special."

Now, you might think that sounds negative. Perhaps, in some circumstances, it might be. But it was true, and I needed to hear it. And it has made a really positive change in my life.

When I was a teenager I was diagnosed with clinical depression. I personally believe that the doctor (who was, as it turns out, a complete quack) latched onto a symptom and called it the condition. What I actually had was at least one undiagnosed food intolerance and a bad case of puberty. However, depressive episodes and depressive symptoms were something I had at the time, and continued to have on and off for the next decade or so.

I haven't had any real trouble with this for a while now, at least partly because I've learnt to regard depression as a symptom and a culmination of other factors, and I try to figure out what's triggering it and do something about the cause, rather than the effect. No, that's not an easy thing. And no, not everyone will be in the same boat and be able to do the same thing in the same way. We each walk our own path through the swamp. I may talk more about this later.

The thing about depression is it's part of a spiral that is continually feeding itself. It completely alters the way you see the world, and then the way you see the world makes you feel more depressed. And so forth, and so on, down the tunnel you go.

I had fallen into a habit of asking "why is this happening?" which morphed into "why is this happening to me?" So every time something happened that I felt was unfair, unlucky or just plain unpleasant, I was seeing it as a personal attack. So after a while, if I encountered something inconvenient, I felt it was something that the universe was doing specifically to inconvenience me.

Imagine you're walking along a rough path that has a few potholes and is covered with crud. What I was doing with my attitude was basically assuming that the potholes were there specifically so I would fall into them, and that the crud was placed there so I'd have to encounter it. And by letting this attitude foster, I was essentially picking up every piece of crud and carrying it all with me as I walked through the potholes expecting to trip and make a mess of everything.

With that in mind, think about that message again: "Don't take it personally. You're not that special."

The crud isn't put there for me, it's just there. The potholes aren't part of a test to pass or fail, just a bunch of obstacles - mostly unconnected obstacles at that.

I realised I was imagining a higher purpose to the challenges I faced because I believed I was more special than I actually was. God isn't trying to test me, prove my worth or express His displeasure. I'm not the hero of a story; I'm just a person living a life. I have no reason to expect a better life, so I have no reason to take disappointments personally. I'm not owed a better hand. The only test I have to face is how to play the best game I can with the cards I've been dealt.

I'm not that special. We're all walking this path. It's a pretty rubbish path. That's neither here nor there. That's life. Realising this was the most liberating and positive thing that has ever happened to me.

I still have to remind myself of this on a semi-regular basis. I still find myself responding to a disappointment, an inconvenience, a failure or an obstacle as if it was placed directly in my path specifically to mess with my head. But I tell myself, "You're not that special, princess", and I feel a bit better about the world. And I feel a lot better about myself.

Lawn Bowls 6s - the new game sweeping the nation

Ages ago, when I was habitually rabbiting on about lawn bowls, I mentioned that there should be a cut-down version to enable people who work for a living to take up competitive bowls in the evening.

I suggested a "Thirteen13" version in response to the idea of lawn bowls equivalent of Twenty20 cricket, but I've since thought better of it.

I want to propose a game called "Lawn Bowls 6s." (Or "Lawn Bowls Sixes", if you think the use of numbers instead of words is too gauche).

How does it work? I'm so glad you asked.

There are two teams in a game. Each team has 6 bowls, and each game has 6 ends. It doesn't matter how many people are playing - each team simply has six bowls per end, and they can divvy them up amongst the team members however they like.

The teams will alternate for each bowl, rather than the players. So the first team (let's call them Team A) will bowl once, then Team B will have a turn, and then it's back to Team A again. And so forth and so on. It doesn't matter if you're first, second, skip or whatever.

In theory, this means any team could play any other team, as it really doesn't matter who bowls what, as long as the teams bowl alternately and every member of the team bowls at least once. A team consisting of 2 people could face off against a team of 6, if that's the way the draw works. There can be an element of tactics to this as well, as a team can give their best bowler some extra bowls. "Pinch hitting" will be entirely possible.

The team with the most points at the end of the sixth end wins the game.

A match will consist of four teams playing against each other. Initially, a random draw decides which teams will face off against each other first. The winners of the first games will play against each other for the second game of the match, and the losers of the first game will play against each other. Each team is awarded a point for the number of games they have won.

This means that each match results in one team winning 2 points, two teams winning 1 point and one team winning no points. The points will tally towards a league table.

A local 6s League Season will operate for a number of weeks (let's say 12, just because it's a multiple of 6), and then the teams at the top of the table will battle it out for a premiership pendant (lawn bowls is all about the bling, after all).

The top two teams from each local league (based on points) will go on to compete in a postseason elimination round to find the best four teams in the country, who will then compete for the national titles. I may have stolen this bit from Major League Baseball, but baseball is awesome, so that's okay.

What makes this idea worth taking up is that:

1. People who work full time and can't make it to games during the day (which is currently when most clubs - at least in regional towns - hold competitions) will be able to go to a bowls club at night and be able to play a couple of games that actually mean something (nice and satisfying).
2. By being more suitable for the young(ish) and busy, it will provide a gateway for a new generation of bowlers to take up the sport. As things stand (at least where I live), lawn bowls seems to be this strange cult where current members lie in wait for retirees and try to recruit them. That's great for the retirees, but not so good for making sure the clubs remain viable. Which leads me to:
3. The league format opens up options for having more people using the clubs and the facilities. A club could easily have a Tuesday Night League and a Thursday Night League, which means people who can't make it on Tuesday might come on Thursday. This means more people will be coming through the doors, buying memberships and purchasing beverages and food. This can only be a good thing for clubs that are struggling to make the facilities pay their way.

Now all I need to do is find some bowls clubs who are willing to take a punt and start the first league(s). That's the part where my plan falls down a bit, frankly.

It's a bit cheesy

I have a chequered history with cheese.

When I was younger, I didn't mind the odd piece of cheese in something like a ploughman's lunch or the like (possibly for the texture, more than the taste), but I never particularly liked it as an ingredient.*

It wasn't too bad if it was melted, but otherwise it just tasted, well, too cheesy.

Whenever I ordered sandwiches or salads I would ask for "no cheese"... but people just kept putting cheese on it anyway, so I just got used to having cheese in everything.

And then, eventually, it seemed normal.

Then there was the Blue Cheese Incident. While I eventually adjusted to having cheese in everything (whether I wanted it there or not), I always hated blue cheese. I thought it tasted like some kind of weird fungal infection. This was probably rather accurate, seeing as blue cheese actually is some kind of weird fungal infection.

Then, one day, back when I was living in Tasmania, I was invited to a cheese tasting event. It sounded like fun, but it turned out that this was actually some market research by the local cheese factory who wanted feedback on their line of blue cheeses. They had their own blue cheeses, but also the blue cheeses of their competitors for comparison.

So I was essentially locked in a room and force fed seven varieties of blue cheese over the course of an hour. Of course, I wasn't actually "locked" in the room or "forced" to eat the cheese, but it would have been terribly impolite to run from the building shouting "keep your weird fungal infections to yourself, you swine!"  Plus, I had been given a lift by someone who was there having a lovely time, so I stuck it out.

By the end of it, I actually kind of liked blue cheese. And yet, I didn't. It's like I knew it was horrible, but ate it for the challenge of surviving the horribleness of it all. Just like I enjoy eating super-sour kumquats for the sake of feeling like I've been kicked in the head by a mule.

Hey, I never said I was sensible.

But I've discovered an interesting thing about cheese lately - it's an acquired taste that can be unacquired.

After I lost my gall bladder (well, after I treated it so badly I had to have it removed), I started looking at my diet a bit more closely and decided that I didn't need to consume dairy. It's not like I'm a baby cow.**

And after a year of not eating cheese, that tolerance that I had built up for the taste of it has gone. Now it just tastes, well, too cheesy. I have a taste of the stuff every now and then, and it seems like every time I taste it I'm less and less impressed by the flavour.

And I've discovered something most intriguing - I actually prefer the taste of traditionally cheese covered things without the cheese. At first, eating pizza without cheese seemed a bit odd, but now I like it better that way. Even when I have a "just go for it" day when I order food I shouldn't eat because my innards don't respond well to such things, I'll still order pizza without cheese because it tastes better that way.

I like tacos better without cheese in them. I like jacket potatoes better without sour cream and cheese on top. Once, I would have wondered what the point of that was - now I order it on purpose.

It's a strange thing. But then, when you think about cheese, that's a pretty strange thing anyway.



*With the exception of Kraft singles, but I'm pretty sure that's not really cheese.
**I'll thank you to let that comment stand without any feedback, if you please. No comments from the peanut gallery.

Tattoo Dreaming

I had a dream last night.

I dreamt that I finally plucked up the courage to go and get one of the tattoo designs I've been umm-ing and ah-ing about actually etched on my body.

I have two designs I'm particularly thinking of. One is the barn swallow design I've mentioned before, the other is an Estonian word (reisija) that probably warrants a post of its own.

Both are quite small, and reasonably "classy".

However, while (in my dream) I went to get one of those tattoos, I somehow managed to come back with something that was neither small, nor particularly "classy".

In my dream, I ended up getting my entire upper-arm covered in a giant tattoo of Tigger kitted out as an old leather-head style gridiron player. Similar (but not identical) to this:

Kind of awesome, really, but not exactly what I've been toying with having.

I woke up straight after that thinking, "What the hell, Subconscious?!?"

Absent minded something or other...

One of the troubles I've had recently with keeping these blog posts, well, posting, is the fact that I keep forgetting what I want to write about.

I'll have a great idea for a potential post (and by "great", I mean "something is always better than nothing"), but then the rest of my day happens, and by the time I have an opportunity to actually sit down and put pen to paper (figuratively speaking), I've completely forgotten what it was.

I sit, staring at the computer, for a moment or two, trying to will myself to reproduce at least one of the ideas I've had for a post recently to come back into my mind so that I may keep my many (*cough*) fans up to date with the random ramblings that fall out of my brain...

But unfortunately they all appear to have fallen out completely, and I'm left with very little.

In the end, I'm stuck with two sentences about cheese, or something, and wondering why I ever thought I could write coherently about anything at all.

The good news is, it's not just thoughts about what I could be doing for my hobbies that I keep forgetting - I also forget about what I should be doing for work.

I know what I need/want to do, right up until the point where I sit at my desk. And then...

I always used to joke about being an absent minded professor when I grew up.  I used to say I've got the absent mindedness bit down pat, and just needed to work on my academic qualifications.

It turns out that my absentmindedness still had a lot of room for development.

Keeping up appearances

Well, that's an interesting range of numbers.

Last year I only managed to post 10 blog posts to this here blog (and only a smattering on my other blog, too).

That's certainly a drop from the heights of 2011, when I published 169 posts. It's the smallest number of posts since, well, forever.

On the one hand, it's because I just haven't gotten my act together to write much this past year. I'm not sure why - in theory I'm not as busy as I have been previously, when I was studying two degrees simultaneously and working at the same time...

And there have also been a number of posts I started writing, but just never finished. And then I never really saw a reason to bother finishing them...

I guess my head just hasn't been in the game.

Still haven't found what I'm looking for...

So, I've been looking for a property of my very own for quite some time now, and I haven't found anything that I'm willing to pay for.

I very nearly did - I put an offer on a house and was accepted and everything - but then the building and pest inspection came back with a few problems, and I said to myself "I don't want to buy those problems", so I didn't.

I have a slight problem with this whole "buying a house" thing, in which I keep thinking meaningful thoughts about money, and it makes everything much less attractive.

My standards with this, as they are in most things in life, are too high.

I want a house that looks and feels like a nice place to live, that doesn't have any major structural damage, which would be practical for my life style and have good connections to work so that I'm not actively discouraged from riding to work occasionally.  Oh, and I'd like it in a neighbourhood that does not appear to have anyone running a chop-shop or a drug den in the street.

I'd also like it to have enough space in the yard so that I wouldn't feel like owning a pet would be cruel and unnatural punishment for the poor animal.

It all seems straight forward, until I realise that I'm going to have to compromise on something in order to fit in with my budget.  Then I spiral into a pool of self-doubt and constant questioning.

Do I want to compromise on the condition of the house and fix it up?  Do I have the money for that?  Do I want to compromise on the proximity to work?  Do I want to compromise on the size of the yard?  If I'm compromising on the size of the yard anyway, do I even want a house, or should I get a unit or townhouse where my money will give me more bang for my buck?  Do I want to spend that kind of money on a unit? In this town, where units are almost impossible to sell?

And should I be looking at something just because I can afford it, or hold out for something that feels like home?

So I find myself stuck in a loop where I question my very existence and end up asking myself "why do I even want a house/unit anyway" (I can't remember if I ever had a good answer for that), "do I want to tie myself to this town by buying it here" (sometimes yes, sometimes no), "is anything I look at worth that kind of money and being in debt for so long" (hell no)...

... and somehow that keeps dragging me down to "what do I want out of life" to which my answer is, maddeningly, "I don't know, I've never known, and whenever I ask myself that question I start feeling pointless and adrift in life, so stop asking already."

Part of me would like to just say "seeya, suckers!" take the money I've saved for a deposit and go buy a caravan to live an itinerant life.  Or a cabin in the woods - in Estonia.

Part of me is saying "but what will become of you? What will you be when you grow up?  Will you ever grow up?"

I don't know the answers to these questions.  All I know is I don't want to buy a crappy house for the sake of buying a house. And I don't want to put myself into so much debt that I have no freedom to do anything, just for the sake a buying a non-crappy house.

And yet, part of me is just longing for a place that is genuinely "mine" - somewhere that I can fix things or change things based on how I think they should be.  The way I'm feeling at the moment, though, it will be a long, long time before I get that.