Lost the will to Live Blog

It's not funny.


Some small changes at home have made it a tad more difficult to Blog.(the machine of Satan is now quietly isolated in a corner, making it easy for my Beloved to see any inappropriate use) NOTE: Inappropriate is deemed to be ANY use that is not directly involved with:

• Checking and adjusting our joint bank account.
• Sending/receiving emails from close friends and family.
• Searching for special offers on hotels and travel. (The UK is being talked about again for Christmas. *sigh, grits teeth against cold, wet weather*)
• Checking what swimming options are available for our joint enjoyment.
• Checking our local library for new books and the availability of reserved books.

Anything else is deemed frivolous, and hence detrimental to my mental/emotional health.

In addition, life has been ticking along nice and quietly.
My classes are all behaving nicely, and I've prepared all the resources for the next few weeks.  But all this preparation has meant I've little spare time, plus the fact that one of my colleagues, a solidly dependable teacher and a man of great wit and erudition, had a mild heart attack and is off work for at least the next 2 weeks.  I don't begrudge him his essential rest, but it means I've got extra work to do to make sure his classes have work.

So a great feeling of fatigue and ennui enveloped me like an old sock, impervious to all environmental factors, but mildly comforting. 
All my passion was spent. 
What on Earth was the point?

Saved

Then I was saved.

I was saved by the curious combination of a Woman's Magazine and Ringo.

Ringo; because he's Ringo, and manages to keep me at a low boil of restrained venom almost every day.
The Woman's Magazine (Mindfood; which my Beloved gets free from a friend.  At least I think we get it free.  If we're actually paying the advertised price of $6.00 for this piece of hyper-annoying crap, then blood will flow)

I should hurriedly point out that the Magazine was ONLY picked up and read because it was sitting in the reading matter basket in our toilet, and I absent mindedly picked it up whilst communing with Nature.

A different communing with Nature

I expected the usual stuff; knitting patterns, recipes, crosswords, emotionally-over-the-top short story, adverts for stair-lifts and bath-elevators, horoscopes, crosswords and of course, the Problem Page.  Every guy I know has a read at the Problem Pages at least once.  It gives us a glimpse into the confused and bewildering concept that is the female mind.  Just once or twice I would like to be able to predict what it is my Beloved is going to do.  It would be a pleasant change.

However, back to the Magazine.  It didn't have a Problem Page!.  It had pages and articles about problems, but not an actual page of Women expressing their innermost feelings and desires to the whole world.

What it had was pages and pages of health advice.

All of this advice was of the alternative variety.  It seemed to be concentrated into three main areas.

1. Uses of Herbs and Native Plants (Weeds)
2. Uses of Crystals
3. Uses of Aromatherapy using selected Herbs, Oils and Native Plants (Smelly weeds)

Ahhh.

This was more like it.

I could feel my blood (primed to a low level roil by Ringo) come to an immediate and explosive boil.

Crystals?

How the f*ck can a piece of minerals, even arranged in a planar or multi-planar matrix such as a crystalline structure, effect anything except the photons passing through it.  Is it mind altering? No. Mood altering? No. Wallet altering? Yes.  They're expensive.

Mind you I do remember a teacher in my old school in Scotland who used crystals to help her in class management.  She used to hang dozens of these things at carefully calculated distances (I actually don't know what she used to calculate.  Phases of the Moon? High and Low Tides? Menstruation Frequencies? Who knows.)  She used to boast (quietly) in the staffroom about her "New Age" class management techniques, and we all just nodded dumbly.

Tight sweaters have an effect

We knew the real secret.  This lady was what we used to call "amply bosomed".  She had a stupendous figure, and also a predilection to wearing tight angora sweaters with a V neck.  The effect (especially on the senior boys) was awesome.  Anytime you passed her classroom, you could see the eyes tracking them around the room.  it was hypnotic, and bugger-all to do with crystals, and a lot to do with hardwired Biology.  (We theorised that she also kept the non-gay girls in control because she also represented a warm, fuzzy and cuddly Mother equivalent)

And then we reach the piece-de-resistance.

Aromatherapay (Misspelling deliberate)

More anon.