Notts Dyke

I've recently discovered that there is a word for my fear of dogs - cynophobia. Not that it helps me much, as I'm sure if I told some one I was cynophobic (I'm guessing that's the right word?) they wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about. That's when I think my made up word of caninephobic is a bit easier to understand! Not that many people seem to understand. Whenever I tell people I don't like dogs, the usual response from dog owners is that I can't possibly dislike their little <insert name> etc. That really pisses me off. The only way I can think to explain it, that might make sense, is that most people know what arachnophobia means. So ask a person with arachnophobia woud they enter a room knowing it contained a spider and I'm sure their answer would be a resounding no. Ask me if I would enter a room knowing it contained a dog and my answer would be no too.

One of the things I really dislike about going to Ptown women's week, is the number of dogs that are there. In previous years I've been lucky enough to have one or two good friends who understand and usually help me out, by pointing out approaching canines and standing on the appropriate side to give me a barrier. Unfortunately this year they couldn't make it, so I was back to my own avoidance tactics of crossing the road.

I know it's never going to happen, but I wish now that I know the word, that if I tell somebody I'm cynophobic, that they'll give me the same understanding as they would to someone who told them they're arachnophobic.

My prior experience of booking hotels has always been for one or more nights. The other week, due to my morning flight to Boston being cancelled and being rebooked on the evening flight, that was about to change. Thanks to a friend telling me about it, I learned that there is a hotel at Heathrow terminal 4 (www.yotel.com) that you book by time starting at a minimum of 4 hours. So rather than hanging around the terminal, I booked the hotel for 4 hours. It's got to be the weirdest place I've stayed. They call the rooms cabins and once you get inside you can see why. Room is definately too big a word for the space. Fortuanately I got a cabin where I had to climb up into bed, so the mirror on the opposite wall made the space seem bigger. It was only whilst wondering why I had to climb up to the bed, that I realised that next door's bed was probably at ground level which I'm not sure my claustrophobia would have coped with. The plus points were power sockets and free wi-fi.

And the other new hotel experience that day is how many hotel rooms I booked and paid for in one day.  Three hotels, one not stayed in (Ptown), one for the night (Boston) and one for four hours (Heathrow).  Not an experience I wish to repeat!

I was chatting with a friend at the weekend, and independently we'd both "suddenly" noticed one day last week that it was now dark at 7:30pm. And we'd both concluded with noticing that, that summer was now officially over. Then we talked about a few other things we'd noticed or changed that also meant that summer was over. For example, I've swapped my 4.5tog quilt for my 10.5tog. The question, if going out for the evening, is no longer "Do I need a jacket?", but "Do I need a sweatshirt as well as a jacket?", and the answer is "yes". I can't recall what else we might have thought of, but the worst was central heating. Not switching it permanently on, as that would definately mean winter, but just putting it on for an hour to take the chill off.

So summer is officially over. I just wonder when we'll have the conversation that winter is officially here. I hope it's not for a long time, but I can't help but think that whenever we meet up after the clocks change at the end of October, we'll have a similar conversation and conclude that winter has started.

A couple of the reasons that I like my local pub were because it had a good landlady and very unusually for the UK, it served Budweiser on draught.

A few weeks ago, after I came back from a a couple of weeks away on training courses, I went in the pub and found out that the landlady had left. She left a few years back, and the pub went downhill and only got back to normal when she came back. So I'm hoping that's not the case this time, as I know she's left for good.

But worse news was still to come. I thought I'd pop in for a pint on my way home from work yesterday. Usually the bar staff know what I want and just confirm it with a "pint?", so I was a bit surprised yesterday to be asked what I want. Thats when they told me the bad news - they've stopped selling Bud on draught.

I know I haven't been going in the pub as much as I used to, but with a bottle of Bud being around the same price as a pint was, I'm not sure how often I'll be going back.

The dilemma being - when I go to bed, do I leave the bedroom window open resulting in a cooler room, or closed resulting in a quieter room.  When we had a hot spell (ok, hot for the UK!) a few weeks ago, the answer was a no-brainer.  But since then, it could go either way and I seem to be getting it wrong.  To the extent that a night or two ago, I woke up hot and needing to open the window, then a couple of hours later being woken by some street noise and needing to shut the window to try and get some more sleep before the alarm went off.  On top of this, at the end of last year without any thought of how it would affect window opening, I'd arranged for a blind to be fitted, which has somewhat complicated things.  Last summer, as my bed is in front of the window, I could kneel up in bed, put a hand through the curtains and operate the handle to open/shut the window.  Now, with the blind in place, I have to get out of bed, tilt the blind to open, pull the blind up to over half way, then open/shut the window, lower the blind, tilt to closed, get back into bed.  Which all involves too much thought and action at unearthly hours of the morning!  I could almost wish for air conditioning - until I remembered how many US hotel rooms I've stayed in, that I've got up in the night to turn the damn thing off for being too noisy!

Adjusting time is easy - for a clock!  Rotate a dial and/or press a button or two and the job is done.  If only my internal clock worked the same way.  I've always been a bit of a night owl and somewhat allergic to mornings.  When I lost my job last year, this became more pronounced and although not fully nocturnal in the true sense of the word, I was definately drifting that way.  Bedtime became something AM and getting up became something PM.  So last week meant a major change to all this as it was my first week in my new job.  Getting up early to go to work was about as hard as I'd imagined.  But what surprised me more was that going to bed early was as hard, if not more so.  It's just not right going to bed before midnight!  And with it being a 3 day weekend here in the UK, I've lapsed back into non-work hours, which means I've got to start re-adjusting again tomorrow, er, I mean tonight!

Who knew I had so many dishes to wash?! Three months after ordering and paying for it, my new kitchen eventually got fitted last week. So, time to put everything back in the cupboards. But obviously the sensible thing was to wash everything first. I've never washed so many dishes in my life and due to limited space I had to do it in stages.

I couldn't believe how many glasses I own. But except for a couple of pint jugs which are special in their own way, all my other pint glasses are branded, so I couldn't possibly throw them out. Then there's my half pint glasses. I don't drink halves, but they're all commemorative glasses from when I used to attend the Nottingham Beer Festival, so I couldn't throw them out either.

So now I have new cupboards, containing years old glasses that I'll likely not use often, if at all, but I don't want to part with. I'm sure there's some logic that could/should be applied to this, but so far I'm not seeing it.

Try saying that after a few beers!

Anyway a friend sent me the link for this website. It's a trilogy of books, by an author that I've never heard of before. Even better, the first book of the trilogy is available as a free ebook.

As noted by jrosestar in her post, a lot of the current lesbian fiction books are getting pretty much the same. So I enjoyed reading this one because it was different.

Now I want to read the other two books and have hit a problem. Amazon is selling the other 2 ebooks, but only for Kindle download for $7.99 (list price $9.99). Also listed is Diesel-ebooks, but they only sell it in pdf format for about $11. I buy my ebooks in mobi format as my pda can't "read" pdf books. I know mobipocket can convert pdf, but the formatting isn't always right, so I don't want to pay above the list price for an ebook that when I read it, isn't going to be correctly formatted. The author does say on her website: "I am currently in the process of making all three books available in other e-book formats." So, it looks like I'll have to wait until these are available, before I can complete the trilogy.

Oh well, it was nice to read something a little bit different, even if I have to wait for parts 2 and 3.

When I was growing up my family didn't  hug, so I wasn't familiar with the idea.  I even remember as an adult visiting my dad in hospital and ending up shaking his hand as, as a family we didn't hug etc, so we didn't know what else to do.  Brit reserve and all that!

Thanks to my US friends giving me "lessons" in hugging, I've got a bit more used to the idea, so that I now feel reasonably comfortable hugging friends, even though the instinct doesn't come naturally to me.

Which brings me to last night.  One of the guys that used to work in the office had managed to stay on a few months longer than the rest of us and had his leaving do yesterday.  The main reason I went  to his do was to see the other people who might turn up as I didn't really know this guy that well.  So when I came to leave, it was somewhat of a surprise that this guy gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug. Yack! 

Hugging friends - ok, hugging ex-work colleagues - not ok!

I've been told that my cv should have a "personal interests" section.  There's not a lot I can put in that.  The best I could come up with was "reading, socialising with friends".  And obviously if I ever got to an interview, the "reading" just begs the question "what do you read?".  So do I be blunt and honest and say "I read lesbian fiction", or try for the perhaps slightly more diplomatic "women's fiction"?  Then how hypothetically if I have to generalise does "romance" relate to "women's fiction?"

Just my random (drunken) thoughts for the evening, prompted by a post on Rad's group about "Do you ever get grief for your reading choices".

What is it with the UK and snow?  Ok, I'll admit, it doesn't happen very often, but why does the country grind to a halt?  Usually if  it snows in Nottingham like I thnk it did last year, or maybe the one before, it's washed away by evening.  I think it must be over 10 years ago that I remember having snow staying around.  I can't help but think that countries like Canada, Norway, Sweden etc, cope with snow and their countries don't grind to a halt after a few flakes.  Why don't our people talk to their people and get tips about how to cope with adverse weather? 

Oh well.  At least one advantage of not working, is I don't have to go out in this weather.

What is it about 40?  25 was good, as it meant cheaper car insurance, 30 wasn't a problem, so I don't really understand why 40 would be an issue,  but for some unknown reason, probably because of the hype, I wasn't looking forward to it.  I spoke to a few people about it and got various comments.  "60 is the new 40" - Great!  I'd probably worry about that if I got there anyway, but now I'll potentially worry more!  One of the best comments a week beforehand was from my hairdresser who said that she thought I was going to say 30, not 40, when I mentioned an 0 birthday.  I don't know if she was serious or just being polite, but that made me feel better somehow.  The best comment I got was "It's just another day".  And that's just how it turned out to be.  So I don't know what I worried about after all.  As my friend said it was just another day.

I've got no interest in politics.  I generally think each party is as bad as the other.  I don't know why the US election interested me as UK elections don't.  But because I could, I stayed up into the early hours of a November UK morning to hear that Barack Obama was the President-elect, and then today I watched the tv to see him sworn in as president. 

It's being called a historic moment, and I'm not doubting it is.  But what counts as a historic moment?  Is that something beyond my lifetime, say 50 or 100 years from now?  When does today become history?  When does what happens today become historic?

Happy new year all!  Here's to 2009!

Cheers,
Ruth

If I visit my "local" gay bar in town, I usually get the last bus home as it doesn't stay open late, so I haven't caught a "night bus" since they changed them.  The "new" night buses only run on Friday's and Saturday's and have the number of a day route, preceded by an "N".  So last Friday I ended up bumping into some friends, missing the bus I'd ususally get at midnight, going onto another bar and entering Night Bus territory.  There's two main route numbers that go up the main road near to where I live. so not thinking that the "N" meant anything different I got on the first of the two that turned up.  Mistake!  About a mile or just under from where I'd get off, it took the left fork instead of the normal road.  So a mad scramble to get to the bell and get off the bus, meant I had about a three quarter of a mile walk home.  So much for logic that putting an "N" in front of a main line number meant it went the same route!  But at least now I know that I can only get one night bus home if I'm ever out that late again.  Oh well, it could've been worse, at least it wasn't raining!

I don't think I've ever witnessed an accident before, so it was
a bit of a strange experience tonight. I was driving home from a
friend's house approaching a zebra crossing (do you have them in the
US?) when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and
registered that there was somebody on the crossing so slowed down
even more. It's a humped crossing, so drivers should slow down
anyway, even if there's nobody on the crossing. I hadn't got as far
as the crossing, but the guy coming the other way didn't slow down and
hit the person on the crossing, who I can't swear to but thought
went slightly airborne before hitting the deck in the middle of the
road. I immediately pulled over, but (thankfully for me as I'm
squeamish and hopeless at anything medical), someone else had
reached the casualty first and was already dialling 999 (UK
equivalent of 911). So with people looking after the casualty, I
ended up directing traffic around my car as there was enough space
to pass and hopefully me standing up was a big enough target to
miss, so the main casualty and the people crouched around her
didn't get hit again. The abmulance eventually turned up and the
casualty groaned badly as they tried to get her on the stretcher,
so I was glad I had my back to them so I couldn't see what was
going on. Eventually the police turned up and the first guy put
on his flourescent jacket and just yelled at me from a distance,
to get off the road. I nearly left at that point, but as the
second cop was nearby I asked if it was ok if I left and after
taking my name, address, date of birth, phone number and what,
I'd seen I was ok to go.

So that was my evening. Thanks for letting me rant.

The Jim Beam is going down nicely!

I really should have paid attention to the first word, but being the typical weather absorbed Brit, I just saw "sun". So when the BBC weather site for Fuerteventura (one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa) gave a high of 24C (75F) and a low of 19C (66F), I just thought it sounded good and didn't look any further, and had happy pictures in my mind of beers on the apartment balcony of an evening. Well, ok, I'm stubborn, so I did have a couple of beers on the apartment balcony one evening. I just didn't expect to have to wrap up in a blanket to be able to do that! Oh well. Even if it wasn't as warm as I was expecting/hoping, at least it was warmer than the UK. So when I landed back at my local airport, it shouldn't have been a surprise that I had to walk/jog from the plane to the terminal, as it had started to rain and my coat was in my checked luggage! Welcome back to reality!

Doesn't it make a difference who says things to you?!  Normally I'd take offence at these words, but they were said (ok texted) to me, by a good friend of mine this week and it made me laugh.  I did reply, (that although I'd been made redundant as of 31st October, if I wasn't claiming dole did they apply?) - to which my friend who was made redundant a few months earlier replied that her husband still called her that even though she wasn't claiming dole, so therefore it did apply!  We laughed about it.

Which brings me to think about other words that I can't laugh about.  I associate/identify/claim whatever you like to call it words like dyke and queer.  What really pissed me off at this years YLAF was when I somehow ended up in the hotel bar on my own, and I'm sure I didn't imagine it
as it's not a word I'd use, that I heard a muttered "lezza".  That's a word I don't like and I certainly don't expect to get thrown in my direction at YLAF weekend.

A friend of mind tried to talk me into a blog a couple of years ago and I managed to refuse.  So now I find myself, where I never thought I'd be, having a livejournal account.  Most of the motivation is I'll get to read friend's blogs (when I work out how to link to them).  But I can't help but think that maybe now I've got an account, if I can work out how to use it, I'll end up putting out mindless random thoughts etc, particularly after a beer or two.