The Ramblings of a Mental Meanderthal

“What would happen if confident, happy, beautiful women decided to forego painful and expensive anti-aging procedures, breast lifts and enhancements, liposuction, all-over hair removal or tanning regimens?  How could that change the way their daughters, students, friends, nieces and coworkers perceived themselves and their own ‘flawed,’ lined, real faces?” Follow the link embedded in the quote.  Please. Source: http://www.alreadypretty.com/2013/04/lovely-links-42613.html In other news, my laptop has died for the third time.  Rather than sink a couple hundred dollars into fixing it again, I shall recycle it after wiping the hard drive and get a new computer.  But that won't happen until I'm finished spring cleaning in my flat, so it could be a few weeks.  Months.  Whatever.  Money will be tight for the next few months (I also need a new mattress and desperately want tickets to see Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart act in Berkeley this summer), but it'll be worth a

Not so good thing yesterday: According to the scale at Curves, I've gained two and a half pounds in the last two weeks. Good thing today: My usual 5K walk with three hills usually takes me 70-ish minutes.  68 is my best time since I started.  Today I managed it in 65. I'm cool with this.  Having said that, however, I need to stop smelling roses and petting cats and see what I'm really capable of doing.  Consistently walking three miles an hour -- 62 minutes on this route -- is my Holy Grail at the moment. I'm wearing a new dress today.  The weather is drizzly and clouded over, so I decided to wear something bright.  It's the one that looks like how I imagine an acid trip would look.  Brightly colored vertical streaks, and a kind of keyhole neckline created by bands of fabric over the bodice.  A few of the colors are hues I normally wouldn't be caught dead in, but others are.  I've got double takes from a few coworkers and compliments from the rest; thi

So I've been walking a lot lately.  I try to get in three trips to Curves and three walks of at least five kilometers each week, but it's usually more like two walks and a trip to Curves.  *sigh*  It's got to be done, though.  So long as I get my butt in gear at least four hours a week, I consider that week to be a successful one. I'm allowed to set my own hours at work.  (I'm trying not to abuse the privilege, but I have a tendency to push limits and not stick to routines because I have the emotional maturity of a four year old.)  I come in roughly at noon, which gives me time to sleep from midnight to eight, spend an hour and a half waking up and eating breakfast, an hour working out, then an hour getting ready for work before spending half an hour on the road.  But the "Just five more minutes" tendency rules in my funny little brain, and I finally considered working out around 10:15 today.  I was putting my shoes on when I looked at the clock -- reall

Tuesday evening, my friend Ju and I boarded the Queen Mary to attend a blues performance. Yes, "blues" and "Hugh Laurie" are related.  What does a middle-aged, middle-class English white guy have to do with the blues?  Well, he's loved them for decades, and he released an album called "Let Them Talk" a few years ago.  I'm no expert on these things, so I don't have any say in whether he should be performing it, but I know that I liked it.  A lot.  He said Tuesday night that he can't believe he's been so lucky as to make a single blues album, much less a second blues album, which comes out in the UK and Europe in early summer and comes out in the US in September. *wrinkles nose in distaste at having to wait an unnecessary three months to hear the album* I'm a disorganized spaz who forgot to bring a note pad or anything to write down the musicians' names or the set list.  Sorry about that.  I do remember that he started with

A few years back, I decided to give up meat for Lent.  The LDS Church doesn't observe it, but quite a few Mormons with whom I'm acquainted do.  I decided to do it again this year, though I wasn't sure what to do.  Give up something again?  Or start doing something good that I haven't been doing before? Finally, I decided on one of each. I've been working out sporadically for the last three months, and the local Curves is having a month-long workout/weight loss challenge, so I figured going there three times a week plus taking three walks a week would work.  (Walking is a lot less boring since Christmas and Mom's present of an iPod Shuffle.)  So there's the taking on something I've been rather wishy-washy about. As for the giving up thingy, I've decided to stop swearing.  This resolution only lasted eleven hours, as the last episode of a radio sitcom I like ended with a wicked cliffhanger: "$&@#!!!"  I failed at abstaining, so I modi