A Perfectionist Endeavor
Posted in General, Personal Hygiene on Sep 13th, 2008
Last month I went to the doctor’s office for a diaphragm “fitting”.
“Why do you want a diaphragm if you’re on the pill?” they asked. “Not many people use those anymore.”
“My boyfriend is crazy,” I said. “He doesn’t believe in the pill, and I don’t like condoms.”
It was not their place to [...]
Posted in Family, General, Personal Hygiene, Spirituality on Aug 20th, 2008
I have recently returned from the most PSYCHOTIC family vacation ever.
First the four of us (father, wife, baby, me) board a plane to Arizona to visit my little sister Chloe at her boarding school for wayward girls, although her therapist warns us she has regressed tremendously and it will not be fun or even [...]
For our trip to Sweden, I came fully prepared with the latest in anti-pest technology. I had visited the camping store and discovered a wealth of insect control devices. Not only did I buy the standard highly concentrated Deet that will do God-knows-what to my unborn children, I also bought a bandana-sized cloth permeated [...]
One of many stupid arguments my boyfriend and I have had is about pancakes. On our recent holiday, I offered to make pancakes one morning. First he said that would be good. Then he said, “But the only food I consider a pancake is the size of a plate and the thinness of a [...]
Posted in General, Outdoors, Personal Hygiene on Jul 24th, 2008
On my recent holiday in Sweden, we had no running water. My boyfriend’s family had forgotten to have the plumber connect the water in their summer house after the winter, and when we arrived the only plumber on the island was away on vacation.
My boyfriend and I were alone in a house [...]
Posted in General, Outdoors, Spirituality on Jul 10th, 2008
The week before last I spent three nights camping alone, which is not something I have done very often. I told myself that if I got scared, I should just think about an acquaintance who recently served in the Israeli army. If he could survive eighteen months in the Golan Heights with Hezbollah shooting at [...]
I spent all of yesterday editing a student thesis. Most of the people who ask for my editing services turn out to be foreign students, usually from China or Korea. I am grateful for the business, but I get annoyed at myself because I always undercharge them, and then I end up spending many unpaid [...]
The ponies in the New Forest, where I went camping last week, are very clever indeed. They have established their own fiefdom with unprecedented pony freedom and special rules for humans. About 3000 ponies roam freely throughout the forest. Their grazing maintains the heath and grasslands, and they also contribute to the local economy and [...]
I wonder why it is that I feel such a tremendous sense of wellbeing around trees. Last weekend we took trips to two wooded areas, Burnham Beeches and Cliveden, both in Buckinghamshire. Burnham Beeches is a 540-acre wood that was bought by the City of London in the nineteenth century to stop it from being [...]
Posted in Community, General, Politics, Spirituality on Jun 23rd, 2008
When I call my boyfriend in the evenings, we often have a great conversation, and then he ruins the whole thing by hustling me off the phone without warning because he wants to brush his teeth or go to bed or something exciting like that. I know he has to get up early and he [...]