Ten Indicators That You’ve Finally Hit Old

1. The glamorous waitressing job you picked up over the holidays gives you RSI in your arm/elbow.
2. Rowing aggravates the RSI in your arm. (Well der.)
3.  Yoga is seriously bad for RSI in your arm. (Probably shouldn’t be doing a powerflow class.)
4.  Yoga gives you a funky knee. (Kinda feels like the kneecap is in the wrong place.)
5.  Six weeks later you still have RSI and a funky knee. (You assumed it’d all get better with time, because it always has. Besides, you got the glamorous waitressing job coz money was tight and so you don’t bother to go to the doctor when you probably should.)
6.  Your hip and QL starts to play up, aching at all times of the day for no good reason.
7.  You end up visiting the osteopath because nothing else gives you relief. Not even Deep Heat.
8.  You go back to the osteopath because you’re still not getting relief. And you’re sick of smelling of Deep Heat.
9.  You wake during the night due to the ache in your hip – surely it’s not time for a hip replacement yet – and end up sprawled on the floor for 20 minutes with your leg in front of you bent at the knee at right angles while you try to lean into pigeon pose and release that darn hip.
10.  You realize your QL is probably so sore because you are not exercising at all due to the strained elbow, sore knee, achey QL, and heels that feel bruised  (you think that’s down to your orthotics.)
11.  You turn into a big whingey broken ol’ thing and pessimistically wonder what you’ll injure if you go to a Spin class. You go anyway. 

(Not being able to count to ten is a big give away too.)

Stella x

Is this a man I see before me?

Goodness, of course it’s not. Don’t be so silly. Don’t tell me you thought I’d stopped blogging because I’d met some bloke, did you?

The title actually refers to Friday night and my latest exploits in town.

My best buddies were out of town for work; yes, they have the kind of job that requires them to travel. Seems like a good deal to me, who as a teacher has only ever traveled overseas to Phillip Island. For school camp. Three days, two night of fun, fun, fun with 200 adolescents who don’t want to go to sleep.

But I digress, as ever.

As my buddies were out of town I went out last Friday with a couple of other friends. I have previously been out with them in a group, had a few drinks, a few dances, chatted to a few men etc. It’s all been good.

This Friday was different though and I have been musing, as is my wont, as to why. (Actually, it’d be good if I could do less musing at times and more sleeping.) I think I have discovered why. The point of the exercise on Friday night appeared to be ONLY to check out and pick up men. And if there were no men at a particular venue –as was pronounced at one place - we needed to move on.

Now on my usual Friday night I am not averse to checking out men but it’s more of a sideline. The main business of the evening tends to be having fun with my friends. Usually that means a lot of dancing, and some drinking also, but not to excess. Well, the drinking that is, not the dancing.

And if we end up talking to men, or men talk to us - probably because we’re having such a good time – then that’s fine. Last Friday, however, was a concerted effort to hunt down hot men. Then admire them, loudly, speak to the them, if possible, and finally lament them, should they happen to pick up someone else before we’d made our move.

Then we could go somewhere else and loudly lament them on the way.

I mean really, ladies, how old are we? 22? No, we are not and I ended up abandoning them both early on in a club when they were busy talking to the bouncer; who was, apparently, hot.

I thought this was quite canny of me as they were too engaged with chatting with him to object to my leaving. Even more canny of me was to check my iPhone to see which way was which. When that didn’t help I asked the Cloak Room girl where the nearest train station was and we pinpointed it on my iPhone too, just for good measure.

Unfortunately since I was beating a hasty retreat I didn’t have time to think about the train schedule and ending up waiting 24 minutes for the next train out to the boon docks where I (still) live.   

Ask Yahoo: absence does NOT make the heart grow fonder

Oh no.

It’s been so long since I’ve blogged, or read anyone else’s blog that Yahoo has blocked me from checking my emails because I cannot remember my password.

Darn. 

Fortunately I could remember and access my blog and my google password so all is not lost even if Yahoo has gone all security on me.

The problem appears to be that I am logging on from a device they do not recognize.

Hogswash. I am logging on from the same old faithful iMac I've been using for the last four or five years. (Yeah, if I get more work I just might upgrade.)

So, I eventually remembered my password successfully but then they wanted me to correctly enter the security numbers.

Managed that OK since I'm not a robot or spam or anything. 

But then I got the security answer wrong.

Apparently I am impersonating me and don’t know the name of my favourite uncle.

This is perplexing as I only had one uncle. . . 

So then they blocked me for 24 hours. 

Plan B - I went back and asked them to send me a new password to another account. 

I only hope that I can remember how to get into that account as I never, ever use it. To remain anonymous I have not linked my blog or associated emails to my regular email account. Otherwise somehow they figure out you're the same person and all of a sudden - especially if you are on Facebook,  which I'm not - everything is linked and any anonymity is just blown right out of the water.

(How very Big Brother of them.)

Yes, indeed, I have been thwarted by my own cleverness.

Stella The Anonymous xx

She's ba-a-a-a-ck! And still an apostrophe Nazi.

I have been feeling guilty, of late. Yes, guilty because I have just left my blog withering in the ether. (Ooh, I like that. I do have a way with words, don't I?)

I attended a talk by an author recently which I enjoyed immensely, even though I hadn't read any of this books. I am attempting to remedy that now. I wish I had a book in me to write.

Meanwhile, back on topic.

So while I was there I picked up one of the Centre's booklet listing all the interesting writing courses they offer. "Gosh, these look great. I must do some. I do miss writing," I mused to myself.  " You idiot, Stella. You have a perfectly good blog so go back to using it."

And.

Ta-dum! Here I am.

The bad news though is I am here just to have a whinge, it's a punctuation thing. There is a new Aussie film out, good for us. What bothers me, quite a lot, is the poor use of punctuation in the promotional poster that insists on appearing on my yahoo homepage.

Annoyingly I cannot capture the image but the poster heading is:

Goddess

Theres one in all of us

And if you click on the image, even if you don't, there's a short clip promoting the video.

This irritates me beyond all rational reason. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because if they're prepared to spend all that money promoting the film they might bother to employ someone to proofread their advertisements. 

Or maybe employ an ad agency that has basic literacy skills.

Just sayin' . . . 

Interestingly, on all other versions of the poster they have fixed this. Needless to say I am far too annoyed to even consider going to see this film. 

Stella xx