I'm over thinking

I have a tendency to over-think things, and then get bogged down in all sorts of unnecessary details and malarky; it's one of the things that triggers my anxiety issues. It also makes playing some games more than a little problematic.

In the last few months, I have begun to play - and become addicted to* - the card game Magic: the Gathering

This is one of the cards in the current set. It is a creature, an enchantment, and it has an extra ability while repressing that same ability in opponents' cards. In addition to all that, it has some seriously sweet art, especially in the foil version (glowing eyes!)

For the uninitiated, there is a lot to take in, but to someone, even a relative novice such as myself, it is one of the simpler cards to play. You have lots of cards with lots of abilities, and you need to put some combination of them into a workable sixty card deck. Or a hundred card. Or forty.

Hmm... I can see your eyes glazing over already...

You see then, that to fashion a decent deck, you need to think about a lot of things, and that this is where I can have something of a problem. With so many options, I become paralysed by choices.

A few days ago, I was trying to come up with a new deck, but inspiration was eluding me. In fact, it had left the country. After far too long flicking through cards and boxes, all I had to show for my efforts were random stacks of cards on the table, and the beginnings of a headache.

I sat back, took my glasses off, and gave a heavy sigh, disturbing Julie, who had been checking her Facebook page.

Er...

----------------------------------------------------

*It has even been nicknamed 'cardboard crack'.

A fitting remark

Some time ago, Julie and myself went to an outdoor ABBA tribute evening. The programme involved a live tribute act (so much better than a dead one, don't you think?), followed by a large-screen showing of Mama Mia, the film musical.

As far as the live act went, they were OK.  They knew their stuff, and were fairly good at it - but they lacked that spark. It didn't help that the ground was a tad uncomfortable. The event took place in the grounds of Devonshire Park tennis centre in Eastbourne, home to the Aegis Championship (the main tennis event in Britain before Wimbledon). As such, we were sat on the grass. The short, closely cropped to the hard earth grass.

Yes, we had taken a blanket, but we had the distinct impression we should have taken an armchair each...

At any rate, we decided to give the film a miss. Sort of - we went home, loaded up on snacks and drinks and watched it from the comfort of our sofa. Julie did enjoy a good singalong...

One of the things we also managed to avoid was any further acts of abomination upon the eyes. In keeping with the spirit of the event, a lot of people had dressed up in flairs, brightly-coloured tank-tops (the British version; sleeveless sweaters), fake afros - you name it. Any tacky 70s style, people were attempting it - even if their bodies were no longer fit for them. If they ever had been...

Julie excused herself from playing dress-up in this manner.

Snoring; it's just not safe.

(Following on from Wednesday's dancing doggie* )

So, one Gem on, I was feeling pretty flaked out and Julie suggested that I have a proper nap. This I did, although I wasn't expecting to sleep for real; I have the be very tired for me to be sleeping upright in a chair. Something woke me with a start - as it happened, it was Julie coming in to say 'bye' before she went to work an evening shift at the hospital. Blimey - I must have been tired to have slept so long. And so deeply, too. Julie had had time to sit, read her book, do a sudoku and then leave to get changed and fix herself a drink and a snack before leaving.
And I slept through it all.
One thing did concern me, though. I snore. I can snore loudly, too. (Julie also snores, something she vociferously and repeatedly denies, despite the evidence and witness reports. And the fact she's the only person I know who can wake themselves up with their own snoring)
My first concern upon waking was that I hadn't forced Julie out of the room with my nasal noises.

Er. Thanks? Especially for making sure I'm wide awake.

*Possibly. Allegedly. Probably not...

A handy perspective

While I was away on business recently, I kept in contact with Julie on a regular basis. We had arranged to call in the evenings, but I often called if I had stopped for whatever reason, be it a service station on a motorway, at a destination where I was due to unload; any reason, really. Amazing how much you can miss someone, isn't it? When you're both at home, life just sort of settles into a routine. That's nice, but you can sort of start taking things for granted. While I was on the road, I missed the random hugs and the general knowledge that Julie was just there for me. OK, so we don't sleep in the same rooms (it's a snoring thing, mainly. That and my habit of talking in my sleep), but we know we're still very close.
I also miss talking with Julie. While we may differ in a lot of ways, we share likes and opinions on many, many other subjects.* On one occasion, Julie told me that she also found herself missing me in a curious aspect, that of scribe. Apparently, at work, Julie had said something odd and immediately found herself thinking, "oh! Spike should have been here to get this down!" I did suggest she jotted it down herself, but she said she couldn't do that.

This is true... Thing is, though, love, that sentence didn't quite end the way I thought it would...


*We both, for example, have a deep aversion to pretentious art; yes, Tracey Emin, I'm looking at you. And you, Damien Hirst. Do something yourself for a change, yes? Something not solely designed to shock.

Therapeutic broccoli

(There's a notion, eh?)

As much as Julie and myself have a lot in common, there are also many things where our opinions and tastes differ. For example, there is not much overlap in our musical likes. No mean feat, considering I enjoy listening to almost anything.
Another difference of opinion stems from food. While we agree on some things (for example, the pizza we're about to eat - as we watch classic Muppets shows), there are some things that one eats that the other finds repulsive. For the record, I'm the one that likes Marmite and Julie most definitely doesn't. Something else Julie doesn't do too well with is vegetables. I have to admit a lot of it comes from her upbringing, but Julie isn't very good at eating and enjoying veg. If they're there, then she might eat them - but she'll not cook them as a matter of course.
When I say she might eat the veg on her plate, I mean it. Don't put mushrooms there, or spinach - or broccoli. Me, I LOVE broccoli.

The situation now is that I'll eat it and Julie will cook it. Not in that order, though, quite obviously. Mind you, sometimes it could do with a bit longer in the pan or steamer. And other times, I need to use a spoon to eat the stuff. It's quite odd. Julie has cooked broccoli for me quite a number of times now, but she still hasn't got the knack of the right timing. Sometimes, it'll be cooked just right, but usually, it's either tough or mushy.
Julie tried to explain the problem to me:

Well, possibly.
Well, ta-ta for now and ma-nah ma-nah to you all!

Shorn of hair and short of sense.

We have something of a bonanza for you today; three Gems for the price of one. Not bad since they're free in the first place, eh?
Anyway.

I like to have my hair short. I just can't be bothered with all that high-maintenance that so many people seem to feel is necessary. One of the great things about really short hair is that washing it suddenly becomes a case of finding an available wash basin, getting a little bit of soap and away you go. That's nothing though. The best thing is that you can buy a set of clippers and do the whole cutting thing yourself. You save yourself so much money and hassle that way. Well, since I don't have it quite as short as suede, I'm not totally keen on clipping it myself, so Julie very kindly does this bit for me. I sit down, and away she goes.

Last Saturday, we were in town and I was looking at hair dyes. Julie asked if I wanted to 'go' red. I replied that I would, but they didn't have anything vivid enough for me. What I really want, I continued, is to colour it green. Julie's reply to this cannot be reproduced here on grounds of common decency, but be assured it wasn't a positive response.

Matt nil, Julie one.
On Sunday, we finally got around to cutting my hair. I know it had been a while, but I don't think it had really been  long enough for Julie to fall out of practise. She seemed to be a little rougher than usual.

Matt nil, Julie two. I'm not doing too well here, am I?
Like I said, Julie seemed to be struggling with my hair this time. There were plenty of tuts and sighs and stopping to clean hair out of the clippers. And then she complained,

Matt v Julie: Match cancelled due to extreme bafflement.
Apparently, Julie was passing comment on the length of my hair and how it was making the cutting process more difficult. You know, now I know that, I look back at the comment, and I still haven't got a bloody clue why she said that.

The council for the defence advises you to avoid confusion

On Wednesday, we were talking about a situation that arose when we were looking into things to ease my sciatica; specifically, something that my boss had recommended. Julie was looking at the list of other ailments this gadget purported to ease and stumbled - heavily - over the word 'Spondylolisthesis'. As I admitted in the post, it was a very understandable response, something I repeated yesterday. Unfortunately, Julie then had to begin the following little conversation.

Oh, dear, love - you were doing so well, too...

Bill and Ben and the back pain list

Like I said a short while ago, I'm suffering from sciatica at the moment. It's eased off a lot now, after nearly a month off work, so I'm now back in the land of the gainfully employed. It's a bit of a struggle, I have to admit; after all, I still have the condition, to a lesser degree, and I also have to get my legs back into the idea of being up and about for an eight-hour day in a warehouse. Ah well. In a sense, though, I'm lucky because a couple of folks there have also suffered from the same or similar problems. In fact, the boss has pointed me in the direction of something that could help my back. It's called Back Magic (I see what you did there) and my boss says it's brilliant for his back pain and lingering sciatica.*
I mentioned this product to Julie one evening last week and while I was sprawled, semi-prone, in an armchair with cushions piled below me, she decided to have a look into this helpful whatnot.

Once I had finished laughing (sorry, love!), I reached for the pad and asked her to spell out the word she had stumbled on.
My word.
Apologies to Julie. After I wrote down the offending word - 'Spondylolisthesis' - I took a careful, slow run at it myself, breaking it down into syllables on the way. Even then, it was a bit of a git to utter aloud. So - fair enough, love - not your fault.

*It's unbelievable, the amount of times I have told people that my own version of sciatica begins in the hip and heads down the leg, rather than beginning in the lower back. Seriously, I keep telling the same people over and over, but they just don't seem to bloody listen. I'm thinking of bringing my doctor into work and getting him to do a presentation on sciatica...

It's not me, it's you. And you, you, you and you.

In those conversations that follow moments of complete Julie-related bafflement, we're often found to be discussing the very nature of those moments. Yeah, I know; not exactly a sensible thing to do, exposing myself once more to the madness... The thing is, I am one of those people that likes to know the origins of things. How did that word or phrase come about? Who first came up with the idea of milking a cow and what did he think he was doing? Why the hell did a fossilised sea creature end up half-way up a mountain?

Of course, I realise that such knowledge brings its own risks, and delving into the raison d'être behind any of Julie's Gems carries the possible result of further headf... er... confusion. Certainly, you wind up facing a brick wall and unable to go any further...

Well, that stopped it dead...