Category Archives: Me Me and More About Me

Jan 25 2013

30 Before 30: #10 Go Sledging

Posted on by

If you’re daft enough to follow me on Twitter (and if you don’t, you should. I’m really very good at Twittering), you’ll know that on Friday and Saturday I was sulking because even though it was snowing in the UK, it hadn’t snowed enough for me to go sledging. To be more accurate – it had snowed enough to facilitate sledging almost everywhere else, but not where I live.

Sledging is one of my 30 before 30. It’s not that I haven’t been sledging before, I have – I did lots of sledging when I was a kid and when it used to snow lots. But that’s exactly the point. Maybe, when I was younger, I assumed that it would snow every year, and every year I could go sledging. Maybe I never quite realised that sometimes, it wouldn’t snow at all. And maybe I failed to realise that as I grew up, sledging would become much less of a priority and that there would even come a time where I might be considered “too old” to go sledging. Somehow, I’d never factored any of this in.

The last time I remember going sledging was with my brother in a nearby field. We built ramps out of the snow and even though I was so cold I felt like my fingers were going to drop off (despite the gigantic mittens my mum had sent me outside with), it was the most fun ever and it’s one of my fondest childhood memories.

After that, there was a bit of a snow lull for quite a few years. I mean it would get cold, it would get icy, it might even snow but it was only ever an icing-sugar dusting and would be gone again within a day or so.

Childhood disappeared, quickly followed by my teens and as I hit my twenties I realised I was growing up and there wouldn’t be another opportunity to go sledging, y’know because, I was becoming an “adult”. Worse still, I wouldn’t be able to go sledging with my brother in the field near our house because he was already an adult. A proper one. With a job and everything. Also, my parents had moved house so we didn’t live near that field anymore. And also the sledge went to a charity shop when my parents moved house. All things considered, it didn’t look I was going to go sledging ever again.

So I just got on with being a grown up. Soon, I had a job and paid taxes and went to the supermarket for my weekly shop and did things like report the faulty boiler to the landlord. Maturity brings a certain amount of responsibility. The older you get, the more responsibilities you get. The more responsibility you get, the less childish amazing fun stuff you can do. That’s just science.

Responsibility graph

Then, when I was in my mid-twenties, we had two really snowy winters. It was so snowy in both of those years, that I landed a WHOLE DAY off work in each year.

But I did not go sledging.

Perhaps, by this point, I’d admitted defeat. I must have waited twenty years for it to snow enough to go sledging with my brother and now we were adults and it wasn’t going to happen. So I just stayed home and watched DVDs.

Then we had a couple snow-free winters, and I kept catching myself looking out of the window and hoping it would snow enough to go sledging. So when I wrote my 30 before 30 list, I decided that ‘going sledging’ should definitely go on there. If it snowed again before I was 30, I would definitely go sledging and just get it out of my system.

So, fast-forward to Sunday. The light spattering of snow we’d had here was already disolving into a grey, icy mush. It looked very much like another sledge-free winter was going to pass me by.

Then my friend (also called Jo)and I arranged to take our dogs for a walk in a small town near the pennines… Where there was substantially more snow. “Shall I bring the sledge?” she asked.

This is all very mathmatical and complicated, so please consult the equation below:

Snow equation

Finally, I went sledging.

And I was chased my puppy Izzy (the one wearing a high-visibility dog coat) and my friend Jo’s dog, Dillon (the dog shaped one).

Sledging with dogs

Jan 18 2013

30 Before 30: #1 Register with the Anthony Nolan trust

Posted on by

I thought I should give an update as to where I am with my 30 Before 30 list because I’ve actually ticked something off. And it’s an important one too. In fact, when I first wrote the list, I bumped this one up to the top and promised myself that whatever happened, I would complete this thing first.

For various reasons, I’ve been going to register with the Anthony Nolan trust for a long while. But it quickly became one of those things that I just never got around to doing. The Anthony Nolan trust is a charity supporting people with blood cancer who need stem cell or bone marrow transplants. Being on the register means that the folks at Anthony Nolan can match the donors on their register with people who need a transplant and y’know, save more lives. But they always need more people. More people, under the age of 30, to register as a donor.

There are lots of myths surrounding bone marrow transplant: that the process involves having a limb snapped off so that the bone marrow can be scooped out and it’s THE MOST PAINFUL THING EVER, and you might not ever recover from the procedure.

That might be a bit of an exaggeration – except for the “IT’S THE MOST PAINFUL THING EVER” bit on the end, because the second you mention bone marrow transplant, that’s usually the first thing people say after screwing their face up. Usually people who probably know nothing about it but heard somebody else say that once, and so they feel they should pass the information on.

If you’re a regular(ish) reader of this blog, or if you’re someone who knows me, you’ll be roughly aware that I’m not a very brave or confident person. Hearing that the charitable thing I wanted to do was possibly THE MOST PAINFUL THING EVER was, admittedly, a little off-putting.

Alongside my complete lack of confidence are feelings of guilt. So you can imagine how conflicted I was feeling having already half-decided that I was going to register and at the same time being terrified about it being the most painful thing ever. To illustrate my point, it all looks a little something like this:Inner Conflict

I went round and round in circles for a long while until eventually, I told myself to stop toying with the idea. I was either definitely going to register or I definitely wasn’t. So I went on to the Anthony Nolan site and did the research for myself (which included watching this little animation all about what’s involved in the donation process). After spending a good couple of hours clicking through the site, my mind was made up.

I realised I had to do it. And what’s more, I wanted to. Even though I don’t like hospitals, and I have a low pain threshold, and I don’t like blood or operations and I’m incredibly squeamish. I shrugged all that off and filled in the form, because the only thing worse than registering after everything I’d learned about the process would be to not register.

My stem cells could be used to help someone whose own immune system is failing. Those stem cells could potentially save someone’s life, and what I realised was that however painful or uncomfortable the donation process was – it could save the life of someone who had been through far, far worse.

So before Christmas, I registered. Last week I got my official donor card.

Huzzah!

If I only did one thing on my list before I turned 30, it would most definitely be this one.

Jan 14 2013

A New Year’s Revelation

Posted on by

It’s the start of a new year. There are lots of people jogging (everywhere, all the time), because it’s that time of year where we punish ourselves for our vices and decide that by this time next year, we will most definitely be a much better person.

I tell myself to be a much better person at the beginning of every week, never mind the beginning of every year. And every time I decide to go forth and become an infinitely better person, the whole thing quickly falls apart and I soon end up feeling much worse than I did to begin with.

This year, I’ve decided not to set myself up for failure and I haven’t made any  New Year’s resolutions. There are two reasons I always totally flunk at New Year’s resolutions:

1. I expect to see changes in myself almost immediately after deciding that I’m going to change.

Life changes 1 

2. My resolutions tend to be a bit vague and immeasurable like “Be healthy” or “Be less shit at everything”.

New year's resolutions

A while ago I wrote this post about how much I wanted to be someone totally different – someone who wakes up at dawn to do yoga, someone who is creative, productive and successful, someone who has deep philosophical conversations, someone who… (the list goes on). I have to be honest with myself: I AM NEVER going to be someone who wakes up bright and early, and does Yoga while reading… I dunno, Plato or whatever. What’s more, I’m actually okay with the fact I will never be this person.

Change shouldn’t about shoe-horning myself into a personality that doesn’t fit. My ideal version of myself – the clever, healthy, active creative with a mind that’s totally Zen – is not me. It’s never going to be me. If I became this person – the “perfect Me” – and I met perfect Me at a party, I would most probably want to punch perfect Me in the face. When I really think about it, perfect Me isn’t someone I would want to spend a lot of time with. I wouldn’t know what to talk to perfect Me about. In fact, perfect Me is probably someone I would bitch about behind their back. I would roll my eyes whenever perfect Me was talking. Perfect me probably wears Lycra and goes jogging. Perfect Me is probably a fussy eater… And that’s pretty much a deal breaker.

The more I thought about it, the more the perfect Me became less perfect and more smug and annoying. I realised that I don’t really like perfect Me at all. And if I don’t like the perfect version of myself, then why tell myself to become that person in the first place?

I started to wonder what was really so terrible about my imperfect life to make me feel like I had to become this Lycra-wearing object of perfection.

I decided to review what I’d achieved in 2012. While I realise that I didn’t make any particularly massive leaps forward with my life, in review, I think I achieved a fair amount. I completed the taught seminars on my MA, where I also made loads of new friends, I re-connected with old friends, I started writing for a couple of websites, I started writing a new novel and I (admittedly, in a totally random and seemingly impulsive manner) bought a dog.

And while none of my 2012 accomplishments have earned me an impressive salary, or landed me a publishing deal, or got me into some Lycra trousers, I’m safe in the knowledge that, in the very least, I’m heading in the right direction.

In the end, I decided to stop tormenting myself with thoughts of having a massive life overhaul and of becoming a person I don’t really want to be. And while there’s still a lot of room for change in my life, ultimately, I’m doing okay. Most people are doing okay. And that’s okay.

So while I’m still fully committed to trying new things and continuing with my 30 Before 30 list, I’m also not pretending that by the end of 2013, I will be a fit and healthy, intellectual, best-selling novelist with zero financial worries and a buzzing social life. All I want to get out of this year is to learn to be more appreciative of the things I have got and to just keep chipping away, slowly but surely, at the things I really want.

So here’s to 2013 – what I hope will be a slightly better year than 2012.

Jan 3 2013

It’s Never Too Late to Surprise Yourself.

Posted on by

In my previous post I talked about the ways in which I I might try to move forward with my life. I wrote a list of 30 things that I wanted to do before I turn 30, giving myself just over a year to complete all of those things. This was to inspire change: to do things I’ve been meaning to do but haven’t, and generally saying ‘yes’ to… well… doing more things outside of sitting around eating pizza.

A few days after I (finally) posted my list of 30 before 30 post, I came home with this:

ABC

An 8-week-old border collie puppy. A very cute 8-week-old border collie puppy… that needs toilet training, constant attention and an endless amount of expensive safe-for-puppy toys to chew on.

Did I mention that this decision came three-weeks before Christmas?

And that various family members would be staying with me over the festive season?

And that (with the exception of my SIL) no one in my family actually likes dogs?

Did I mention that I was very much a ‘cat person’?

Until recently, I didn’t like dogs. I wouldn’t say that I hated dogs, but at times I felt like I strongly disliked them.  I don’t like it when they bark for ages for no reason. It annoys me that every time you eat near a dog they beg or weep or pester you. I don’t like visiting people who have dogs that attack you the second you walk through the door, especially if its owner is all “DON’T WORRY HE’S JUST BEING FRIENDLY” and the dog is midway through chewing your hand off or something.

It’s probably the dog-owners I have a problem with – especially if their dogs are badly trained. I’ve always found dog-owners a little bit insane detached from reality smelly eccentric. The main offenders are the ones who treat their dogs like people. Or the ones who wear jumpers with pictures of dogs on them. Or the ones who have dog ornaments or pictures of dogs in every room of their house… Especially if every room in their house smells of dog… Especially, if they smell of dog and don’t realise… And ESPECIALLY , if you smell of dog after spending any time with that person.

Dog-owners whose lives revolve around their dogs can sometimes end up a little bit bonkers.

Because dog owners can be a bit bonkers, it goes without saying that their dogs are also slightly bonkers.

And bonkers dogs are unpredictable. If a bonkers dog is the apple of its owner’s eye, then it can do no wrong. So if you’re a small, unsuspecting child happily playing in the park and out of nowhere a dog bites your trouser leg and refuses to let go, chances are, its owner will take no responsibility  for the dog’s actions and, instead, blame you – a small, innocent child (called Jo) playing on the swings.

It is the attitude of so many unhinged dog owners that led to my extreme dislike of dogs.

And then a month ago, out of nowhere, I decided that I should really own a dog. I don’t know how this thought even entered my head – I can only assume that some kind of Derren Brown mind-trickery took place. Anyway, once the spontaneous thought had taken hold, it started to snowball… Rapidly.

The next day, I arranged to go see some puppies that were for sale.

By the end of that day, I had bought a puppy.

Four days later, I was living with a puppy.

And the weirdest part was, no part of me thought that what I was doing was weird. Even though it directly contradicted everything I thought I knew about myself.

Last July I wrote a list of things I wanted to do before I was 30. It took me nearly six months to commit to the idea and actually write about it. Yet committing to the responsibility that is owning, raising and taking care of a dog on a daily basis for the next twelve (ish) years (from someone who has spent their whole life disliking dogs) was totally not a problem.

Owning a dog wasn’t one of the things on the 30 before 30 list. In no way was owning a dog part of my life plans. I never, ever thought I would want (let alone actually get) a dog.

Despite all that, I’m quietly confident that this was most definitely a brilliant idea.

Don’t get me wrong, raising a puppy is hard work. It’s pretty much non-stop, never-ending, wall-to-wall responsibility. She’s cute, but she needs the toilet every 25 seconds, wants to chew everything, be best-friends with everyone and sniff ALL THE THINGS.

I’m beginning to look constantly dishevelled and harassed. My hair is even more of a disaster than it normally is, and I no longer bother wearing make-up or nice clothes because there really isn’t any point. I’m beginning to realise that being a dog-owner doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be eccentric. It’s just that living with a puppy makes you appear a little bit like you’ve totally lost your mind.

I suspect that by this time next year, I’ll be sporting knitwear with a dog’s face on it. And not in an ironic, hipster way.

While I’ll admit to being slightly more bedraggled and chaotic than I usually am,  I’m actually very happy in my new role as dog-owner. Strangely, it’s given me a sense of purpose.

So going from disliking dogs to owning one (within a couple of days) has been a pretty strange  turn of events. On reflection, it makes me wonder what other surprises life might have in store for me. Or, more to the point, I wonder in what other ways I might surprise myself.

Nov 27 2012

30 Things to do before I’m 30

Posted on by

This blog post has been in the works for quite a while (about 4 months). I’ve come close to posting it so many times and at the last moment, talked myself out of it again. Last week some friends on Twitter were talking about the 101 in 1001 lists thingy and I decided that it was time to post this. It’s still taken me another week to overcome inertia, so I’m posting it now before I give myself the opportunity to back out again. Apologies for any typos, I’m just sick of reading this over and over and then deciding not to post it. This is a long one btw, so grab a cup of tea and pull up a chair… Jo.

You may or may not have noticed that I’ve been a little internet-absent recently. Normally when this happens I come back with some blog post or other plagued with apologies and excuses. This time it’s different (and no, it’s not because I had to go to rehab following my Snickers addiction).

A few months ago I realised that I am now, officially, in my late twenties. I am 28 and a half (ish) years old. That means that in a year and half (ish) I’m going to be 30. I know that’s not an overly distressing thing in itself, but it prompted me to think about my twenties and wonder what, if anything, I have been doing with my life so far.

I started to think about the things I have done, but mostly, I thought about all the things I haven’t and I wondered why that might be.

Let’s go back to when I was about 6 or 7 years old. At this point in my life all of my friends had birthday parties at a place called The Big Buddy Bear Club which was a massive play area (ball pools, slides, tunnels, rope ladders etc.). The Big Buddy Bear Club was the place to have birthday parties. It was excessively good fun, for most kids.

I’m sure that given the amount of times I actually went to The Big Buddy Bear Club I probably had fun at least once, but all I remember is that I once got stuck in a tunnel and I found it very scary and upsetting.

I was crawling through a tunnel which had a gap in it. To cross the gap, I had to crawl across a rope bridge. As I approached the rope bridge I stopped. I wasn’t keen on crossing the rope bridge – it just didn’t feel safe. My gut instinct told me to go back the way I came, but there were kids behind me and I was too shy/scared/socially awkward to ask if I could crawl past them so I closed my eyes and hurriedly crawled across the bridge before pulling into a side tunnel and bursting into tears.

Even though I didn’t fall, and the rope bridge didn’t disappear beneath me, and nothing bad happened at all, I couldn’t bring myself to continue further down the tunnel. And I couldn’t bring myself to go back across the rope bridge, either. Supposedly, facing your fears means you overcome them. For me, it merely confirmed that I definitely found crawling across a rope bridge incredibly scary and that I didn’t want to do it again.

And so I sat there in the tunnel and cried. I cried about being too scared to go forwards and too scared to go backwards. All because of a totally non-threatening rope bridge especially designed for children of my age, height and weight to crawl across.

As I sat there sobbing loads of other kids crawled by. Some would give me a quizzical look before going on their way, others didn’t notice me.  Once again, being incredibly shy, I was too scared to ask one of them to help me get out of the tunnel. So I just sat there and all I could think about was how everyone in The Big Buddy Bear Club was having masses of fun except me. And maybe some other kid who was throwing up in the ball pool or something.

Eventually, after I can’t even remember how long, some girl I didn’t know saw me crying and helped me back across the rope bridge and back to where lot’s of extremely bored-looking parents were sitting on a bench drinking coffee and waiting for the party to be over. I sat with the bored parents until the end of the party, watching all the other kids playing and having ridiculous amounts of fun. I wanted to go back, but I told myself not to. It just wasn’t worth it, what if I got stuck somewhere else? What if next time, no one found me and I’d just get left there?

This is pretty much the story of my life. I’m scared of everything. When I face something I find scary I don’t conquer my fear, I simply reinforce the fact that, yes, I really do find that thing scary.

This is, apparently, how I roll. I seem to fear things I’m perfectly capable of doing, just in case something terrible happens. And so I sit on the side, crying, too scared to go forwards and hoping that, eventually, someone much more confident than I am will find me and I can go home.

Whenever I have taken ‘risks’ (and I mean that in the broadest possible sense of the term) I feel like things work out badly, and I regret taking that risk… And then that puts me off ever taking any other sort of risk or impulsive action ever again… Ever.

So now I ring-fence myself into ‘playing it safe’ that is: avoiding all the things that scare me, not making any decisions, and hoping that maybe one day everything will just work out for the best and I’ll be happy. I stop myself from making any decisions just in case I make a bad one that might make me unhappy.

So here I am. Nearly 30 and well and truly fenced into my comfort zone. This doesn’t result in a particularly satisfying life.

When I started thinking about what I have done this past decade, I realised that I’ve moved house more times than I care to remember, eaten a lot of pizza and watched a lot of films. I also passed my driving test, but I’m too scared to actually drive a car. And I wrote a novel… with no story.

I’ve realised that a combination of life anxiety and an unrelenting fear of failure has left me in this situation. I can either shrug my shoulders to it all and say that this is just the way I am, or I could do something (even if it’s a fairly small thing) to change.

In the interests of turning 30 and knowing that I’m heading in the right direction (or at the very least, be safe in the knowledge that I did more than move house and eat pizza) I’ve decided to make a change.

I started making a list of things I wanted to do before I’m 30. It’s kind of like a bucket list – minus  the  swimming-with-dolphins cliché and having death as the deadline. There are only 30 things on my list, but some of them might take me a while to complete. Others are small things that I’ve wanted to do for while but never got around to doing them – or simply because it’s easier not to bother.

I’m sharing this with you, Internet, to force myself to actually do the things on this list instead of flaking out like I normally do.

And I figured that since I’m sharing my list with the internet, I may as well write about each of them here. I foresee most of these things going spectacularly wrong (all part of the fun/learning curve, right?), and I’m more than happy to share those experiences for your amusement (you’re welcome).

Still reading? Excellent. Without further ado, here’s the list:

30 before 30 – The List

1. Join the Anthony Nolan register.

2. Have something (anything) published and be paid for it.

3. Begin to pay off my student debt.

4. Do volunteer work.

5. Be a confident driver (i.e. not have a panic attack when facing the prospect of getting in the car).

6. Write a new novel and complete my MA.

7. Learn how to play chess.

8. Take a yoga or meditation class.

9. Eat lobster.

10. Go ice-skating/sledging.

11. Learn a bit of Spanish.

12. Host a dinner party.

13. Walk the Three Peaks.

14. Try out for a roller derby

15. Have a party with a bouncy castle.

16. Master using WordPress

17. Go to a music festival.

18. Watch the films I haven’t watched (list to follow).

19. Go out for brunch.

20. Go to a drive-in movie.

21. Visit Edinburgh.

22. Do all the touristy bits of London you’re supposed to do when you’re a tourist.

23. Do a pub crawl.

24. Knit a scarf.

25. Do all the things I was too scared to do as a child (list to follow).

26. Own a round wicker chair.

27. Be a vegetarian for a week (or maybe a month).

28. Go on a random trip without planning any of it.

29. Stay up for 24 hours.

30. Work in the field for which I received my degree.

There’s a reason for why each of these things went onto the list, but I’ll explain each when I blog about them (because otherwise, this is going to be the longest blog post ever).

Jun 18 2012

It Must Have Been [Feelings of Crapulance] But It’s Over Now…

Posted on by

A couple of weeks ago I had a free Saturday. For the first time in a really long time, I had a totally blank Saturday where I had almost nothing to do. Unfortunately, my totally blank Saturday started very early (6:30am) after a very bad night’s sleep – during which I had dedicated many hours to worrying about every unresolved issue in my life so far. I gave up trying to get any sleep during the bright Saturday morning, and instead decided I to get up and be ridiculously productive.

But in deciding I was going to productive, the exact opposite occurred. Nothing seemed to be going right. I’d spend a couple of hours on a task, and realise I wasn’t getting anywhere. Then I’d do something else and the same would happen. By lunchtime I realised that I had lost hours trying to do lots of things and had been totally unsuccessful with all of them.

Having achieved nothing, and lost my entire morning, I was met with inevitable feelings of ‘meh’ and crapness. And I started to mope.

I hate moping. Moping leads to more moping and thus, more feelings of crapness. It’s like this:

feelings of crapness

And once I had descended into this cycle of moping and crapulance, I felt like there was no way out. I wondered if maybe I was feeling crappy because I hadn’t slept. Maybe if I tried to sleep, I’d wake up and feel eleventy-million times better. And maybe then I could actually get on with the day and do something vaguely productive. It made perfectly logical sense.

So I went back to bed.

But I couldn’t sleep.

And after half an hour of not being able to sleep I started to punish myself. Because not being able to sleep when you’re really tired just doesn’t make sense. And so I told myself I was a failure because clearly I can’t even sleep like a proper person.

And so I returned to moping. Moping and talking to an empty house.

“Why can’t I do anything today?” I asked the staircase.

“Why do I feel so rubbish?” I quizzed the bedroom walls.

“Why am I so useless?” and when the kettle refused to answer, I realised that wandering around the house asking inanimate objects questions about my feelings of uselessness was definitely more tragic than the initial cycle of moping I had resigned myself to. Perhaps I was actually going crazy.

“Come on, Jo.” I said to myself – deciding that talking to myself was less mental than addressing various household appliances. “Pull yourself together.”

And with this Tyler Durden-esque conversation with myself, I decided to take action. I wasn’t going to let inactivity pull me into an unnecessary depression. I was going to do… something… Something that was guaranteed to stop me from feeling shitty.

I played Singstar. BY MYSELF.

Indeed, drastic times call for drastic measures. And nothing beats feelings of lethargy and crapness like belting out a tone deaf rendition of Africa by Toto to an audience of no one. It’s worth noting that ‘Africa’ on Singstar is stupidly difficult – even on ‘easy’ level – and involves shrieking your way through the chorus to win maximum points.

My sympathy was with my neighbours who were probably hesitant to wonder what the hell was going on next door. Incidentally, I’ve already had a bit of run-in with them over noise disturbance. Apparently my cackle-like laughter sounds a lot like a distress call. Our at least that was what was suggested during out brief conversation on the doorstep last summer, when they knocked on the door to ask if everything was okay because they ‘heard a woman screaming.’

Naturally, I was hugely embarrassed and have since made several attempts to modify my shrill laughter into a whimsical giggle-whisper to prevent from similar events from occurring.

That said, I do worry that should I ever be attacked in my house, and my neighbours hear me screaming, they will assume that I’m just watching something funny on TV, and not attacked by wild dogs who broke in through the window and are chewing my face off.

Anyway, back to Africa’s impossibly difficult chorus. My competitive nature spurred me on to make several attempts to win the top-spot on the leader-board, but I couldn’t put my neighbours through repeat renditions. If they had to listen to my terrible singing, the least i could do was offer a bit of variety. So I whaled my way through ‘Brass in Pocket’ by The Pretenders, ‘It Must Have Been Love’ by Roxette, ‘Time After Time’ by Cyndi Lauper and amongst a great many other 80s hits.

I had hoped my grand finale would be Foreigner’s ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’ another classic 80s song with an impossibly high chorus. After an hour of singing, I couldn’t face shouting my way through the song and risk having another neighbourly call – this time demanding to know why I was torturing them with my hopeless renditions of 80s hits. So I ended on a much safer option of ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries – which involves less shrieking, but I can’t help but sing it with a pseudo-Irish twang (to win maximum bonus points).

When my solo-concert to my empty-sofa and coffee table audience came to an end, I felt a lot better. So much better, in fact, that I even tackled the mountain of laundry that had been piling up. And afterwards I made an enormous chilli. Then I ate almost all of it.

By the time Saturday evening came around, I was curled up on the sofa watching films with lots of car chases and feeling eleventy-million times better.

Sometimes, the only way to shake off a bout of depression is to do something completely ridiculous, like singing your way through beloved 80s hits or inventing new dance moves or… I dunno, trampolining. Either that, or this time I really have gone completely bonkers.

May 30 2012

I Need a Slanket…

Posted on by

If you’re unfortunate enough to follow me on Twitter or be a fan of this blog on Facebook, you’ll know that I’ve whinged (somewhat endlessly) about my new found desire for a Slanket. That’s right, a Slanket – the ingeniously named blanket… with sleeves. I don’t know who invented the Slanket (some dude called Gary, apparently) but the Slanket was a genius creation, and I’m loathed not to have one of my own.

This is what you told me:

I have a cheaper version which generates a crazy amount of static, so I can’t use it when I’m working on my laptop. Which kind of negates the point of having it. – @Radshef

I really like it, it’s all snug and warm. – @lizigree

I wear mine and pretend to be a wizard. – Emmarrrr

I have one and it’s amazing, use it all the time. Get one. – Jo

We got one for my dad. He LOVES it. – @TheSuniverse

It’s all about the slanket! I sometimes double-duvet in mine for extra cosy comfort. – @jane_bradley

I have one and I love it – keeps you so cosy even when reaching for the remote/writing etc. – @ttofee

You NEED a slanket. – @samkayk

I own a massive hoodie. That may be the closest to a slanket I can get within the constraints of manliness. – @NickMB

In the interests of cosiness and snuggliness, I need a Slanket.

There comes a point in the evening (usually on Pizza Fridays*) where the wearing of regular clothes to loaf about on the sofa digesting a meat-feast pizza and watching films, becomes restricting and generally uncomfortable. So a swift change into something with an elastic waistband – my infamous pink cake pyjamas or jogger bottoms (that to this day have never been worn for the purpose of jogging) – usually does the trick. And while the comfort issue is tackled, the cosy issue is not. Our lounge is the coldest room in the house. In fact, that’s an understatement – it is permanently cold in that room. No matter what time of year, the cosiness factor of the lounge is seriously lacking. After eating pizza, I like to be able to assume the foetal position, snuggle up while I devour vast amounts of chocolate and watch terrible sci-fi films.

*Pizza Fridays – Friday night is spent eating pizza and watching films. Sometimes Pizza Friday accidentally spills into the rest of the weekend and I have Pizza Saturday and Pizza Sunday too. This is followed by Regret Monday and Exercise Tuesday.

This is where a Slanket would complete my evening of slobbing out in true style comfort.

Sadly, due to unemployment tuition fees inherent laziness circumstances beyond my control, I am unable to afford such luxuries. So I have improvise, using a blue Ikea throw.

The Slanket boasts two features which an Ikea throw does not:

1. The Slanket is made of warm, fleecy cosiness crafted by unicorns from the clouds of comfort land.

Unicorn

An Ikea throw is not. Ikea throw is made from coarse fabric woven together by Satan. The Ikea throw is not warm, comfy or cosy. This is largely due to the fact that the Ikea throw’s purpose is either to be thrown over ugly furniture in an attempt to disguise its hideousness or tossed onto beds with some cushions to make a bedroom look stylish. It is not to be thrown over a person who is still digesting pizza while curled up on the sofa watching films.

2. The Slanket has sleeves, enabling the wearer full use of  their arms (such as reaching for the remote, eating ice-cream from the tub) whilst retaining warm feelings of super-cosiness.

Jo in a Slanket

My friend (also called Jo) kindly agreed to demonstrate her Slanket for the purpose of this blog post. Thanks Jo.

Ikea Throw does not have sleeves. Ikea throw restricts all arm movement, and therefore makes the spooning of large amounts of ice-cream into mouth and reaching for the remote difficult and usually results in entanglement.

Aside from these two main points, I have discovered that ‘wearing’ an Ikea throw has also thrown up a shed-load of other difficulties:

Ikea Throw does not satisfactorily keep all body parts warm and cosy.

It is impossible to successfully ascend a staircase whilst ‘wearing’ an Ikea Throw.

Wearing an Ikea Throw to the toilet is both a logistical nightmare and really unhygienic.

Ikea Throw does not aid the act of typing.

Ikea Throw does not create convincing illusion of being a wizard or evil-overlord.

Ikea Throw is not waterproof, and therefore cannot be worn outside when it is raining.*

*To be fair, neither is a Slanket – but that’s something they should definitely consider.

In conclusion, I definitely need a Slanket. The only downside being that it might cause my legs to spontaneously combust if I wear it whilst using a laptop. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Incidentally, this post was in no way endorsed by the creators of the Slanket, or the Unicorns of Comfort-Land. However, if you’re reading this and you work for The Slanket Company The Slanketeers Slanket I think it’s only right that you send me a free Slanket for pimping your product.

PS. I’d like the one with Dinosaurs on it, please.

Also, I know it seems like I’ve given my Ikea throw a pretty bad review, so with that in mind it’s worth pointing out that as a throw it is fully functional and satisfactorily hides ugly furniture and makes my bedroom look stylish (when I’m not attempting to wear it).