021: The Loneliness Problem

This video just appeared on my facebook newsfeed and I can't help but share it.

Not only is it beautiful, but it feels strangely true.

  Kathleen x

020: Five Hundred

Not really sure how it fits in the scheme of things, but I just hit my first 500 page views. Only way on is up.

  Kathleen x

019: Fat Pants

Today, I have been pondering the importance of Fat Pants.

I believe that every person - or at the very least every woman, should own a two pairs of fat pants.
Fat pants are quite possibly the greatest invention ever, although no-one actually invented them, we as a society decided that they were necessary. And I therefore love society.

I know, I at least, have two pairs of fat pants. firstly came the comfy pants - the tracksuit or pyjama bottoms. Pants that have perfectly adjusted to your body, fluffy in all the right places, completely unflattering and may have an inappropriate hole or two. These are the pants that only your closest friends are allowed to see, because when you wear your fat pants, your in a special place that can only be witnessed by a few. These are the pants that endure three seasons of Supernatural in one day and help you devour an entire frozen cheesecake. These are the pants that love you no matter what.

And then there are the other fat pants, your baggy pyjamas cousin who lingers in the back of your underwear drawer. Pushed away behind the lace and the cute pattens, are the granny panties, the body shapers and the curve enhancers. These are a special kind of Fat Pants and only to be brought out in special occasion when you are wearing a dress that may decide to reveal your true figure. And only for occasions when you are absolutely certain you not going to pull. We'v,e all seen Bridget Jones Diary - its always awkward. But boy do they make your arse look good.

These are my two favourite items in my wardrobe, but two that should never see the light of day.

  Kathleen x

018: My Last Kiss When a Little Like This....

Well, first off, I was drinking, so we can just pretend that I had perfect judgment on what was happening around me. It was midweek and we were bored, so we stocked up on cheap wine and decided to see where the night would take us. It wasn’t much of a surprise as to where we ended – the bar known for its cheap drinks that lures students from the three surrounding universities. As the evening progressed, and the wine was washed down with shots, we ended up dancing.

The discounted alcohol had pulled a crowd and before long, my friends and I had separated. One girl had recognised a flame from a previous time and had been pulled in by his charm. Another had been snatched by a tartan clad builder who had pulled her to the quiet of the beer garden to chat. When it was just one friend and I left standing, we staggered to the bar ordered a drink and toasted to our ability to avoid hooking up with any of the short and sniffling men that we too often find.

I however, didn’t get to my drink.

As we waited in line for the bar, a man with a boy’s face started up a conversation. And be it the alcohol talking, or the to the flash of future where I see myself a crazy cat lady, I got my flirt on. Before long we were in a tangle of limbs on the dance floor (my friend had to have the victory drink all on her own) and it wasn’t long before her lent down to my ear and whispered the ever alluring line of “so, my place or your?”

This is the thing I too easily forget about people – is that people kinda want sex and don't share my romantic notion about sharing that with a select few.  I don’t believe in no sex before marriage, I takes all the fun out of begin young – but I’m not really one to fling myself around whenever I feel like it. I need passion and attraction and some sort of connection for me to go to bed with someone and meeting someone by a beer soaked bar is very far from my idea of romantic. It’s a shame really that I am in such a minority because there are good guys out there who would be ready to wait if not for the queue of women who would just rather cut to the chase.

We as a society seem to have regressed back to thinking with our downstairs rather than our up, going back to primitive desires for sex, now and not really thinking about anything else. Have we really lost all ideas about what a relationship is supposed to be about? I mean, penguins have it pretty down pat, why is it taking humans so long to get around to it?

Unfortunately, the part of my brain that decides what is appropriate to say had stopped working several hours ago, and all my ideas about the value of sex in today’s society came tumbling out in response to his rather simple question. The look on his face was priceless and he began systematically searching the club for the friend he had seen me with earlier. And then dissolved back into the crowd.

Maybe I can see why I am single now.  

  Kathleen x 

017: What is Love?

My parents have been married for 24 years, twenty four years! - that's a long time. That's longer than I have been alive, but that was half expected, wasn't it, and today we were able to celebrate the two dozen years that they have been married, and as always, out comes the story of how my parents got together.
He was twenty one, she was nineteen, they were at the beach and he stole her shoes. That, in my opinion, is love.

Their love is the kind of love that doesn't need words; that knows when the other needs  a cup of tea and know without discussion when they are trying to cut back on sugar or when they need a heaped teaspoon.  Love is building a surprise patio for her 40th birthday and still not complaining when the capping was not attached ten years later. Their love endures the cheese making and the cleaning flashcards.Their love is a love that never makes Shepard's Pie and will always go halves in a beer.

I count their love to be up there with the great loves in the world - of Lizzy and Darcy, Anne and Gilbert, Ron and Hermione. But unlike all my other role models for the perfect relationship, I have had these two wonderful people sitting with me at the dinner table all my life, showing that true love can be enduring and beautiful and, what the world needs to remember most - possible.

And maybe this is the reason that I am rather content with my current single status, because I know that there could be no one night stand in the world that will live up to the love that I witness everyday and that if it is out there, something will happen to make sure he steals my shoe.

  Kathleen x