Pastry Porn

It's Bake-off Day!

Tonight the 2nd episode in the 4th (?) series of The Great British Bake-off will air on BBC 2.*

Pirate and I are properly addicted.  I even applied to be on the 2nd season, and very nearly made it.  They phoned me up the very day I submitted my application and spent almost an hour asking me questions.  (Now whenever I watch it I think, I coulda been... a contender.)

Did you read yesterday's post, about Pirate baking sourdough bread?  Well, in honor of Bake-off day, here is a photo of the bread.

 

Eat yer heart out, Mary Berry.

*I think it's on BBC2, I'm not really sure.  I watch it on iPlayer.

A memo from the desk of TMI

I have vericose veins. On my...






...fanny flaps.



Apparently vulvar verices (as they are technically known) are common in around 10% of pregnancies (though that's considered to be a wild underestimate as it is believed the condition goes largely unreported), and appear most frequently in the fifth month (check) of a woman's second pregnancy (aaaaand check).



God I have being unoriginal.

Wee Mighty Predator

The small predator had a big day yesterday. In the eyes of the neighborhood moggies, he is now A Man.

He caught his first mouse.


Before yesterday I wasn't sure if he was a hunter or not. After seeing his behavoir, I'm convinced that if he'd had a kill before now we'd have known all about it.

I came home from the supermarket and found a dead mouse right in the middle of the front hall carpet, with Pai walking around it in circles around it, chest all puffed out, tail up, and saying to me "Look at me! Look what I did!*" He was so chuffed with himself I gave him a pat on the head to acknowledge his achievment, and then he did something I did not expect.

Despite the mouse being well and truly dead (I checked), he clearly wasn't done with it. He put it someplace where I coudln't miss seeing it, but once I had seen it Pai wanted to continue playing with it. He picket it up in his mouth, threw it across the hall, and pounced on it. This he repeated several times until by accident he threw it in with the cardboard recycling. He tried to climb in after it, but the density of empty cereal boxes made this impossible.

Not wanting it to rot and stink in there, I dug it out and carried it outside on the front porch, where I told Pai that he could keep it, but it was strictly an outdoor toy. He listened, bless him. He carried on playing with the mouse outside, but didn't bring it in the house again after that. Such a good kitty! I did get a huge kick out of watching him throw it straight up in the air and then bat it between his paws as it came back down, the fucked-up feline.



*He was speaking Cat, naturally, but some things are so obvious they need no translation.

My Mother-in-Law the Pudding Rapist

Wow. I knew it had been a while since I blogged, but I genuinely hadn't realized it had been over 2 months. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to take such a long break, but once I stepped back from the screen to take a breather I found it really difficult to return. Rather than write a big long whingy apology though, how about I just jump right back into it? Right. Here goes.

My mother-in-law is a Pudding Rapist. (This is pudding in the English sense, meaning all things desserty, not just the stuff Bill Cosby sells.)

Pirate and I were up at the in-laws for 2 weeks over Easter, during which time my MIL fed us pudding every day at lunch AND dinner. Argh! After 4 days I thought I would explode. The problem is I know she only does it because I'm there. If it was just Pirate visiting his parents she would make a pud the first night and leave it at that. But because I'm there she makes one every night. And since she's doing it for me I feel obligated out of a sense of hospitality to accept, and then she says "See, I knew you really did want it" and makes another one the next night. And then pourse double cream all over everything! GROOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

So, yes, the Pudding Rapist. Becuase in her mind "no" means "yes" and no matter how much you scream and kick and protest that you don't want any more, she knows you secretly do, and gives it to you.

A Memo from the desk of Too Much Information

Me: sorry for sleeping so late. I put the sheepy sheets* on my bed last night and it was so snuggly in there i couldn't bring myself to get up. It was like a uterus. Now I'm going to spend the rest of the day eagerly awaiting bed time, just so i can get back in it.

Mom: Why don't you go back to bed now?

Me: I'm wide awake. What would I do there.
*pauses*
Don't answer that.

Mom:** You know what they say: sex is like bridge... if you've got a good hand, you don't need a partner.

Me: ...




*We're having a cold snap. The temperature was below zero last night. That's zero Farenheit. So I put the flannel sheets on my bed. My flannel sheets have little cartoon sheeps all over them. They are seriously cute.

** Mom runs a twice-weekly, ACBL-sanctioned bridge game for a bunch of nearly-dead local residents. I shudder to think where she heard this.

Feelin' Fuzzy

or
Still Crazy After All These Hairs

(This is a funny one.)
On Friday morning I put my hair in french braided pigtails while it was still damp. I wore them all day Friday (it's the most comfortable hairstyle in existence) and slept in them Friday night. When I work up Saturday I took them out, fluffed my hair, and got dressed.

I wore a black and white striped turtleneck, and because it was colder than the balls on a brass monkey, topped off my look with a tan, corduroy, flat cap (Oliver Twist-style). I looked in the mirror.

There was something unnervingly familiar about the person looking back at me. I stared and stared, and then all at once it dawned.

You know how they say that over time owners start to look more and more like their dogs? I think the same is true of music. I clearly need to update my record collection. I had become...


...some weird 21st century hybrid of Simon AND Garfunkel. (Except with boobs.)

The Point At Which I Thew Up. The First Time.

Thursday was Traf Night on the base. Yes, I know that Tuesday was actually the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, but they didn't celebrate until Thursday. It was a personnel-only night, so I couldn't go and join in the reindeer games. Instead I had a neighbor 'round for tea. (How very English of me.)

Pirate came back at quarter past one in the morning and announced that we were spending the weekend on a yacht with a bloke from work, his bird, and some other people he'd not met.

I have never been on a yacht. My most recent memory of being on a boat that was powered by something other people was a fishing trip my parents took me on when I was 10 out on to Lake Michigan. My dad and I spent the whole time trowing up, and we didn't catch a single fish.

I agreed to go on the grounds that I'd never done it before, and as a rule I like to try new things. I was apprehensive, however, as this seemed to me the kind of activity that was highly dependent upon 2 things:

The quality of the company, and
The quality of the weather.

If the company was lively and the weather calm, it was sure to be a good time.
If the company was dull and the weather lively, it had disaster written all over it.

It started out well enough. The dawn broke radiantly over Rame Penninsula.

Red sky in the morning; Sailor, take warning!

(That was the actual view out our bedroom window on the morning of the excursion.)

We tootled in to Plymouth where we met the crew at the marina and went aboard.

All aboard the HMS Upchuck!

Our skipper had recently passed his Master Yachtsman qualifications, so we were in good hands. All seemed to be going well, and I started to get excited. (Not that way, you filthy sots.)

We got through the lock and out of the marina with no trouble, and set a course to take us around Plymouth breakwater on the west side, then head east for Shag Rock and up the River Yealm, where we moor in the harbor, have dinner in a charming pub in the charming village of Newton Ferrers, sleep on the boat, and return home Sunday morning. It seemed like a good plan. Essentially camping, but on the water. This sounded good to me.

Initially, it was all going very well.

Pirate, relaxing.

Then it all started to go horribly, horribly wrong.

As soon as we got past the breakwater the water got really, really rough, and so did the rest of us. Pirate, despite being an experienced sea-farer, has no sea legs. He was the first to go green. He went below deck to lie down, but that was a mistake. As soon as he got down the steps he lost his stomach, but managed (rather heroically) to hold it in his mouth until he could get back up to the cockpit and spit it over the side.

(Is this all getting a bit too disgusting? Deal. Reading this isn't a fraction as bad as living it, and I survived. You will, too.)

For a while I was doing OK. I stayed up in the cockpit, keeping in the fresh air and my eyes on the horizon. It worked, too, for about 20 minutes. And then I committed a fatal error. Getting bored with looking at nothing but an empty horizon, I just happened to glance down at the water at the side of the boat. The waves were swelling and undulating seductively beneath me. I instantly threw up.

I had no warning. One second I was fine, and the next I was spewing that morning's sausage and spetzle into the wind, spraying the two women who were sitting aft of me.

And then I did it again. And again. And again.

I spent the next 10 minutes heaving over the side of the boat in rapid succession. It was too winding for much of it to actually reach the water. Mostly it just blew all over the place.

I didn't know it at the time, but one of the other guys was on the opposite side of the boat, doing the same thing. The remaining few were standing in the cockpit between us, desperately trying to dodge flying chunks.

Having offered the entire contents of my stomach to the fish, I got a bucket and doused down the deck, then settled in to endure the rest of journey. As we reached the mouth of the River Yealm I saw the calm water on the leeward side of the land and began counting down the seconds until we reached it.

We finally got ourselves bouyed in what might well be the prettiest little harbor village in the British Isles.


I'd really like to go back and spend some more time in the village. It was a really lovely place to be. But next time, I'll take a FUCKING BUS.

After we were securely moored they let me play around in the dinghy, and that was the best part of the whole trip. I really like that bit.

Conclusion: the only boats worth being in are the ones you power yourself.

After a long walk along the coast and dinner in the Pub, Pirate and I couldn't face going back to Plymouth the same way we'd come, so we phoned a cab and went home by car. Last night we got a peaceful night's sleep in our own beds. Today the weather is shit. I can't imagine what the rest of the crew are going through to get home.

And people do this for fun????


Update: The skipper and his gf came by today to drop off our bags. Apparently it was a rough night on the boat, with lots of wind blowing it about the harbor, and people got little, if any, sleep. We totally made the right call. Boo-yeah.

My eyes, my eyes!!!! *blood curdling scream*

Part III will have to wait because guess what? I have impetigo!* In my EYES!

It started last Saturday as an itchy bump on the bottom of my chin. Monday morning I had developed what i thought was a cold sore on the corner of my mouth. As luck would have it, I had to see the doctor that day anyway to get my gym pass signed off. (If Pirate brings it back today I can go use the gym on the base for free any time I want, including all the classes and stuff. cool!)

Long story short, it's now on my chin, the corner of my mouth, my left ear, and both eyelids, which are swollen, blistering, oozing yellow puss, and itching like the blazes. You have NO IKEA how miserable this is.

Good thing Pirate and I are having company for dinner tonight -- some of his work colleagues. I look awesome!

(And yes, I asked the doctor when I went back this morning if it was safe for me to prepare food for people, and he said it was. Now I'm using an antibiotic cream and taking oral antibiotics. That should kill the little feckers.)

*Do a Google image search. I dare you.

If I knew you were coming...

Who could have imagined that a blog with photos of cake-decorating travesties would be so fucking hilarious!

*wipes eyes*

15 minutes ago I was still a bit nervous about baking my own wedding cake.

No longer.

I'm dying

Seriously.

I can't breathe, my sinuses are full of yellow-brown goop, I've got a splitting headache, my ears are plugged, I'm coughing my lungs up, sneezing my brains out, and I ache all over.

Fucking flu.

(And before you even suggest it, Herebe, it's NOT from over-training.)

Now the only question remains, What do I want on my tombstone? Ham, mushroom, and pineapple, of course!

I went on a pub crawl last night with the Atheist, Agnoistic, and Secular Society. The theme was "myths and legends." I went as Eve. That's Elrond's ho on the left about to do something lurid.

How d'y' like them fig leaves!

I did have an apple earlier in the evening, but I ate before this pic was taken. Sorry.

Eight Things

Got tagged by Joliet Jake (quite some time ago now) to do this meme. Sorry it's taken so long to getting around to it.

So here are 8 things about me you probably didn't already know:



1. Despite the outward appearance of ambition, I am incredibly lazy and rarely do more than just what's necessary to squeak by.

2. At the age of 16 I played a chorus girl and Egyptian whore in a small (but professional) production of Joeph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. (Not the one with Donny Osmond.)

3. I only drink malty beers. Too much hops is bleurgh.

4. One of my labia hangs much lower than the other.

5. I will eat anything once, and have tried osterich, emu, crocodile, kangaroo, and pigeon. The osterich was the best, followed by the 'roo and the croc. Am still trying to find a restaurant that serves rattlesnake.

6. I probably shouldn't have mentioned eating anyting right after describing my labia. oops.

7. My favorite smell is the mingled scent of dry leaves, wood smoke, seasoned oak, and apples.

8. I am a hypocrite because I think overpopulation is the biggest problem facing the world today, but I want (and plan to have) a huge family.



Tagging: Dave, LC, Herebe, Sal, GSE, Miss Melville, and Murph. Hop to it.

One year on... The Run-Up

This past weekend was my one-year anniversary with the Pirate. I'm going to desribe the events and feelings of the weekend in agonizing detail, because I want to be sure that in 50 years I still have a record of it to fill in the gaps in my happy, hazy memories, and because there are a lot of bits that I'm sure you lot will enjoy. This will likely be spread out over several posts...

We had a big weekend planned, but it kept growing and growing. Every moment was gorgeous, joyous, and filled with mental sunshine.

Friday he popped into Brizzle to pick me up. I would have been happy to cycle, but I needed to bring all the bits and bobs to make me beautiful for the ball on Saturday night, and I couldn't carry everything I needed on my own. I got out of work, threw the last few things in my bags (I began packing 3 days early), and waited downstairs. I had just sat down on the steps and opened my book when I heard his car horn outside. We listened to The Now Show on Radio 4 and laughed ourselves all the way to his place. (Marcus Brigstock is GOD.)

I had a nice dinner planned, so when we arrived at HMS Lovenest (as the Pirate's home shall henceforth be known) I immediately hit the galley. "It's been raining for a month and the grass has grown a foot. I'm going to go out back and destroy the garden while you're burning the sausages," he said. He donned the Yard Work Shoes (old trainers with holes that were once employed in the service of a Rocky Horror costume and spray-painted metallic gold), and I slipped into an apron. It was such a picture of domesticity even I couldn't help but laugh. We've properly turned into June and Ward Cleaver. I listened to the venison sausages sizzle and the lanwmower hum outside, and smiled.



Saturday was an early start. Pirate and I had to drive to some place south of London to check out a classic Aston Martin he's thinking about buying. We were out the door at 7:30. Ouch.

The drive was pleasant and we enjoyed the first sunshine we'd seen in weeks. The directions were complicated but detailed (I always get nervous when directions include items like "turn left by the high hedgerow"), and we found the place with no difficulty. If only the broker selling the car was as thorough with his automobiles as he is with his directions. I believed him when he said "I really believed the car was in operating condidtion. If I'd known it wasn't I would have phoned you and told you not to come," but if he'd bothered to get the thing out of the back of the garadge a day or two early and dust it off he would have known that it barely started and only engaged 4 of the 6 cylinders. We had to abandon the test drive after less than 100 yards. Trip wasted. Understandably, Pirate was not in a good mood. His bitterness at the waste of time was amplified by the let-down. After years of searching he thought he'd finally come across the model he wanted with the features he wanted in his price rance. Alas, it was not to be. We got back in his Skoda Dinghy and left.

On the way to the car place we'd spotted a PYO berry farm advertising ripe raspberries, the Pirate's second-fav fruit (blackberries being the first). We decided to make a spontaneous detour and pick some berries. This had the triple beneficial effect of 1, making the trip seem slightly less futile; 2, extending the break between outward and return drives; and 3, giving us an excuse to get out and enjoy the sunshine.

And enjoy it, we did. I was wearing a cute little sundress and frolicked, yes, frolicked, around the fields. They had far more than just raspberries -- they had loganberries and tayeberries as well. I'd never heard of either of the latter. P had heard of loganberries but had never tried them. We sampled a few plump specimines of each and became immediately enamoured, me with the loganberries and P with the tayeberries. We grabbed our baskets and began picking. An hour later we had more berries than we could carry, and had to make several trips from the fields to the car. I put my nose right down to one of the larger punnetts I'd picked and inhaled deeply. The fruit was warm and gave off a thick, intoxicating smell. Some things smell of summer because you associate them with summer (sunblock, burgers grilling, etc.). I had never smelled this smell in my life, but somewhere deep in my DNA I knew that this was the smell of summer.

Back on the road again we passed a sign that said "British Wildlife Centre." Que spontaneous detour numero dos. The place was much larger and more extensive (and expensive) that I would have guessed from the inauspiscous signage. In addition to the Scotish Wildcat breeding program, the herds of red and roe deer, the stoats, foxes, otters (Lutra lutra), bees, birds, and butterflies, there was a barn owl who slept on a perch in the visitors' center and danced in his sleep when you stroked his feathers (which were the softest thing I've ever touched), a tiny harvest mouse who clambered up and down the blades of grass in his cage, and a wild male pheasant who kept trying to break in to the pheasant enclosure to romance the hens therein. Hehehe.

Before we got to the water vole exhibit I could feel my shoulders getting hot. By the time we'd made it 'round to the eagle owl I knew I was toasting, and badly. I told the Pirate I needed to get under cover, and soon.

We'd seen pretty much everything, and needed to be getting back to the HMS Lovenest anyway so I would have ample time to bee-ootify myself for the evening's festivities: a formal ball. Back in the car, and this time no more procrastinating. We hit the highway and made tracks west.

At Reading P needed a short break and a nap in order to continue driving safely, so we pulled into a service center. I could already feel the burn coming up on my shoulders and decided to go inside to buy some aftersun. The first horrible thing about this stop was that when I got out of the car I left a significant portion of the skin from the back of my legs attached to the vinyl seat. That hurt like a bitch. The second horrible thing was that at a huge service center situated directly next door to a Travelodge there was no place to buy a toothbrush or any other toiletry basics, never mind a simple bottle of lotion. I got back in the car and put my feet up on the dashboard to prevent my thighs from coming into any further contact with the seat.

"Why are you sitting like that?" asked the Pirate.
I explained.
"Is the seat OK?"
I have not the words.

We arrived back that the L.N. at 5 pm with a freshly aquired bottle of after sun aloe gel, courtesy of the local supermarket. Time to get in the shower and begin preparing for the Big Event!

Stay tuned for Part 2, where our heroine addresses issues like

• trying to create a hairstyle that doesn't say "a diseased rodent died on my head"
• coping with sunburn and tan lines while wearing a new, sexy, backless ball gown
• being dumped by one's date, who suddenly decides he prefers the company of another... !
  

Bring on the Yeasty Beasties!

or: Confessions of an Inadequate Drinker of More Than Adequate Beer, and the Unfortunate Consequences,
or: How I Made a Right Tart of Myself on Sunday Night

UPDATE: (at bottom of post)

This is pretty personal and pretty detailed, which is why i didn't post it right away, but i've decided that it was an emotionally significant event and i could really use your thoughts. Sadly, in order to fully convey my horror at what transpired Sunday evening, I have to give you some pretty grapic details. Sorry. (Warning: disgusting details and whinging inferiority complex imminent!)

I have never been so embarassed in my entire life.

Sunday the Pirate's cricket game was cancelled because of the rain, which gave us the whole day to do whatever the fuck we pleased. Rainy sundays are great. Rainy sundays when i'm on the rag are considerably less great. So much for the usual Olympic marathon bedroom gymnastics. Bah. So we had to find other ways to amuse ourselves indoors.

So we did pleasant Domestic Things. We went to the outdoors store and got ourselves some necessary bicycle bits and parts, went to the grocery store for milk and toilet paper (that most necessary accessory for modern life), and stopped by the pet store to procure me a new fish (photos to follow shortly, after i get my camera batteries charged). That killed half the day.

So I rang up some pals to see if anyone wanted to go bowling. i managed to get flatmate B, former flatmate Welsh Cake, and her boyf the Yorkshire Pudding on board. (Me, i'm the American Pie, and Pirate is known in these parts as my Lancashire Hotpot. Getting the Hotpot and the Pud together is always great fun; they can spend hours insulting each other's heritage -- it's brilliant!)

We had So. Much. Fun. The bowling alley is shite, and the laminate floors (as opposed to polished wood) mean i get absolutely no slide, so my scores were shite too, but that wasn't the point. The Welsh Cake is the worst bowler I've ever seen -- bless her cotton socks -- so when she finally got a strike we all jumped up and danced like Muppets. Not muppets in the generic sense, i mean Muppets, those wonderful creations of Jim Henson's with their very distictive dancing style (head thrown back, arms straight out in front, hips and hands girating back and forth). Even the Pirate got in. Actually, he started it. and i LOVE that he is the sort of man who will go out in public with his girlfriend and her friends and has no compuntions whatsoever about looking like a complete tit and dancing in a bowling alley. god i love that man. he's more man than any man i've ever met, and he's still a complete kid inside, too.

We had so much fun we didn't want the fun to end, so after our 2 games we piled into the car and went to The Mall in Clifton Village, my favorite pub in Bristol. It's got a great vibe, great ambience, great music, comfy furniture, and the best selection of Belgian beers on draught of any pub I've seen (in a country other than Belgium).

I started going there for the Hoegaarden, but one day when they were out i discoverd the Leffe. Oh sweet mother of god that's good beer. And very strong. They normally only serve it in half pints, but the (Belgian lesbian) barmaid who served me (and tried to chat me up) was perfectly happy to pull me a pint. Whee! At 6.5% that went down too fast and too smooth. So i moved on to a pint of Fruli -- a strawberry wheat beer that actually contains strawberries, and not just strawberry cough syrup. That's good beer, too.

Then for some reason i decided I wanted a half pint of the Schneider Weisse, another lovely brew. Except aforementioned lesbian Belgian barmaid pulled me a whole pint. Did i only drink half? Did i fuck.

Normally 3 pints, even three strong pints, wouldn't be enough to make me more than slightly tipsy, so i didn't worry too much. I'm Polish, remember? But i had forgotten about dual facts that a, i havn't drunk much in the past several months, so i don't have much of a tolerance, and b, all i'd eaten since lunch time was a 6" sandwich at Subway, and that was several hours past already (pre-bowling). So i had NO food in my stomach to sop up the deliscious yeasty beasties.

When we got back to my place and bid the Cake, the Pud, and B goodnight and closed the door, then did i begin to realize how far gone i truely was. i told the Pirate i wanted to clear my head, and went downstairs to walk around the block. It was raining, but i jogged 4 laps around the block anyway, hoping to speed up my metablolism and process the alcohol a bit faster. (I never get drunk when I'm dancing no matter how much i drink, so i figured this should work.) It didn't. I was drunk and wet. I went back upstairs where the Pirate had laid out the air mattress and sleeping bag for me (it was my turn on the floor -- he's had it the past 3 weekends), along with my teddy bear and feather pillow and filled 2 pint glasses with water, which he ordered me to drink.

(Warning to male readers: details of menstrual condidtion imminent!) Now, because Aunt Flow was visiting we hadn't had any nookie all weekend, and because last weekend we were so fucking sick and and exhausted, it had been a while. I was randy. really, really randy. But the good news was that i hadn't had a drop of blood since the previous night. I had considered jumping the Pirate in the morning, but decided to give it another day just to be sure. By sunday evening when i was still clean i decided the coast was clear and announced such. Someone was very happy indeed. Two someones, really. (Attention male readers: you can open your eyes now.)

This is where my memory starts to get a bit fuzzy, but i remember most everything. I hope.

We started kissing, but every time I closed my eyes i got really dizzy and nauseous. We tried to lie down on the bed but being horizontal was a Bad Idea and my equilibrium told me so. So we stood up and i tried to go down on the P, but after a few seconds the nausea became too great and i had to bolt for the bathroom, where i threw up three times.

The Pirate asked if i was OK, and i said that honestly yes, i felt much better having emptied my system, and i did. So we carried on, standing up. It was all going terribly well, and we had a lovely time. After everyone was satisfied, tired, and happy, i got off and...

(warning: gross bit coming up)... there was blood everywhere. I was mortified. I have never made such a mess in my life. I'm not opposed to shagging while ragging in principle, and have done it before -- taking appropriate measures, such as a thick black towel on the bed -- but the Pirate is not a fan. This is ok with me, and i respect his feelings on this matter. But even i have never seen such a mess. It was disgusting, and it was everywhere.

Pirate went into the bathroom to clean up, while i sat on the bed amidst a pool of sticky embarassment. When he came out i went to get cleaned up, was overcome with nausea again (i was still rather drunk) and proceeded to throw up again. and again.

I honestly don't know which embarassed me more, the blood or the puking. Either one would have been enough make me want to move to another country and never show my face again, but both in one night is almost more than i can bear. Pirate was incredibly understanding, and wiped away my tears and told me everything was fine and he didn't care and just wanted to make sure i was OK.

The following morning (managed to dodge the hangover; i think the yakking helped there), i was still crying from embarassment, and again Pirate told me to stop being silly that everything was fine, and gently wiped the tears from my face, told me that of course he forgives me when i asked him, and kissed me.

But (in a stupid, backwards, totally illogical way) this just makes everything worse!

He's so goddamn perfect! if he would do something assenine, just once, he would be easier to believe. Even if he said something like "yup, you really fucked up, and there is nothing sexy about a bleeding, barfing drunk woman, but you are still a wonderful person and i still love you," i could take that. But he doesn't even acknowledge that i did anything wrong, which makes me wonder "What is he really thinking??? What is he not telling me???" No one can possibly be that understanding.

Can they?

That's the other possibilty: he really is that sympathetic and understanding, which makes me feel all the more inadequate. He's just too good for me. He's the most wonderful man alive, treats me like a queen, and how do i repay him? By bleeding and barfing all over him. Fucking great girlfriend i am.

So HOW CAN I STOP FEELING GUILTY????

UPDATE: All afternoon while i've been sitting here writing this and feeling like a giant disgusting shit, do you know what the Pirate was doing? This was our text conversation:

P: Having a productive day?... [stuff about his day]
me: Hullo! I'm fine. I got my bike back from the shop. Whee!
P: Good stuff. I'm off out to pick you a carrier bag of wild garlic. How long does it go in the oven for?

That's right. While I've been sitting here feeling like a monster, he was out wandering the wild woods of Wiltshire to pick me loads of wild garlic for my cooking.

I can't get over how sweet that is. That's right up there with the omelette for thoughtful gestures. He's not going to use it -- he hates cooking! He's doing it entirely for me! It also sends the message of how much he appreciates my cooking, and wants to do something to contribute.

He's too good for me. I don't deserve him. I bleed and barf all over him and what does he do? He spends an evening gathering me a bag of wild cooking herbs. I don't think I can ever be good enough for him, but i desperately want to spend the rest of my life trying.

Eeewww!

Someone got here by googling "sexy excrement." Whoever you are, GO AWAY! Ew. There's kink and then there's just gross.