Puzzling sensory distortions

(1)
It didn't feel as cold tonight when I went out for my last half cigarette on the front step. So why were the puddles frozen? Their odd appearance struck me first. They were kind of striped in an angular way, like lying down icicles. Which indeed is what they proved to be when I poked them with my toe.
But I've stood there & shivered many a windy/sleety night, when the puddles were simply accumulations of wet water. This time it felt quite mild by comparison. On the other hand, it was calm. I suspect it's something to do with Physics. I'm crap at Physics. The only time I ever got as little as 2/10 for my homework was for Physics. It still rankles. I explained the leakage of ink from a fountain pen in an aeroplane very convincingly in terms of pressure increasing the higher up you got, which squeezed out the ink. Apparently it's the opposite, & the ink sort of escapes because there's not enough pressure holding it in. Oh well.
(Never having taken a fountain pen on a plane, this concept hasn't generally troubled me.)

(2)
I thought Alan was having another heart attack. Suddenly out of the silence surrounding my late night blog reading (AFreeManInPreston) came this pained sound midway between a groan & a wail with shades of throwing up: loud, intrusive... the TV in the next room had turned itself on at full volume, obviously left on standby on some obscure digital channel that only springs into life at 3am. I bet that's something to do with Physics, too. It usually is.

Taking stock

One of my closest friends keeps asking, of keeping a blog, "Yes, but what is it for?". I think she has a point. I don't really know what this is for.

I've become increasingly uneasy & inhibited about splurging family 'stuff' in a semi-public place. I could probably have wirtten anonymously about my husband's health, my kids' various endeavours & the like, but pretty much everyone who reads this knows who I am, & therefore who they are, & it doesn't feel right. On the other hand, I can hardly run each entry past an editorial panel to negotiate what should/should not be published! I admired TRT's blog until I found myself asking awkward questions about how the unwitting 'victim' of his posts might feel... Actually I do still admire it - he's an intelligent & witty writer - but I no longer feel any desire to emulate it.

I've also become more self-conscious (present post notwithstanding!) about inebriated late-night ramblings that people might come across - by 'people' I mean colleagues, students, family members, family members' partners/friends/acquaintances... All that 'you're my besshht mate you are - hic - & the Innernet's wunnerful innit - hic', not to mention the occasional 'I hate the world & I hate myself & I want to DIE' moments, are so embarrassingly adolescent. On the other hand, if I'm going to censor & sanitise, what's the point?

I've been looking back at Nog's posts that brought me back into the world of blogging after an initial nervous encounter that had been quickly abandoned. He wrote, back in May 2005:

I think it's an opportunity to try a different voice, it need not be responsive in the way that emails and conference postings usually are - it can be didactic, I can direct it without reference to a specific function for this area, I'm writing for an unknown audience (...) an opportunity for public introspection, a vocal meditation. So not only pompous but also self-indulgent and conceited! :-)

I've no idea whether he still feels the same way, having moved on to more specifically educational applications (as did I, with the more comfortably focused Connecting wth H806) but I'm now finding the "different voice" too ill-defined to serve any real purpose.

I'd quite like to post humorous & incisive reflections on my Daily Doings, in the manner of Non-Working Monkey. I'd also enjoy putting up a regular sarky commentary on the BBC News site's illogical & ungrammatical reports. Or I could produce a diary of My Life As An OU Tutor (with carefully anonymised references to colleagues & students). But what would it be for?

Well, that's the spare Christmas sherry finished, & if you've made it to the end of this little piece of self-indulgence, I guess you can join the ranks of "besshht mates" :-)