Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

So. Um. Where to begin? I have a bunch of stuff I’ve been promising to write up since October and there have been noteworthy recent events. So which do I pick. The more recent should have more detail but it’d be nice to clear my backlog.
Well. In recent news.
I’m now 28. So close to thirty that’s it’s actually kind of scary.
I have Microsoft Office Home and Student which only comes with four things which I much prefer to the six things from the trial. When am I ever going to use that other crap?
We went to my aunt’s for Easter. I started writing about that the day before we went, my feelings at the time and events leading up to it, but I lost my flow and it seemed pointless really.
I burnt my arm on the oven.
I broke the kitchen blind that’s probably older than me.
I watched my first anime of the year.
Oh. And the toaster did a kind of not quite exploding thing and is now broken.
I still haven’t done any writing.
I’ve developed an odd fixation with trying to make miniature dollhouses out of card and not very well at that.
I got my glasses back. Oh wait. I think I told you that.
I’ve finally started practicing guitar again.
I currently have spontaneous and violent hiccups.
Oh and I changed my hair a little. I was going to cut it but haven’t got round to it yet. I’m a little nervous about cutting it myself. I’ve only ever changed my hair perhaps twice in my life. First when I grew out my fringe in my mid to late teens because I was sick of having to trim the devil horns (The edges would flick up and be annoying) I was resistant to the idea of hairspray and straighteners. I didn’t want to change my look just to try and fit in at school and besides, those *****es would’ve mocked me no matter what I did. Not that I’m still bitter about that or anything *shifty eyes* (in case I don’t find a smiley that matches this feeling). I prefer to still call them smilies rather than emoticons or emojis.
And when I grew it long, mainly because I couldn’t be bothered to go and get it cut after the last time which was for graduation. So so long ago now. I’m not sure straightening comes under a separate style, since it’s kind of tied in with the long hair. But I only straighten if I’m going somewhere, which is basically never. Just to point out. I’m not resistant to hair straightening. I just didn’t see the point in my teens. Why would I want to try and look like everyone else? Especially when I hated everyone else. Also it took a long time to develop enough confidence to change my appearance and even then, only in small steps. I can’t help feeling that I missed out on a vital journey of self-expression and experimentation with my appearance by refusing to do any of that in my teens. By now other people my age have tried out a few things and settled on a look and don’t wonder what if so much.

So. The long awaited Christmas part two?
Ah. What to say? I still have the violent hiccups. It’s annoying.
Do you mind if I do recent events instead? These hiccups aren’t going away.
I burnt the back of my wrist on the top shelf of the oven. It hurts. It’s wasn’t bad. Just a first degree burn, if that. I didn’t run it under the tap for long because the cold water made my hand feel kind of dead. Maybe a minute or so. We have an aloe plant on the windowsill that we can’t reach because we have a bunch of crap in the way. The crap was actually there before the plant. Because it’s hard to reach, it’s barely ever watered. I don’t water it because mum usually does that and I don’t want to over water the plants. It’s hung in there very well, like a cactus.
I reached over (stepping on a few things in the way) and took it off the windowsill. It was a bit dusty and cobwebby. I picked a reasonably nice tip and rubbed that on my burn. I’ve never used raw aloe before. It felt nice but sticky. I imagine it would’ve felt ever nicer if it weren’t a bit shrivelled. I gave it a drink and then decided to put a spare self-watering plant globe thing that we had (originally we used it for Mavis, the pretty white hyacinth which was reduced in Tesco, she’s finished now). Because I thought mum was watering her (but wasn’t) Mavis wasn’t watered for a week, twice, until I put the water globe thing in her pot.
So, as the aloe had felt helpful, I felt it deserved the same treatment, to be self-watered, as a reward. So. When I put it back I was worried about tipping it to get it under the blind. That thing has been shut as long as ‘ve known it. I opened it just once before, to shed some light on that German Shepard Rottweiler cross that broke into our garden, all those years ago.
Even though it’s the only blind in the house and it’s never used, I still know how blinds work. Pull the chord out towards you, at an angle and it will start rolling up. Straighten the blind when you’re happy with the position to lock it back in place.
Well. That’s all well and good, when you’re blind isn’t about thirty years old and never rolled up. I tried to roll it up just a bit and the chord Broke. Ah well. Not the chord exactly. The plastic attached to the chord just snapped clean off. So what to do? Well. I go wake mum up to tell her and hope to get some advice. I’m met with grumpy uselessness. It’s worth pointing out that I’d already woken her up twice previously. Firstly to express displeasure that I cry of pain from the kitchen (when I burnt myself) followed by the sound of the cold tap being on full blast, had not gotten any kind of response. She was asleep. A stampede of rhinos wouldn’t wake her up.
Secondly to ask for her opinion of which tip of the aloe and how much to use, and then the observation that it needed watering and the idea to put in the water globe thing.
So by the third time she was not best pleased. And she was even less pleased to see the blind. She was not remotely helpful and took a kind of condescending you stupid girl kind of tone which pissed me off. I decided to deal with it myself. I had the idea of resting a plank on the ladder and windowsill and stepping across the crap to the blind. An interesting but stupid idea.
I thought of using a clothes peg on sticks to grab the blind. I went to the trouble of taping one to the extendable gardening shears.
I think I’ve finally stopped hiccupping now. Sweet relief.
The stupid peg wouldn’t stay in place. Again an interesting but stupid idea. Then I had the idea of hooking it with the rake. The idea was that one of us hooked so the other to get a clear grip with the peg. Mum chose the hooking and couldn’t get it into the blind properly so was in danger of pulling the whole thing down. In the end I did it. But I found that the rake just happened to grip a firm part of the blind so I was able to pull it back down with ease.
So that was that. And that was on Tuesday.
The burn was going about it’s business quite nicely, not causing me any bother. In fact O kept forgetting it was even there. Until Friday. Then things went wrong. Very wrong. I felt kind of sleepy walking the dog, kind of like being in a dream.
When I had that kind of feeling at school I’d dig my nails into my arm to wake me up. Now I prefer to drag my nails down my arm. Now the burn is on my right hand. I walk the dog with my right hand. So my left hand was free. It makes sense to scratch my right arm then. But I wear long sleeves so I can only really get the forearm.
Yeah. I scratched the burn and peeled off some skin. Like an idiot.
So. I rushed home. Put some ointment on a plaster and put it on the burn/scratch. It didn’t bleed. But I think it started weeping a bit. It should also be pointed out that we only had two big plasters left because a few days earlier mum fell over walking the dog and scraped her hand. It got kind of big and I worried it was pus. It turned out to be a kind of graze blister hybrid and just had blister fluid. So she’s been using the big plasters to cover it. When I was little I called them knee plasters because they were the biggest ones on the box and usually reserved for knee injuries. That was when my knees (and the rest of me) were considerably smaller. The regular plaster would’ve covered my burn, only just and I didn’t want to risk missing and having sticky plaster on delicate burn skin. But I had to cover the scratch. I say scratch. Since the burnt skin is delicate it’s more like a little gouge. I know the skin on top was just dead skin, but it needed to stay there until the skin underneath was ready.
I kept the plaster on overnight. I took it off when I got up and it started to weep. I’m pretty sure that was the pooling of a liquid scab, but after several hours it still hadn’t dried and I had to walk the dog. I didn’t want to put a plaster on it but in the end I had to.
Then I had to debate whether to have a wet scab or a dry scab. That is let the skin dry out and scab. Or keep up a daily application of ointment and plasters to act as a substitute skin while it healed. Were it just the scratch it might have been different. But because it’s also a burn I was worried. You don’t cover first degree burns. In fact they need to be out in the open, they don’t need a substitute skin. But it had already gotten moist when I had the plaster on. In the end I decided to go down the dry scab route. Let it dry and from a nice scab.
Now it hurts a bit and the whole burn feels hot sometimes. It never felt like this before I scratched it. I worry that it might become infected. I’m trying to leave it alone. I want to leave it alone for two days and see how it is.
Oddly enough, before the scratch, this was the worst burn I’d ever had (if you exclude sunburns, which are also classified as first degree burns). Usually I only have slightly burnt fingertips or have minute plashed of boiling water or oil. Not enough that I really take notice. This burn had a little ridge of dry dead skin where it had come into the most contact with the oven.
It’s only little. Less than an inch long. It was quite a cute little burn. Now it’s a cute little red burn with a scab in the middle.

Well. That’s long enough. But I’ll just do the toaster too.
I like to get a little farmhouse loaf when we go shopping. It’s a cute little loaf and reminds me of when I baked my own little loaf of bread once. I very much like toasting it. So much so that I like to say I’m a toast locust. I like it buttered with a sprinkle of salt. Mum also likes toast. She’s had it every day since before I was born (She always says that she didn’t have cravings when she was pregnant with me, unless you count her daily marmite toast). She usually has it with marmite or peanut butter. I thought of getting her a toaster for Christmas, instead a got a kettle. I thought of getting her a toaster for her birthday instead. I decided against it because I couldn’t decide on a good one.
Well tonight I went to do myself a slice of toast and the toaster flashed and buzzed, then died.
For safety (in case a frayed wire had caused the problem) I turned it off and went to tell mum.
She was asleep, of course. I told her about it and she said maybe there was a bee in it. I’m not sure if she was mocking me or still half asleep. I told her because she’d have toast in the morning so it was something she needed to know. She tried it. It didn’t work.
So. Now the toaster’s definitely broken. It’s a pretty old and cheap toaster and I was expecting it to go soon anyway (which is why I considered one as a gift). I can’t remember when it was last cleaned, so that might have had something to do with it. Also it’s gotten more use in the past few months.
I have considered that I should’ve gotten a toaster instead of a kettle since Christmas but I’ve decided not to dwell on it. If I’d gotten a toaster then we wouldn’t have known how close to breaking the old toaster was and I’d feel guilty if we’d thrown it away and stupid if we’d kept it and used it once the new one had broken, because I’d be wondering if we hadn’t left it lying arounf for five years would it still have broken?
**** happens.

Bluebiird out.

Also, the anime I watched was One Punch Man. It’s quite fun. I like how it has one or more fights each episode that don’t take forever to playout. Usually in an anime one fight between the main character and a boss type monster will take five episodes of banter, taunting, yelling, powerful attacks, super powerful if I use this I might die kind of attacks, brief backstory of the villain or the hero or both, damn this guy’s strong I don’t know if I can beat him and ultimate it’s all or nothing this is my final attack, I’m exhausted but the enemy is dead I need to spend another ten episodes recovering/running around to find the next monster while my allies each have a few epic fight episodes of their own which follow the same template until I fight the boss and do this all over again but more extreme.
The title is self-explanatory. One. Punch. Man.