Yes, I've Changed it Again!

I did a quiz about an hour ago, which you can find at a site called Bloginality. There are only four questions, but the results were quite astonishing. I was an INTP, which stands for "Introverted - iNtuitive - Thinking - Perceiving" and gives me a primary focus on "introverted thinking with an extroverted intuition" (the website spelt it extraverted, but it's never looked right to me spelt that way, so I've changed it. I think maybe "extraverted" is the American version, I've never seen it spelt that way here).

I'm not entirely sure what an "extroverted intuition" is, but having read the description of this personality type, I can honestly say it is ME. More to the point, it is obvious to me, after clicking on various links and reading about this INTP personality, that what is being said here is that I am, amongst other things, strange, unconventional and unsociable. There are three very nice synonyms for these words, namely: eccentric, Bohemian and hermit. This is why I had no choice but to change the name of my blog to the one I considered but decided against yesterday.

Apparently, people of the INTP personality type are more likely than any others to be geniuses (Einstein was an INTP). I cannot disagree with this, because when I took the Mensa test some years ago I passed it, although I never bothered to join because the meetings were the same day as my Scrabble club and I didn't see the point in wasting £25 or whatever it was to join if I couldn't go to the meetings and for some reason the person who ran them didn't feel inclined to change the day just to suit me.

When I took the test, I was told I had an IQ in the top 000000000.9 of the population (or it could have been 0.000000009 ... something with a lot of 0's and one 9, anyway). This sounded very impressive to me and I do like to brag about it every now and again, so please excuse me. I'd probably fail the test if I took it now though, because I'm sure I've lost rather a lot of brain cells since then, plus there is my current problem with bovinity to consider, but as far as I'm concerned I'm still a genius. Wonder if I could fit that into Eccentric Bohemian Hermits without it sounding too cumbersome?

That would be quite a good name actually, because then my site could be known as GBH for short. Then again, it still could be, I could call it Geriatric Bohemian Hermits instead. One of the readers of my posting called Eccentric Bohemian Hermits, namely Perfectly Vocal, mentioned in her comment that "everything is reduced to an acronym" where she works, so she would probably appreciate GBH. However, EBH could stand for more than just Eccentric Bohemian Hermits. It could stand for Extensive Bodily Harm, or Exceptionally Bright Holograms, or even Extremely Bedraggled Housewives ... any number of things, in fact. I just happen to prefer Eccentric Bohemian Hermits, so that is what my EBH stands for.

Talking of the afore-mentioned Perfectly Vocal (who lives in the same town as me, but I don't know her, at least I don't think I know her ... maybe I do, who knows), take a look at her answer to her random question. Even the fact that whoever wrote the questions on this site spelt "woolly" wrongly doesn't take away from the fact that it's one hell of a funny answer. I particularly like the succinct simplicity of it. Brevity has never been my strong point, so I always admire those who can say so much in so little, as opposed to those like me who can say so little in so much.

Mankind Needs Me to Go to Florida

This is the fourth morning in a row I have had to get up at a ridiculously ungodly hour to take my youngest child to school and I'm absolutely knackered. Getting up much before about 4pm has never been good for my soul and as far as I'm concerned, 8.45 am is about the time I should be thinking about going to bed. Not to mention the fact that 8.45 am is not really the time I should be getting up when my son starts school at 8.50.

Theoretically he could go on his own, but there's a road to cross and although it's only a very small road and he's very good at crossing roads of all sizes, there are a lot of idiots about who for some reason are allowed behind the wheels of cars, buses and other assorted vehicles.

It is now 9.54 am and I think I may have to go back to bed for a while. The only problem is that I'll probably not wake-up in time to collect my son from school at 3 o'clock. Once when I went back to bed it was almost 4 o'clock before I collected him. I had to pretend I'd set my clock an hour slow without realising it, so as far as I was concerned I was early and deserved congratulating.

Current research indicates that the average human being has an internal body clock of 24 hours 11 minutes. I am convinced that mine is more like 25 hours and this belief was strengthened when I read that this is often the case with highly intelligent members of the human race. However, it is thought that if we were unaware of the time of day, everyone's body clock would eventually lengthen to 25 hours (does that mean we'd all become cleverer as well?). It would appear that some humans have faulty 'clock' genes, which gives them different sleeping/waking cycles to everyone else.

Having a 25-hour body clock may not sound particularly problematic, but think about it for a minute. It means that if you are forced to go to get up at the same time every morning, you either have to go to bed an hour earlier each night (in theory, not in practice), or stay up an hour later (which means you are actually going to bed at the same time according to your body clock) and end-up never going to bed at all after about a week. It's the same as the average adult starting off by going to bed at (for example) 11pm and rising at 7am, then the following night going to bed at 10 pm, then at 9pm, then at 8 pm ... well, you get my drift. Eventually they'd be going to bed an hour before they got up.

Unfortunately, "I have a 25-hour body clock, live with it" is not considered a good enough reason for tardiness by education authorities, employers and ex-marital partners. It's a waste of time pointing out to these people that arriving at 10.20 for a 9.30 appointment actually means (in theory) that you are 10 minutes early, because they just can't grasp the logic at all.

It takes me several hours and several large mugs of coffee to fully wake-up, which usually doesn't happen until late afternoon/early evening. By about 9pm I am always fully awake, regardless of what time I got up (and this is the case even if I never went to bed) and by the early hours I am absolutely full of beans. I read somewhere (I read a lot of things "somewhere") that everyone is at their peak at the same time they were born, which in my case seems to be true because I always feel at my best around 2-3 am, which fits in nicely with my birth time of 2.30. This is the time when I want to go out and about - I love wandering around in the dark when there's no one else to bother me, but that's probably the Eccentric Bohemian Hermit in me.

I read something on the Internet a while ago about a German professor who spent years trying to work out why certain individuals, usually highly-intelligent ones who appeared to have a lot to offer to humanity, drifted aimlessly through life from job-to-job, partner-to-partner, home-to-home and so on, without ever achieving anything. He finally concluded that it was because they shared one thing in common - they all had 25 hour body clocks. In this case, it does seem very unfair that even though there is a medical condition which causes oversleeping and the subsequent problems arising from it, there isn't even a proper medical term for it. It would be really helpful if I could be late taking my son to school and blame it on some sort of "itis" instead of my faulty alarm clock.

Left to my own devices, I seem to keep the same hours as Americans in the Pacific time zone, which is 8 hours behind the UK. I often wonder whether I would start keeping normal hours if I moved to the West Coast, for instance, or whether I would just revert to type and start dropping behind again. It may be worth approaching the World Health Organisation to see if they would provide me with some sort of research grant to cover my travel costs and provide my friend Betty (who recently moved to Florida) with funds to cover my board and lodging (and hopefully with enough left over to cover a weekly trip to Disneyworld). After all, my experiences could greatly benefit mankind.

An amusing tale I wrote about a particular clock. It won a prize! (The story, not the clock).

Now I've Got ATTITUDE!

I was on the verge of changing the blog name to Eccentric Bohemian Hermits, then I decided to add a bit to Witty Woman to give it a bit more UMPH. I've always had 'attitude', so I thought I'd add a bit of it to the title. I think it looks that bit more intriguing now. I would certainly want to look at a blog if it had attitude.

I haven't bothered changing the url, that way all the feed things will still work. I don't think the majority of them asked for a blog title anyway. If they did I can change it once they're approved. Anyway, the title wouldn't work properly in a url 'cos of the dots and the capitals, so it may as well stay as it is.

And why is it that the timezones on here are all wrong? I wasn't able to say I was from the UK, because it insisted it was an hour earlier than it is. I've had to say I come from Africa. I chose Tangier, but I could have had quite a few different places. I didn't know Africa was only an hour ahead of the UK anyway, would have thought it was several. Obviously this site isn't aware that we put our clocks forward an hour in the summer - there should either be a setting for BST (British Summer Time) or they should shove GMT forward an hour. I emailed them to tell them that but they haven't replied yet. Probably didn't like my attitude.

Eccentric Bohemian Hermits

I started this blog yesterday and spent ages registering it with various feed things and what-have-you, then realised that the name I'd given it wasn't really suitable. I actually really liked it, but it dawned on me that it would seriously limit the number of people who would want to read it. I called it Menopausal Mutterings but as you can see, it is now Witty Woman. I don't think that's really very appealing either, but it's the name of my website so it makes sense. I did think of calling it Eccentric Bohemian Hermits (I like that), but instead I'm using that for this posting.

I don't actually intend discussing Eccentric Bohemian Hermits today though, if I ever do. The words speak for themselves I think and I have to admit it's a damn good description of me. I've put it in the plural because it doesn't sound right in the singular and anyway, I'm sure I can't be the only Eccentric Bohemian Hermit in existence.

I've started one or two other blogs in the past (I still have one on Xanga, although it hasn't been updated in years) but they never seem to achieve much. I did have quite a decent following on Xanga as it happens, but I just got fed-up of updating it because everybody there seemed to be young enough to be my grandchild and I couldn't relate to what most of them were saying. I found a few decent writers though and was able to post some of their stuff on my websites, which was nice for them and for me. A couple of the bloggers I was following are still going strong, but the rest haven't posted anything for several years either. Some were friends I persuaded to join who never posted anything at all!

So far I show 8 views to my profile on here, but I have a feeling they are probably all mine. I keep popping back to see if anybody has looked at my profile and I think in so doing I am making it look as if they are when they're not. I think I need to add some sort of site stats button to my actual blog so I can see if anyone other than me is visiting it. Not sure I could cope with the devastation of knowing they're not, though. Women of my age are easily devastated.

What I dislike about blogs is the way they go on and on and on, ad infintum, on the same page, with the latest at the top, meaning you have to read them from the bottom upwards. The only way round that is to create loads of different blogs, but that would be a pain in the old proverbials because I'd have to register them all with the site feed things. I don't really know what they're all about, seems people have to have a site feeder or something on their computers, whatever that is. I certainly don't have one.

I'm wondering now whether Eccentric Bohemian Hermits would be a better name for this blog than Witty Woman. It certainly grabs the attention more, I would say. Trouble is, if I contact all the feeder places and ask them to change the name again after I only asked them a couple of hours to change it, they might get a little annoyed with me. Then again, I could always blame it on my hormones.

Fading Out and Fading In

Coping with hormones that are disappearing at a rate of knots is not an easy task. Coping with said hormones whilst living with an adolescent daughter whose hormones are just starting to appear is ten times worse.

Mother Nature has always been a classic example of irony as an art form and she's really been to town on me this last year or so. My daughter entered pre-adolescence at around the same time I left pre-menopause and about the time I finally accepted that I wasn't going to have anymore periods, my daughter had her first. Not that I mind not having periods, it's just that when they stop you realise that you are on the last lap of life. There's nothing left except old age and that's one hell of a scary thought.

The symptoms I am experiencing now are very similar to those I experienced during my pregnancies and this applies to the physical, emotional and mental. For a start, I've become increasingly bovine of late and can't remember simple things for longer than a few minutes, something I suffered terribly from during pregnancy. I'm also far moodier than usual, which means my menopausal moods are vying with my daughter's adolescent moods to see which are the moodiest. It's just as well I'm partnerless at the moment or the poor man would have run away anyway.

In my opinion, everything comes far too early. What is the point of girls starting their periods when they are only twelve? How many twelve-year-old girls want to have babies and even if they do, how many twelve-year-old girls could cope with a baby? How many twelve-year-old girls want to mess about with periods every month for that matter? My daughter has only had two so far and during the second she announced "I'm fed-up with this". Well, I had news for her - I told her she had around another forty years' worth of the things to go yet.

The menopause also comes too early. Both these things should start around a decade later, which would put an end to unwanted teenage pregnancies in one fell swoop and allow woman to keep their youthful looks and vitality long enough for them to be able to fully enjoy their freedom once their kids have left home.

Now, if I just knew who to contact to arrange for this to take place with immediate effect, I could wake-up tomorrow looking and feeling in my prime and raring to go, with a daughter who still wore Laura Ashley dresses, frilly white ankle socks and black patent leather shoes.