so the weekend is officially underway – and sometimes it just goes by so so fast, it’s all a big blur, and at the end of it, when someone asks you how it was, you find yourself grasping at straws to explain just how you managed to fritter away 36 whole hours of freedom with nothing to show for it.

last night was interesting. the neighbours cooked a lovely szechuan dinner of eggrolls, prawns and spinach and we sat in the kitchen having the most intellectually stimulating conversation i’ve been a part of for a long while. seriously – we talked about globalisation, and race relations, and the politics of china, and religion, and world bank debt. at times it was a tagteam effort, two against one (me being the one), and at times, there were about three different conversations going on, and they all diverged and re-merged, and we were at this for about 3 hours.

it was a great mental workout – which is good, because sometimes i can actually *feel* my brian atrophying.

anyway, after that, we unwound with a little chris rock – underneath the hysterical histrionics, there’s always a bit of a moral to the story, or a political nugget to impart. I’ve seen him interviewed, and he really is one smart cookie. As well as being one goddamn funny motherfucker.

okay, it’s later now – we just got back from seeing “the hitchhiker’s guide to the universe”. which was entertaining enough, but i suppose you had to have read the book. from what i can gather, it’s one of those novels which can leave a profound impact on your psyche, if you happen to read it at the right point in your life. everyone has one of those books. for me, it was “illusions: the adventures of a reluctant messiah” by richard bach, when i was 16. i won’t go too far into the storyline (because you really did have to read it) but it deals with the concept of the return of the messiah in modern times, yet at the same time, challenges the precepts and tenets which every major religion is founded on. i remember feeling like my brain had just exploded and expanded at the same time. it was a “big bang” effect. anyway, there’s no way a movie can live up to that.

tomorrow we’re off to bristol to visit some old friends of j’s who own an inn, so it should be fun. supposed to be nice weather as well, and i haven’t been to bristol yet, but i’ll tell ya all about it when i get back…

enjoy the rest of the weekend – and if you’re reading this and you can see sun out the window, for god’s sake get outside!

ciao, bella.

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feckin’ hell!

Now lollapalooza was the shit, back in the early 90’s. those of us old enough to attend when it was actually cool (rollins band, nirvana, NIN, jane’s addiction, rage, primus) are now edging into the mid 30s. however towards the late 90s, it was pretty much a teen-fest worthy of/subject to much derision (A perfect circle?!?!). You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone who got pierced at lollapalooza. last year, it collapsed due to lack of interest.

but this year, it’s back with a fucking bang – it looks like they’ve gone back to their core audience (y’know, the 30 somethings with cash). the lineup includes:

pixies
weezer
dinosaur jr
cake
dashboard confessional
death cab for cutie
liz phair
g.love and special sauce
and you will know us by the trail of dead
widespread panic
the arcade fire

i’d give my left nut to be there (okay, fair enough, i don’t actually *have* nuts… but i’d donate something pretty important. a spleen perhaps?)

on a less amusing note: republicans once again making life difficult for girls. In this farcically shortsighted episode, they take aim at teen girls crossing state lines to get abortions without parental consent. it never occurs to this misogynistic group of white numbnut baldies that if a girl is ready to trek across the border to get an abortion, there must be some pretty hefty reasons she can’t do it at home. parental abuse/incest, religious fanaticism, fear of being kicked out, etc. whatever the reason, if a girl is willing to go to those lengths to avoid telling her parents, it’s generally because doing so is a *more horrific* option than going through the incredible fear/deception/expense of having an abortion alone in a strange state. so instead, the alternative is to basically force girls to endure whatever abuse or consequences telling their parents brings, and, if their parents refuse to consent, to carry the pregnanancy to full term, then a) giving the baby up (where the vast majority of children then spend 18 years in foster care being bounced around the system like stray dogs, then turned loose without any family, home, or resources, often leading to crime/drug abuse/homelessness**see below), or likely dropping out of school (so the mother has few employment options, is often dependent on benefits or living below the poverty level, is much more likely to end up in abusive relationships, and has less maturity and experience to bring up a child she didn’t want in the first place). *these* are seen as preferable options?!?!?

sometimes i feel like just walking around washington with a big 2×4 and smashing every morally superior white male i see. if men could get pregnant, there would be no abortion debate, and that’s a fact, jack.

that is why i will always vociferously, staunchly, passionately, ragefully fight for abortion rights.

**tangentially…to all these fucking pro-life crazies: adoption is not the answer.

these statistics make me so mad, i am shaking:

– There are approximately 520,000 children currently in foster care in the United States. Of these, 117,000 are eligible for adoption. (US HHS, 2000)

– After aging out of foster care, 27% of males and 10% of females were incarcerated within 12 to 18 months. 50% were unemployed, 37% had not finished high school, 33% received public assistance, and 19% of females had given birth to children. Before leaving care, 47 percent were receiving some kind of counseling or medication for mental health problems; that number dropped to 21% after leaving care. (Courtney and Piliavin, 1998)

in other words, we fuck up these children’s lives, scar them permanently, and then wonder why they get pregnant/addicted/incarcerated. do you see the circle!!!??

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… can I just say, I am tired of the fact that all my friends with kids never bother to keep in touch anymore? because god forbid, my life should revolve around something besides pablum and diaper-genies.

…can i just say, how tired I am of getting dumped on at work? sure, i’ll take that new post. no, no, don’t bother re-assigning any of my other responsibilities, i’ll just do the work of two people, for the salary of half.

…can I just say, how tired I am of the post office fucking with my dvd deliveries? i don’t care how sad it is, i look forward to coming home and relaxing with sam, toby, leo, jeb, cj, and charlie, even if they are just characters on the “west wing”. screenselect is gonna revoke my membership pretty soon, all because the post office can’t keep from losing the “frasier” i sent back more than a week ago.

…can i just say, how sick to fucking death i am of waking up in the morning and saying, “goody! another rainy day! cause I can’t get enough of that!”, then getting to work with sweat running down the crack of my ass, because it started out freezing, then switched to early summer, somewhere around noon?

…can i just say, how much I hate the fact that i can sleep through *3* alarms, and then have to run around, completely discombobulated and pretending to function until 11 am without any caffeine?

…can I just say, how much I hate this shit-brown text colour, and I don’t give a flying fig how “readable” it is or isn’t, I am changing it, full stop, end of story. suffer in silence.

…can i just say, who on god’s green earth cares what the hell gwynneth paltrow has to say about the state of the world? the woman doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together. she named her daughter apple. that’s all anyone need’s to know about gwynneth’s world.

…can I just say, the us wouldn’t need so much flippin’ oil if every billy bob joe and amber didn’t drive tank sized pickups and “family” suv’s, which the self-same president helps subsidize through tax incentives! there, i said it. curse me, revile me, i don’t care. life will go on if you don’t pack three strollers in the trunk every time you take baby emma madison out to costco for pallets of disposable nappies.

…can i just say, first cooper minis, now vespas – the newest fad in urban america. though given the rant above, I suppose I should be happy americans are trying to be more european. too bad I don’t think anyone’s actually *trading in* their oh-so-necessary escalades, for scooters. related: the death of the smart car?

anyway, I’m just getting myself more wound up. as you may have guessed from the above, I’m having a very bad day, so i’m going to stop there, go have a bottle of wine or four, and hope that, in the immortal words of that psychotically cheery little orphan, “the sun will come out, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar…”

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So you may have noticed, I have done yet another site re-design (sorta, I still haven’t got around to sorting the photo index page yet – there’s a daunting amount of cleanup to do there first…)

Hopefully, this page has a lot better integrity (source wise) than the last incarnation, and can still be viewed ok in alternative formats. Simplified things a bit as well (okay, finally realised you can’t throw *all* the cool tricks onto one page!)

And, added a narcissistic “about me” page – is there no end to my ego??

Very curious to know what people think, so speak up!

In the meantime, if you’re at all wondering what I did think weekend? THis is it.

And, happy birthday to my dearest elliot! Wish I was there to sing for you.

Love you oodles and oodles,
e.t.

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had my second poi class on Monday. getting a bit better, but far from a natural at this. I defy you to get your brain around spinning two things backwards simultaneously, whilst alternating weaving your arms betwixt and under each other, not to mention fighting off a severe concussion. it’s *hard*.

having not cooked a blessed thing (I like to call it improvised grazing) or eaten meat for about two weeks, last night I was inspired to make red rice risotto with sauteed shallots and chestnut mushrooms, honey mustard pork chops with pan-fried apples, roasted butternut squash and caramelised onions, and a mixed salad. I have no idea why you might be interested in this, but I was just thinking about it, wishing we had leftovers. My tummy is growling.

j’s non-national letter from IND has still not arrived. neither has the west wing dvd they dispatched a week ago. methinks something is rotten in the postal service.

Work is…feh. Surprisingly productive, considering how little motivation I have.

But wednesday is over… and it’s all downhill from here.

of random interest:

A five minute test that tells you if you’re racist and here, what the test claims to tell you about yourself, and why you might be surprised at the results

what I’m not surprised at: newest pope, “god’s rottweiller”, was part of hitler youth

a reason to enjoy your second helping of pud: contrary to public perception, people who are overweight have a lower risk of death than “normal” people

is lasik cheating at sports?

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today was all about the marathon. J finished his first in 4:15. So quickly, in fact, that I missed him at both the 12 mile mark, and the 18 mile mark, then didn’t even get to meet him at the finish.

he ran incredibly well, and though I did try to see him at two separate points, I felt like the world’s worst wife for not being there at the end. Tried to make it up to him by baking chocolate peanut butter brownies, but it was a hollow gesture.

i am, however, unbelievably proud of him. And being caught up in all the excitement again, has got me contemplating a 26.2 mile october run in cardiff…

(have a few lame pics that i’ll put up tomorrow, after i return to my senses)

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The US seems to just become a more and more hostile place for women under the current administration. Pharmacists apparently have the right to not dispense birth control based on their religious beliefs. Isn’t that a little like signing up for the army and then refusing to shoot a gun? Would they to refuse to sell condoms to a man? They elected to work in this profession – you cannot then pick and choose which parts you want to do. You’re choice of employment does not give you the right to pass moral judgement on those seeking medication. In any other job, they would be fired. But in the current “culture of life” bush purports to encourage, they are supported by millions of right-wing pro-life voters, whose elected officials play slave to their whip. It’s disgusting and abhorrent, and they should all go become pharmacists at the Vatican. fucking moral majority.

in further police state developments, if you didn’t read about the volunteer “minutemen” patrolling our border and keeping our homeland safe from boogeymen, here’s some patriotic pics of them in action, guaranteed to tug at your heartstrings. I particularly like the one called “spotters”. get a gander at the license plate.

Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, a supporter of tougher border enforcement, praised the group, telling them: “You are not vigilantes, you are heroes in my book.”

ready to sign up? they’re looking for recruits.

fucking redneck xenophobes.

and to everyone’s delight, bush has nominated an ambassador to the U.n. who thinks that the u.n. “is valuable only when it directly serves the United States” , and a director of national intelligence who undermined central american peace and promoted the war against the sandinistas. meanwhile, His deputy wants to make sure the intelligence agencies “push right up to that line” under privacy laws.

“We all know that the enemy may be inside the gates and that Job 1 is to defend the homeland,” General Hayden said in an opening statement. “But we’re also to ensure the privacy rights of our citizens…”

like we believe that.

fucking bush cronies. fucking bush, for that matter.

as his good deed for the day, bush want to clean up baseball. because that’s not our esteemed pot-president calling the kettle black. didn’t hear you crying about it when the ‘roids were lining your pocket!

fucking bush. and fuck bush some more for good measure.

in the “two steps forward, two steps back” category, connecticut has passed a law allowing civil unions (hooray!) but also attached the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (booo!). And Oregon invalidated 3,000 gay marriages as unconstitutional (hissssss!).

fucking homophobes.

that’s all the news that would be fit to print, if I hadn’t liberally sprinkled in the “fucks”.

catch me in a better mood next week.

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Took my first poi class last night.

FOr those of you unfamiliar with poi, they are weighted balls, covered in streamers, suspended by cords or chains from the fingertips, and derived from use in Maori dance rituals. They are also sometimes lit on fire, and used for “fire spinning”, a hypnotic display of dancing/weaving circles of flame. Last Halloween, while at a house party, I watched a guy do fire spinning, and said to my friends, “I’d love to learn how to do that”.

So for Christmas, Santa left poi in my stocking, and I (being the safety conscious girl that I am) decided to take a class for beginners out in Camden. Last night was the first lesson.

I’m thinking I may need a wee bit of practice.

I curse my mother and my maternally inherited lack of hand-eye co-ordination. I curse my clumsy, stiff, and unco-operative left wrist which rotates as smoothly as a ballbearing coated in tar and shards of glass. I curse the inventor of nylon streamers.

I am pretty sure I was the only one whose poi were actively trying to strangle her. My poi are sadistic as hell.

And I actually have a poi-related injury – a big ol’swollen and lumpy bruised knuckle, which I have no idea how I got.

It’s fun. But frustrating. More frustrating than snowboarding, because it looks so deceptively simple. At least with snowboarding, there’s the element of danger, and the adrenaline rush in between spectacular crashes. There’s not much adrenaline in hitting yourself repeatedly about the head while streamers are wound around your neck and tangled cords yank out great clumps of hair.

It must be hilarious to watch. I’d pay good money to see a video. My ponytail elastic kept flying across the room. I kept tripping on the streamers (dangerous, with my walking abilities pretty iffy at the best of times, certainly without charmed poi snakes binding my ankles together). Streamers entangled with another girl’s poi streamers. Errant poi sailing wildly into the wall, like a deranged fluorescent comet. Interspersed with huge chunks of time devoted to trying to unravel randomly created master-level nautical knots which have magically fused two poi into one giant nest of string.

However, I am sure that in no time I will soon be weaving and spinning like a pro. And then I graduate to fire!

In the meantime, I should probably invest in a helmet.

Oof

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Oh my gosh, it’s hailing outside right now! Hope it doesn’t kill my poor lil planties. what is happening in this crazy world?!?

Fever pitch, the movie about red sox fandom is out. as slate says:

What makes the movie fun and sometimes even moving is its complicated view of fandom… Fandom takes you out of the real world, yet it makes you feel as if you’re plugged into something higher, outside yourself , out of your control. It’s about living for players who are completely indifferent to you personally, and yet, in worshipping them, you remain in touch with a kind of pure, childlike joy.

couldn’t have put it better myself.

for anyone who grew up with sesame street, here’s a top 25 moments. still a seminal point in many people’s childhoods, including mine.

enjoy the weekend, y’all.

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Been working at the council now for 2 years this week (umm, happy anniversary?) My building has about 400-500 people in it, 8 floors, 2 lifts and 17 toilets.

In the past two years:

– the building has been closed twice (once, no electricity, once flooding)
– the 4th and 3rd floors have been closed for a period of 4 weeks due to toilets flooding (separate incident. i know what you’re thinking, and no, our building is not, in fact, an ark)
– the phone system has gone out at least 6 times
– the computer network has gone down at least a dozen times
– one of the lifts has been out of order (for more than a day) at least 6 times (i work on the fifth floor and smoke. you do the stair math)
– 16 of the 17 toilets were not working until lunchtime one day (it’s like working in a camp with portaloos!)
– the windows in the entire building have had to be sealed due to threat of falling out (this should be fun, come about june, as the building heat only comes on when it exceeds at least 15 degrees outside)
– there is known asbestos in the walls
– there is a raging battle with mice
– there has been one documented case of tuberculosis
– there has been one genuine bomb scare (i was mostly annoyed that i couldn’t leave the building at my regular quitting time)

this is the pleasant and healthy environment that I so enjoy working in each day. aren’t you jealous?

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I *must have this! now!

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Okay, so my wierd and wonderful sox didn’t get off to the best start, getting pistol-whipped by the yanks 9-2. however, if history is any guide (and we bostonians love our history) they also lost to the yanks at the beginning of last season. how’s *that* for an omen? meanwhile, yankee fans, being the intellectual giants they are, have come up with the lamest put-down ever: 2090. (um yes, folks. that’s another 86 years. I too, was shocked that yankee fans can add.)

why baseball and cheerleaders don’t mix

foo fighters drop their new album soon – and are coming through the uk to play the festivals. marvellous news. However not really in a position to shell out £60 per tix to go see them. am fervently hoping they play a smaller-ish venue, so that I may throw lacy underthings at the wierd and wonderful dave grohl. (*contented sigh here*) make your generous donations at www.jen-and-dave-sitting-in-a-tree.com. and as bartle (or was it james?) would say, “we thank you for your support.”

For all you other astro-physics and t.o.e. geeks out there like me: black holes may actually be dark energy

radishes, corn…why it’s chef tattoos!

saddest commentary on obese america ever: dance video games to get fat kids to lose weight

you didn’t actually believe they were celibate? the most sexually active popes

octopi tiptoeing on two legs… er, tentacles

right back atcha.

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Saw this on a friend’s blog and thought it was an interesting exercise.

10 years ago:
– I was 22
– living in Brooklyn with my fiance, just moved into our own flat
– just about to graduate from NYU
– had just quit my horrendous job working with troubled adolescent girls because I was working 50 hours a week and going to school full time, fiance lost his job (again) and I just couldn’t take the stress anymore
– was really unhappy

5 years ago:
– I was 27
– Living in a beautiful flat in Boston with my husband
– working as program co-ordinator for a day centre for adults with learning disabilities and about to quit because I hated it
– husband was unemployed
– was training for my first marathon
– about to go on a vacation where I would decide I was going to get a divorce
– was pretty unhappy

2 years ago:
– I was 30
– was divorced, just out of a couple of mind-fuck relationships
– had just moved to London 2 days previous
– was living in a city where I knew almost no one, shared a flat with a girl I didn’t know, and had no job
– was pretty excited

Yesterday:
– I was 32
– living in London with my brand new husband
– working for the local council as a project manager in learning disabilities, a job I sometimes think is okayish, and sometimes want to walk out of in sheer, utter frustration
– was looking at round-the-world airline tickets
– was overall very happy

Today:
– spent some time taking care of my plants
– got a parcel from my sister
– baked some bread
– worked on my website
– spent the evening with friends
– was overall very happy

Tomorrow:
– I’ll sleep late and have brunch
– send out my CV
– who knows? been meaning to get to the museum

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ingredients: sugar, cornsyrup, gelatin, less than .5% potassium sorbate, artificial flavours, carnauba wax (for the eyes – yes the same stuff you put on your car)

Yum!

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