February 2008
50 posts
“Single and cohabiting women are increasingly much more likely to commit suicide...”
– Being unmarried ‘makes a woman a higher suicide risk’ | the Daily Mail Thanks Daily Mail! I’d better rush out and find a husband, then.
“About that time that you were five minutes late and I left the bar: I realised...”
– Sebastian offers the best excuse ever
The short straw
Sebastian: I really think you drew a short straw in life, Jean...you are attracted to English men. They're transparently pale, and funny, and have anorak-like obsessions with, like, music and history.
Jean: Mmm, anoraks.
Two thoughts
- My trip to Tallinn was super exhausting, although I realise that I don’t really have reason to complain - it was tiring because I spend most of my days happily typing away at a desk, leaving early and arriving late if I feel like it and don’t have a deadline pressing. I didn’t appreciate the freelance groove until l I found myself pounding the cobblestoned streets and hotel...
Starbucks takes a coffee break | Business |... →
Oh, poor baristas. My coffee training (nine hours in a classroom; I don’t remember how many more hours in the shop) remains one of my least happy adventures. Now, I freely admit that I am not cut out to be a coffee jerk for many reasons that training probably couldn’t overcome, but nonetheless I maintain that it was tedious and dreadful. Even the development of my coffee palate was,...
Democrat vote fears as Nader runs again | World... →
Much as I would welcome a legit candidate to the left of Obama and Hillary, Ralph Nader is a joke.
“But in such unsettling times, when most things we thought we knew were wrong,...”
– Marina Hyde: The human body indeed remains the final frontier | Comment is free | The Guardian
“I wouldn’t run you over, baby, you’re too precious!”
– Dude who nearly squashed me with his truck.
number 1
todayshaiku: thinking about you fragile, wee, crunchy bird bones ….. - haiku collective My excellent childhood friend Laura Granka has started a collective haiku blog! I love it.
Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely... →
I just adore a well-placed semicolon. One time a man I was dating told me that he had never encountered anyone who used them so deftly in text messages; I felt like a million bucks.
“I think chaste-lit may be simply a symptom of our fatigue. Since the late 90s,...”
– Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: All hail the new puritans
“Gordon Brown has claimed that encouraging individual aspiration is a key goal of...”
– Blackwell Synergy - Public Policy Research, Volume 14 Issue 4 Page 248-251, February 2008 (Article Abstract)
At The Movies: I Really Wanted To Like 'Juno' →
Phew, I’m not alone.
What I learned from 'Juno'
1. Abortion clinics smell funny. As do condoms. Best avoided. 2. When you tell your parents that you’re pregnant, they will stay seated, lament that you’re not a drug addict, and then cheerfully recommend pre-natal vitamins. 3. It’s easy to find rich adoptive parents for your child - just check your local paper. 4. Men are immature, sleazy liars. Too bad! 5. Teenage fathers...
This weekend...
…was quite busy. Thus the lack of postage. Posting. I saw the Camden Town Group exhibit at Tate Britain. Really liked Sickert’s sense of humour, was less impressed by the manner in which they santized the urban landscape by taking out the teeming crowds and making sweatshops look like really fun places to work. I had dinner with an old friend from my hometown in upstate New York, on...
“In keeping with July’s established left-field aesthetic, the levels of...”
– Paperback of the week: Feb 17 | By genre | guardian.co.uk Books
“I went out with one guy who said I seemed really great but he liked bread too...”
– I Love You, but You Love Meat - New York Times Oh, tragic.
“Elaine Sirkis, 77, an Obama supporter, confided that she just isn’t sure she’s...”
– A Flawed Feminist Test - New York Times
What I know about love
In honour of the impending Day O’Romance tomorrow, I have decided to tell you about the most romantic couple I know: my parents, Fiona and Bill: 2007 was their thirtieth anniversary. They are maybe an unlikely pair: they met in 1976 while living in bedsits in the same sandstone brick building in Glasgow’s West End. Dad was doing a post-doc in physics at the university; Mum was an...
Hope-monger
noraleah: Senator Obama just called himself a hope-monger in his Madison speech. A hope-monger! Hmm…I wonder if my boyfriend wrote that. (Anything that ends with “-monger” is a-ok with me. Oh, except if it begins with “hate.”) I too support mongers, in general. I am particularly fond of fishmongers, because of Hamlet. I wonder, however, in light of the current state of education, do most...
“As well as celebrating the death of existing loves, Unvalentine’s Day can...”
– Charlie Brooker. Does anyone take Valentine’s Day seriously at all? Or is it now just one big exercise in irony and pathos?
Analysing
Ever since I added Google Analytics to my blog last week (I know, not exactly very cutting-edge of me) blogging has become increasingly stressful. While in the past I was faintly aware that people were reading this, now I know exactly how many people are reading it and where they live. Thus, having established these important particularities of my audience, although actually knowing very little...
Plumbing time
I argued with a washing machine repairman this morning. He phoned around eight to announce that he would come to fix our machine ‘between ten and twelve’. Since I’m working today anyway, I told Bex to pop out to the gym and agreed to meet her for Buddhist pancakes at half twelve. Naturally, Mr. Washing Machine Repair didn’t show. ‘Just bail,’ she said, in a text...
WatchMy last primary post, I promise…unless something else this incredible materialises. But seriously. This was in ENGLAND.
Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: When should... →
The best part of this is the noize rock →
More on voting
I’m still trying to organise my thoughts about the global primary. (This kind of explains how it worked). There was just something very odd about turning a corner in West London to find a crowd of people with political signs chanting things like ‘You say O, I say Bama’. Inside the hall, the level of kitsch approached self-parody: children in political t-shirts, people marching...
Oh wow.
The ‘Global Primary’ was unbelievable. I don’t quite know where to begin to describe it - it went beyond my wildest dreams. My favourite part, I think, was when I found myself standing next to a man during the performance of the Star Spangled Banner, when he swept his comedy plastic stars and stripes top hat off his head and held it over his heart. And when Sebastian and I...
"I wish Obama was a woman"
As soon as I said that to Christiane, who was also wavering, my choice was clear. Go Barack! You are welcome to my symbolic, ineffectual primary vote!
“Hillary’s hair is striking. It seems to me proof of the power of her...”
– Further pro-Hillary argument from the Geneva Correspondent.
“Sadly, rather than cementing my support for Obama, this video has made me...”
– Superbly incisive political commentary from my former McGill Daily colleague Kelly Nestruck on Obama’s Super Tuesday music video.
Wavering
Thinking about who I’m going to vote for tonight - at a primary election which is basically symbolic - is doing my head in. From the very beginning of this campaign (so, that’s like 1998) I have been totally undecided. This is out of character for me: I usually always know who I support. Why, I clearly remember stumping for Walter Mondale in the 1984 election on my own volition in a...
Flippin' heck - Pancake Day at risk of dying out,... →
What I really love about this article (see, back on to characteristic non-serious form) is the survey: only one in three people are ‘very confident’ about what goes into pancake batter! The British are a people with low pancake confidence! Personally, I make a mean pancake. Sadly, however, I will be too busy voting in SUPER DUPER BIG BAG OF AWESOME TUESDAY to participate, but plan to...
Uncharacteristically serious, but important post
Having had twelve years to come to terms with my chronic depression, I’ve become acutely aware of my moods - and the symptoms that indicate that I’m on a downward slide. Having been drug free for a few months, I’ve noticed over the past weeks the return of the sluggishness, the lack of concentration, the low appetite, the need for far too much sleep - it’s crap, but I feel...
If It Weren’t for the Giants... - New York Times →
This is cute. Or weird. I can’t decide, but I am definitely leaning towards cute, especially after the detail of her football-shaped wedding bouquet of brown roses. Why not?
The Juggle - WSJ.com : Are You a Ms. or a Mrs.,... →
Personally, I prefer ‘Miss’ although I am not quite sure why - probably because I don’t like the hard ‘s’ sound of ‘Ms.’ I don’t imagine that I will ever change my surname unless I have to go into some kind of witness protection programme, so though I find marriage, in theory, quite an amenable prospect, I undoubtedly will try to make people call me...
“In America, you are free to use the gym improperly. It is enshrined in the...”
– My reaction, having been informed after I joined the local gym in order to be able to take a shower that I would not actually be allowed to use the facilities until I attend a half-hour induction, for which there are no available appointments until Wednesday. My various pleas - that I know how to...
Dehydrated
I suppose the reason that I’ve not been writing much here lately is that my life is totally and utterly consumed by not having water in my flat. I think about it all the time: I am constantly writing angry emails, I am researching housing law, I am trying to organise my time so that I can use water in the small window that we do get it, and I am internally composing the Matlock-like speeches...
Censorship
My friend S urged me to take the picture of my pink tights down. “It’s provocative,” he said. “Are you really that naive?” I guess I am, but I think the problem is that I am also female: I honestly couldn’t see it as remotely anything but colourful and amusing. Gold shoes! Pink tights! Park bench! Hilarious. Hilarious? All of the women who regarded it seemed to...
