hopscotch

Running errands, I realise the cashiers are overly solicitous. Too much attention makes me paranoid, so I sneak into an employees-only loo to make sure I look clean and proper.

In certain lighting it is hard to see but, sure enough, I have a green ring circling my cheekbone.

Ring Ring to BFG:

- Did I fall down on Wednesday?

- No, why?

- I have a black eye.

- Well, this is what I remember; you walking smack into the kitchen pillar, yelping in pain and then immediately forgetting about it since you walk back into the sitting room, say you don’t know why but your shoulder hurts, then you lie down on the sofa and pass out.

- Isn’t that called a concussion?

- I think it's called a Johnnie Walker.

evasive manouevres

I have been thinking about death since I was four and plotting my own since I was fourteen, which is why I would find an accidental death to be a slap in the face, really.

Car accidents, after home or bodily invasion, are a nagging fear. I avoid driving in busy traffic and, if I have to, I am overly cautious, add precipitation to the mix and I get cursed at a lot. [What I’m hoping is that they’re saying, ‘Very particular about her car lengths, that one,’ even as they point with their meanie finger.] Whatever, Physics always wins, geniuses.

Anyway, I’m determined that my possibly final last words on seeing IT coming, car or comet or mushroom cloud, will not be the classic “oh no" or the profane, but... and this took several weeks of deliberation and discussion with the BFG... it’s finally:

ENERGISE!

Initially is was “Ready to transport. Energise.” But then BFG said, “How long exactly do think you will have, love?” Which led to the truncation.

Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people

The other month or so, I narrowly missed a fantastic freeway pileup, but what really almost kills me is that as it happens, as the blue car ahead swings this way and that in reaction to other cars I cannot yet see, as I begin to apply brakes from a more than reasonable stopping distance (with respect to the rain) only to spy a behemoth of an SUV in the rearview (catching up), as I realise that not stopping would be bad, certainly, but there is such a thing as stopping too much that is even badder perhaps, as I decide if I want my bonnet in a stranger's boot or a stranger’s bonnet in my boot and weigh the financial and the medical and (at worst) the eternal ramifications of ramming or being rammed, boot or bonnet, bonnet or boot, while braking softer only to discover that the blue car is now spinning or being spun, winding in, winding out, clockwise, counter and I am now close enough to see the steering wheel in driver's furious hands fighting the four on the road, playing with physics, as I brake more, now close enough to take in how good a driver he must really be to end up smack in the middle of those stripes on the tarmac, inches from unforgiving cement and me, as I speed up, yes up, to escape the SUV, what really incenses me, the true bee in my bonnet, is that the last sound I would have heard on this earth was Fergie, yea, The Dutchess!

Not a score to die to.

What score would you?

Bra As Machine

Ipex, Upex

We don’t know about you, but we thought something touted as the world’s most technologically advanced bra would have some sort of radio transmitter (nothing to do with amplification or oscillation, we promise), or at the very least a flash drive (seeing as we have a lot to back up), and we cannot wait for a Smart Bra of nanobots* that reconfigure according to circumstances (and maybe even some pomp).

*with complementary carrying case

melanchoholism: Please die responsibly

As appropriate as euthanasia is in the case of this blog, as much as I can't seem to feed it, I can’t seem to kill it.

unhipster

Oh, I see. So there's no actual band called Fall Out At The Disco?

C8H10N4O2

Diet Cola tastes like nothing, an improvement on Cola, which tastes like sh--.

see jane soft

So Candida Royalle does not in fact mean Yeast Queen. Tricky name for anyone to christened themselves, leave alone a pornographer.

Yesterday, I watched Boogie Nights (1997) and I am embarrassed to say I recognised Nina Hartley in it. My BFG was first proud then ashamed of thus his corruptive influence on me.

But the thing with pornography is that there's much too much sex in it.

Labour begins at home.

The day after tomorrow is Labour Day, at least at home, that's why I thought people were saying you couldn't wear white for the month of May, and anyway, the only time I ever wore that much white was the day of my First Holy Communion, and maybe my Baptism, although the Baptism dress had these silly little pink sprinkles along the bottom, the hem, when the whole idea of hems is to finish things off quietly and efficiently and, at their royal best, INVISIBLY, certainly not with rhinestones, oh my, does anything assault the sensibilities more? Diamonds. For I can think of better uses for Carbon. Like making pencils. Or power. Or people.

Sinners Can't Be Choosers

Wednesday is for confessions.

I still like The Onion. And not in the so-called ironic way.

I still haven't been to Thirsty's.

I sometimes watch House M.D. Is it just me or does Hugh Laurie have that "I'm not an American, no matter how good my performance, I promise" air that British actors do when they're playing American characters? I can imagine House as priest, and his saying to me, "Quit being so damn repentant," all the while wink-winking.

I wish I had a friend to quote House with.
I wish I had a friend. I abandoned them almost a year ago.
I'm supposedly going back to school in September.
I am afraid.

V for Focus

Saw V for Vendetta (2005). Have a girl-crush on Natalie. Overlooked the British accents enough to find the film quite palatable.

Much has been said or written about the film's politics, but we remain unconcerned. V for Vendetta features, most importantly, the best allegory of romance love since Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005):
"And we'll keep pooping the same poop back and forth. Forever."
more affectionately referred to as ))<>((

Perfection is that full stop before Forever. But back to the first film.

Me: Because, who doesn't want to be tortured out of love?
BFG: Er, everybody?

Maybe what I liked about V was its particular commitment. You know those all films where the apparent good guy (victim) spends approximately 110minutes running after the alleged bad guy (victimiser), finally catches him at gunpoint (or similar cliche) only to listen as a policeman or similar sympathiser (or supposed voice of reason) urges them that revenge only makes the victim as bad as their victimiser, and so the good guy surrenders his weapon and is seen in the next scene taking a shower or visiting the cemetery? I hate those films.

None of that rubbish with V. His fight with the dozen guards was climactic for me as celluloid has never been. Never mind that it felt a little like Mission 6 of Enter The Matrix; his use of knives, rather than guns, made it less movie-ish, redeemed it and made it seem just and very red. Afterward, it is finished for me and I do not care what happens. The fate of the civilised world? Best wishes with that. The End.

BFG: So you want now that I visit you with mask, knives and alliteration?
Me: Maybe not the alliteration.

Super Cup

We have nothing against football (American). We do not understand football (American). We feel that to follow football (American) would be disloyal to football (soccer). Actually, we're just too lazy. The only thing we have against football (American) is having to write football opening bracket soccer closing bracket each time we mean to say football. For this reason, we consider referring to football (soccer) as simply, undisputably, "the meaning of life."

Not worth noting is how both games are defined in the dictionary, how Cambridge smothers the life out them as only Her Royal Highness can:

football (UK American football)
a game for two teams of eleven players in which an oval ball is moved along the field by running with it or throwing it

football (US soccer)
a game played between two teams of eleven people, where each team tries to win by kicking a ball into the other team's goal

She was unable, however, to sift the sensuality fully from the following game:

rugby (FORMAL rugby football)
a sport where two teams try to score points by carrying an oval ball across a particular line or kicking it over and between an H-shaped set of posts

No mention was made of Australian Football. The Palace Secretary quashed rumours that the queen considered it too sexy to define.

Humbert Humbug

I think my BFG has a crush on a 16 year-old girl. This would alarm me, were I not aware of his predisposition.

Please note that my BFG is a decent, clean, nice-smelling, law-abiding citizen who prepares his income tax months in advance. He is even kind.

But we cannot choose what we find beautiful. In his case, youth. In my case, wisdom.

I have decided to believe that a true and lasting relationship is based on complementary neurosis.

It is a little unfair. If he were to indulge his attraction to girls, he would become a social and perhaps legal outcast. When I indulge my attraction to older men, (How often, you wonder?), nothing bad happens, except maybe some clichés.

I might change yet. When I am no longer young. Or when I become the wise one.

But I don't think my BFG's desire will go away. Poor guy. There will always be girls, women younger than he, whereas, in fifty years, all older men will be dead, or too blind to read to me.

New Year is like taking off in an aeroplane for the umpteenth time and being sure that, this time, it will certainly finally crash.

NOW WITH ADDED WHIMSY!

I apologise to six people for my absence. And recently I have been making upsetting associations, e.g. absence -> abscess.

I will interrupt my latest major depressive episode to make this comment about James Blunt. What can I say about James Blunt that acknowledges that I indeed know nothing about him apart from the one song I saw? (Because, thanks to portable personal electronics, and the phrase portable personal electronics makes me think of, pardon me, Tampax Compact, you will never just hear your songs, you shall see them too and believe!)

Ah yes, James Blunt, whose music I have not fully experienced and neither like nor dislike, wrote a song called You're Beautiful. (beau till full-- sorry, that ill association thing again). This song repeats the phrase You're Beautillfull no less than nine times, and if that is not an indication that it is written solely to appeal to women, it features some very, very, very, very earnest vocals and acoustic guitar.

I suppose I could simply say that the song You're Beautiful is lame. It has that calculated and contrived bittersweetness (bitweetness) (startness) (sorry) of songs that are written to appeal to woman, perfected in Dave Matthews' (no extra "s" after the apostrophe because he isn't Jesus) Crash Into Me and a feature of every single song that John the Mayer has ever written. (Please note that I have not heard every single song that John the Mayer has sung.)

And that, like George W. Bush's faked idiocy, is just another diabolical plan to rule the world.

When I grow up, I want to be a Judi Dench.

For now, I would love her to call me "a young woman of inferior birth" as she does to Elizabeth Bennet. Of course, if this were any other actress, I wouldn't eat that line up, but if Dame Judi Dench were to tell me that I were "of no importance to the world," I would thank her for putting me in my place, while curtseying to save time.

Forget Darcy.

Peter & Susan & Edmund & Lucy (2005)

I may have lost the heart of my BFG to River Tam. Yes, we finally saw Serenity (2005). River is more mentally ill than I am. She kills full grown men with her bare hands. If she had a blog, she would probably update regularly and without fail. She is brilliant. She is the sun, and I am moonshine. And that is my concession speech.

Speaking of movies that you have to see, or movies that you feel that you have to see, don't really have to see but probably will, because, truly, how many movies are there that have to be seen? If one watched no films at all, one could probably survive socially, even though they would miss a lot of references-- people might think them sombre or foreign. Or maybe just religious.

Surely, that wouldn't work with books. If you say you don't watch films, they think you are odd; if you say you don't like books, they assume you are stupid. My BFG doesn't like books. But he has one of the severest cases of common sense that I have ever seen. I like books, but I am quite stupid.

So the hundreds of Penguin Classics that were fed to me in my childhood didn't quite work, but they were a lot of fun to buy and read. Except the Chronicles of Narnia, which weren't actually Penguin Classics, but bring us back to movies that you will probably see. If you are going to see this year's The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, please may I suggest that you see the 1988 BBC version?

Despite being a good little Christian girl then and seeing it 50 times and reading each and every book in the Chronicles of Narnia, I didn't "get" that Aslan was Jesus, in fact I remember saying to my sister, "Isn't it blasphemous that Aslan comes back to life?"

I have heard this movie likened to watching paint dry or watching water boil. As a tea-drinker, I watch water boil quite a bit, and it can be fascinating, so find this movie quickly and watch it at once without stopping-- before the "good" version comes out in December.

In Summary:
1. Fawns still terrify me.
2. Narnia Beavers > Tim the Beaver
3. C.S. Lewis makes Christianity attractive (his non-fiction).
4. I would kiss someone named Edmund.
5. My life is empty of Turkish delight.

What I Have Learned

It is possible to be drunk and bored in the company of somewhat naked girls.

Episode 17: Eliza needs a strong daddy.

"Dr. Dwyer likes a strong daddy."

You understand that when Det. Goren says this, he does so in the least salacious manner possible, yet you drop a small, cold lump of Dulce de Leche on your bare leg, upsetting your bowl of ice-cream as you clutch your hand to your quickening breast (literary, not anatomical).

This man who plays this detective, you have noticed him before, even in that movie, The Cell, distracting you from the awfulness of its lead actress whose name you shall not further perpetuate by mentioning.

You do not remember him from Adventures in Babysitting, but you noticed him even then, in a movie you watched while you were lying on the carpet wondering why it took so many years for some movies to travel from America to your world when you knew for a fact, i.e. your dad told you, that it took less than a day for a person to travel to America by aeroplane, wondering what it was like to be an American teenager singing to the radio while preparing for a date because you knew you would never be an American never be a teenager and certainly never be going on a date when lo and behold, your wonderings were interrupted by the sight of Dawson wielding a hammer on your TV and you, strangely enough, felt the same way that you did after sneaking a fourth biscuit at tea when you knew 18 biscuits divided by 6 people equals 3 times. But childhood wonderings are never interrupted for long and very soon you were wondering why a car mechanic would be holding a hammer and not a spanner; as far as you knew, mechanicary was about screwing and unscrewing and raising and lowering and filling and siphoning, coaxing rather than forcing.

Now you are experiencing the same fleeting moment that you did then, of knowing sex without having it, for this Detective Goren and that Mechanic Dawson are one and the same and you are seeing him as Thor.

See, Vincent D'Onofrio is the kind of man you congratulate yourself for noticing and fancying because he is not an obvious hunk, the kind of actor who doesn't play beautiful. This is until you remember that he is a reported 6' 4" and size 13 (which came up in a specific episode of Criminal Intent and is not something you found out on purpose). As your caramel melts into the carpet, you realise your attraction to him in his roles may have everything to something to do with evolution and little to nothing to do with your subtle taste in men. Shame on you. You return to your less obvious but probably equally uninformed celebrity crushes, your Steve Buscemi, your William H. Macy and Billy Bob Thorntons.

Do you have problems with writing?

Ace of Space

This will be the first and last post in which I mention Britney Spears.

I'm out of school this term. And possibly next. Voluntarily. I was having a major crisis, as in whether or not I am in the right major.

Some, most, all might say that senior (4th) year is probably the wrong time to make up your mind.

Sometimes I wish I had just gone to the UK and studied Aerospace Engineering like my Physics teacher and headmaster wanted me to. At least I would be finished with it. (Why their preoccupation with flight?) The nice thing about England, yes there is one, and one only, is that university application is quite easy. You choose up to six schools on your UCAS form, one essay and one reference (Oxbridge exception) and they give you conditional or unconditional offers, you get the marks, you take your choice. In the US, you seem to have to charm the colleges into taking you, and that's after the SAT (which I hear has been revamped) & SAT II and booklet application and interview. In my rebellion, I applied to just one university and because I was one in ten, I assumed it was meant to be. But I am not questioning my college choice, since a school is a school (Oxbridge exception) and I think there's a cute but alarming American tendency to try and match your university as you would your life partner.

Sometimes I wish I had never gone to school.

But I'll return. I just think it's wrong that the most accomplished I have felt so far this year was after getting that 24-month subscription to Esquire for only eight dollars, and a pack of cards. The Women We Love pack of cards, and you won't believe who the Ace of Spades was. Britney Spears.

Maeby, baby

I don't know why I like Arrested Development. I admit I am still tickled by the narration, the simple lass that I am. Who is it who said that narration/first person is the laziest form of writing?

A.D. can take what would be a hideously inappropriate, completely tasteless joke and serve it to you at 8:00pm and you will thank them and say, "Please, sir, may I have some more?"

Remember the last season's last episode? In a series of ridiculous events, Gob gets Michael arrested (by the police). From the police station, the suspect then proceeded to place a call to his alleged mother:


Michael: When you see Gob, tell him I have a nice hard cot here waiting for him.
Lucille: You would do that to your own brother?!
Michael: I said cot.

aside Even though prison sex has never been funny, I am yet to watch a TV programme or movie with aspirations to comedy that will not make a you-are-going-to-be-someone's-woman joke whenever one of its male characters is threatened with jail. Not only that, gay men are not funny just because they are gay. A man relishing being womanly (as only a man can) is only amusing the first five times you see it on screen. Until now. Arrested Development, making unconsented prison relations and possibly gay men funny again. end aside

Monday's episode was... well... incidentally, prison sex came up, as well as Lindsay's volvo and Lucille's cabin. I didn't watch the whole episode because, you see, I had recorded it on a tape with some other rubbish at SP speed, thinking it was SLP and so it was cut off in the middle of

Why James Lipton is the man for you.

You know, if James Lipton was at yesterday's fancy dress party of my dream, I might've kissed him too, as this is what he wrote about the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves:

"At long last, a worthy tribute to punctuation's stepchildren: the neglected semi-colon, the enigmatic ellipses and the mad dash. Punc-rock on!"

Yes really, you read that correctly, Punc-rock on!

Yes really, James Lipton has been on my mind once before. Now I don't watch Inside the Actor's Studio, but I've seen two and three-half episodes, one in which Lipton was the interviewee:

>Question: What turns you on?
>LIPTON: Words.
>Question: What is your favorite word?
>LIPTON: Honour.

I almost fell off the chair at the time, because those would be my exact answers, but now that I think about it, there are probably thousands of people who would say that, so James Lipton is not necessarily the man for me.

I don't like the phrase turn on, which brings to mind someone fumbling which way and what with a radio dial and not quite finding the desired frequency. I prefer arouse or stir or kindle-- although, arouse makes me a little drowsy, and stir sounds conflicted... but kindle, I might like to be kindled.

Baby Doll or As Of Yet Unkissed

I woke up quite suddenly. I was at a party and, after some thought, had decided to kiss three men over forty there. (That's three men over forty years old.) But that wasn't the most out-of-character part of the dream. (Out-of-character refers to kissing three men at a party, or even one man at a party.) For some reason, I had decided to change my trousers in public and put on a pair of tights that was hanging from a rack of clothes in the garden. I was kind of shimmying them up my legs, seducing them onto me perhaps, when I looked at the tag that said "size 0" and declared, "This is unlikely to fit tonight." It was quite an odd party; there was a giggle of girls who were treating me like their big sister and wearing baby-doll dresses. (Was I hosting a fancy dress party?) And then there were a few men smoke-talking on a bench. And those I didn't get to kiss.

Last night, BFG and I watched Baby Doll (1956), one of the sexiest films I've ever seen. Most of the sexiest films I've ever seen have no actual sex in them, are quite funny, and come from or emulate times when "make love" meant to verbally and vocally seduce. I don't think I've been verbally and vocally seduced in that manner. Sometimes I am sure that I have, at least a little, then other times I doubt that I've ever been privy to anything that intense. Some people say that either you have or you haven't and that if and when you do have a verbal and vocal seduction, you know it.

One of the reasons Baby Doll thrilled me as it did was that, if I am correct, it's based on Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, the sexiest one-act play I have ever read. Please read it at once and all alone, then tell me I'm wrong.

But I love cows.

My sister is a b*tch.

One day, in post-pasta bliss, I asked MrOBE, "Why do you love me so?" And he simply said, "You are not a b*tch." Actually, he might've said, "You are not a b*tch like my ex."

My friends tell me, "The first thing we noticed about you was your eyes. And that you were not a b*tch."

Even Sister Magdalena looked upon me the day of my first Holy Communion so long ago, put her hand on my head and proclaimed quietly, as only nuns do, "You were born great, and you may grow out of it, but you will never ever be a b*tch." That is paraphrased, of course.

I may be full of myself, somewhat pretentious, overly self-censoring (not two-faced) and occasionally murderous (school year), but I am decidedly unb*tchy.

When I finally grow up, my mother will hug me and say, "Thank God you turned out so well okay. I don't know what went wrong with your sister." Okay, so my mother wouldn't say that, because she isn't a b*tch. I get that from her.

I would not presume to know the workings of my own mind.

Something happened on Tuesday. I found an old exercise book of mine. It is covered in brown paper on which is written:
NAME: Eliza Belittle
CLASS: Standard Three
SUBJECT: Composition/Story Writing
The vagueness of the subject could be why the compositions become increasingly embellished as the school year moves along, some of them worryingly fantastic, where fantastic does not mean "good," but means "strange" or "unreasonable" or "not good."

...One day a ship was passing by and it had a baby whale in it. It came to stay at the bay. It stayed for two weeks and the baby whale became bigger. It became so big it came out of the ship. It started to swim to the middle of the sea and came back. I and my friend were swimming. Another girl was swimming and the whale was swimming towards her. It was going to bite her on the head, but it missed and bit my friend called Mary. She was taken to hospital. We had to go to another place. Next at the airport it was very boring. In the aeroplane it was very interesting. We went to Swestzeland we rested there for the rest of the holiday. I saw Winnie my best friend in school. We played in the snow. I enjoyed my holiday. Oh, I did.
"How I spent my August Holidays"

You see, I was under the impression that I was always a perfect schoolgirl, which may be the reason for my previous bout of self-loathing, as one is never perfect after puberty, and one cannot be called a real live schoolgirl after 16 or 18, at least not with a straight face. But my teachers were very clever in (whether consciously or not) feeding me that impression; it may be why I would perform rather beautifully in the years to come.

But finding the composition book proved me-- them-- wrong, for when I was not writing mediocre compositions (Here the writer is tempted to write "very bad" compositions, which would be trying to make the compositions remarkable where they weren't; her thought being that "bad" and "very bad" are much better than "ok" and "fair."), I was writing insolent ones.

Nice Big American Baby

I think this blog is a lie. It's so much easier to think that this blog is a lie then to find out exactly why I am (at least currently) dissatisfied with it. I haven't actually lied in it, but I have edited, a lot. Pesky feelings, whole persons, even several entries have been edited out of existence. If things don't add up, not that what I actually end up posting does, but if things don't add up, and sometimes it's something as stupid as having a certain number of commas in a paragraph, so if things don't add up comfortably, I just cut.

I should consider what my goals were when I began blogging journalling. Goals, those snakey things. I think that goals are formalities we set up so that we have something specific to lament when we sink into stark depression and raving despair. Goals are useful in that manner. I can say that I had no overt goals in journalling, none whatsoever, therefore I ought not to and cannot be disappointed, and therefore are not. Hurray!

I am not sure what Beta English would look like if I were to write everything I thought. Mostly rubbish. "Stuff" would be the perfect word-- too without form or function to be qualified as living or dead, good or bad, thought or cognition. I suspect it would be ordinary. Not ordinary in a pleasant pub night kind of way but in sad, sad way. Sometimes my thoughts seem like candidates in a district beauty contest, standing tall, smiling, somewhat accomplished for their age, naïvely polite. And here I sit their judge, also smiling, somewhat unaccomplished for my age (at least in the 02139 zip code), resignedly polite, but really wishing I was evaluating the more beautiful girls of the rarified circuits.

ASIDE
The other day I was watching the program guide with my BFG and we saw a huge chunk that I thought read Miss Universe and BFG said No Way! even though I wasn't going to click on it which piqued my interest and I said You don't want see girls? and he said I certainly don't need to see their mothers. and I realised it was Mrs. Universe instead and for some reason we laughed our heads off and then I turned to him and said If we were to get married and he said When and I said Okay, when, then I would become your Mrs. and he said My trophy Mrs. and I said It's still a Mrs and he said Yes, but you are not desperate. It seems I got a little carried away on this aside.

Okay, so I'm not at all desperate in a pick-me pick-me oh prince to be your pretty princess kind of way but I am so pick-me pick-me oh Professor to be your prodigious progeny. I got even more carried away on this aside.
END ASIDE

So I want to have prettier thoughts? That would be stupid. I want to have stronger, more chiselled-through-everyday-use thoughts? Sounds better, but still suspect. You know how people on those make-over programmes say that they want their outside to reflect how wonderful they are on the inside, well I want my inside to reflect how -- wait, I was about to draw a useless parallel, no mental make-over here. You hear of many girls who so, so want to be models, girls who couldn't, really, be models even if the standards were lowered-- even dropped completely-- and there is something sincere, almost sweet, about their desperation. I find my own desperation much less charming. I have thought myself superior because I'd rather be a genius than a supermodel, but, really, is wanting a beautiful mind any less superficial? It too turns heads. If I wanted to be a real, live genius just so that I could stroke myself existentially and bask in the resentment of others, now that would be sadder than a circus, wouldn't it?

Enough of that. I've been reading, for pleasure, and what pleasure it is. Of many brilliant passages in a handsome collection of short stories, the following may be the lesser so, but it struck me quietly:

>>It would have been so much easier if there were a fancy, scientific-sounding label for it, So-and-So's syndrome, a catchy set of initials. If only she had statistics, if only she could say, "Just one in ten million is born like this every year," then it would sound better, she would seem lucky, a lottery winner. Instead he's just a mistake, like an error in accounting, upsetting the balance, and people would rather erase him than do the maths again, reconfigure the equations to make him work out.<<
Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitz

cup final: Italy -vs- U.S.A.

Last-day-of-classes ritual: every Thursday evening before exam week, I leaf through any magazines I can find in my dorm room. Sometimes I borrow from my neighbours. Sometimes I swipe the non-tech mags from the common room. I can "read" as few or as many as I fancy at the time, but the rule is that I have to turn every page once. I think it's something about the repetitious motion and sound that calms me. Or maybe I'm practicing my page-turning for tomorrow morning. For dinner, since there are no Maltesers here, I'll try for a Galaxy Caramel from Star Market (sometimes they pleasantly surprise me). And I suppose that small part of my very lame ritual has to do with the Mars bar my parents would present to me on the mornings of those swimming galas so long ago-- I only came first once though.

So that's how we come upon the following magazines. Sports Illustrated Smimsuit Edition seems to me to be a dilution of Pirelli Calender. Or is it the Pirelli Calender [Señor, may I recommend 2003?] that is an inflation of the other? I don't think I'm as taken with this year's Issue as I was with last year's, which was touted the 40th Anniversay Edition and featured a hall of fame of sorts. Compared to the halls of fame that might feature the sportsmen in the regular editions of Sports Illustrated, the Swimsuit Hall of Fame is particularly hearbreaking, what with its several former models in various stages of wilt.

I might add that very close to the end of the term, my speech breaks down and I find myself actively thinking about the construction of sentences; so forgive me if I sound stilted.

Labour Day is in May

Last night, on my way back from a chocolate run, I ended up walking behind some girl on a long-ish stretch of road. After a few seconds, she crossed to the other side. And, even though it could have been purely coincidental, I identified with the unease of being female walking alone at night and hearing someone behind you. But I didn't leave it at that. I realised that, with my tracks-hood over my head and rag-jeans, I could have been any person, any sex, any age-- adult, of course, from height and gait.

So, what did I do? After 10 seconds of thinking (a record for me, surely) I crossed the road behind her. I thought to myself. What would she do if I sped up? What if I bumped into her? Would she cross the road again? Scream? Take out the mace? (Mace is illegal here-- my rickety theory is that, since this is a college-studded town, CPs and medics don't want to be called every time a date goes wrong and someone pulls out a can.)

I didn't do it, of course, I didn't rush the girl. But I did scare her. I could tell; when we arrived at the dorm, almost simultaneously, she looked back with what I can only describe as an expression of concern. So I dropped my hood to let her know that she was a scaredy cat, then pulled out my card and let us in.

Am I detecting some serious misogynist vibes or what? Not really. At least I do not think so. To my credit, I am not one of those girls who only hang out with boys, claiming to be unable to stand other women for all their follies. Then again, I am not a feminist. I like to say that I hate men and women equally.

So that's why the chicken crossed the road.

Network Visualisation of the Outbreak of Intelligence

I think I just found the best Amazon dot com review ever! I realise that it is unlikely to be the best Amazon dot com review ever, and that anything touted as the best [insert relevant noun] ever is probably not, and that the idea of reviewing reviews is ridiculous, but please, please bear with my excitementa (suitable misspelling), as I'm off my meds. Et voilà:

[5 stars] My review of the 'New Testiment', July 2, 2004
Reviewer: Ben Jones from London
Beloved son dies tragically as a consequence of delivering vital news. Ironic twist ensures uplifting consequences for all concerned.

Hello, wait a minute, the review above that one isn't at all bad. Although, the user-name "filthy monkey" and the review title "Top Stuff" and the need to explain what Christianity is "an astoundingly popular religious movement," make me think that this guy is... how do you say... kidding. But if he is seriously defining Christianity, then he would make a great teacher. Because I love teachers who assume you know nothing, even though it makes for epic office hours. This trait I like in non-fiction writers too. Not so much in my BFG.

Honourable mention to the review above even that one for its title:
The greatest use of paper ever. Fact.
which brings us back to the dangers of the phrase "the [superlative] [noun] ever."

By the way, those were reviews for the Good News Bible, which you may also, if you please, buy-together-today with Philip's Modern School Atlas for the handsome price of £18.88, down from the total-list-price of £26.98, which, heartbreakingly, makes you ineligible for free-UK-delivery on orders over £19 with super-saver-delivery, and by a measly 12 pence. If you are not in the UK or not ever planning to purchase those books, then there is no need to be heartbroken, unless you are singularly sensitive, like mademoiselle. Wa!

Why would Amazon consider the Philip's Modern School Atlas to be the "perfect partner" to Good News Bible, apart from using them both in less modern Catholic schools? And the perfect partner to Philip's Modern School Atlas is the Oxford School Dictionary. You know what? I thought this would go on and on, and was about to make one of those *cool syphilis outbreak charts with books instead of people, but, as it turns out, the Oxford School Dictionary has a reciprocal perfect partner, aww, but-of-course the Oxford School Thesaurus.

*Syphilis is not cool, I hear, outbreaks of most things aren't either. But charts, charts can be cool, if you use pastels instead of primary colours.

Too Beautiful For You

>>He is not sure if he is dead, alive and unconscious, or fully conscious. He feels himself to be lying in the same place, splayed across the two seats of the train, pressed down by something heavy on his shoulders and his back. He can see his arm out of the shattered and corrupted window and senses a sort of vague nostalgia for it. That's my arm, he thinks. I've had it for years, that arm. And look at it now, lying there in the dirt, alone and un-tended. Goodbye arm, he murmurs, goodbye! And the arm lifts itself a little from the ground and offers him the faintest of waves. Goodbye, Christian, it says.<<

from Too Beautiful For You: Tales of Improper Behaviour
by Rod Liddle

An over-the-top book cover (tee hee), but so fitting, really. Here, have a look. Suppose we should be thankful it's not a banana. Or a lollipop. In contrast, an ice-cream cone is wholesome.

What's more wholesome than the holidays? Candy floss. No. Hard work. Yes. No school Monday. No school Tuesday. Thank you. Patriots Day. Flying out. Negotiating Logan on a long weekend? D'rather sleep in. Haven't slept. Can you tell?

sudden onset acute hopeless happiness

Listening to Fiona Apple can be tiresome. Lusty voice aside, she was a bit too young to be singing about mutually codependent relationships in her first album, no? She should still have been working on the other three Rs. Then again, lines like "you fondle my trigger then you blame my gun" almost make me wish I knew bad love for the express purpose of thinking up a sentence like that.

I'm against the current usage of the word relationship. In my head, it only refers to your family and fast friends, or, if you are unfortunate enough, your GP or psychoanalyst or lawyer. Because close associations of the other kind should be referred to as engagement and marriage, or fornication and adultery, as appropriate (or inappropriate, as the case may be).

ASIDE
Speaking of relationships, my BFG recently referred to me as his mid-life crisis.
END ASIDE

Fiona Apple came to mind when I was thinking about women poets, after this friendly provocation. The words she sings would be much too heavy-handed on paper (probably why she makes a songwriter). Maybe it's similar with Slam Poetry. A good friend dragged me to a one of their heats. Sitting there listening and being spat on, one can certainly tell the difference between the skilled and the lesser so. It's definitely a performance. Some call it Performance Poetry, some call it Spoken Word (a little grandiose if you're brought up Christian). I don't know enough about it to say more.

I will say, at the risk of being made fun of in the future, ahem, that I am woman and a poet*, not a woman poet, and both reluctantly, but neither very seriously.

*en Papier

ewww, boobies

In class, a girl catches me looking at her breasts. I am about to say that it is worse than a guy catching you looking at his crotch. I never intentionally look at crotches; I am usually daydreaming. I am almost always consciously looking at breasts.

I am vaguely frustrated. Can one be vaguely frustrated? If one can, then I am. I wish I could freeze strangers, that I might look at them properly.

EDIT
When I say that I am almost always consciously looking at breasts, I don't mean that I am on the lookout for breasts. What I do mean is that if you have breasts and you catch me looking at them, I am actively looking at them. But if you have a crotch and you catch me looking at it, I am just daydreaming.
END EDIT

Grandfather Clocked

While you mourn the death of His Holy Father the Pope John Paul II, we are somewhat saddened by death of His Serene Highness the Prince Rainier III, the grandfather we never had. We would post his picture, but since he is not a pretty girl, you probably wouldn't be interested.

N.B. We are neither affiliated nor even casually acquainted with The Vatican and The Principality of Monaco.

I hate you, don't leave me.

This old lady comes into the train and sits next to me, right next to me, shoulder to shoulder. This is fine with me, but it is so odd. The whole row of seats is free, seven empty spaces, and she chooses the one closest to me. Doesn't this go against the psychology of something or the other?

But why am I pleased?

Nostalgia is the misuse of em-dashes.

The best part of the day was getting caught in the rain, and walking slowly for it. But I did not get as wet as I would have liked-- Aha, the real reason, forget good taste, why one should not wear polyster-spandex blends.

The lucky muddy girls playing rugby in the field brought to mind rainy seasons back home, when the pitch got so wet we had time to christen the seasonal lakes that extended into the netball court. The grass on that side was un-uproot-able, so not as muddy. Still, The Crew-- the four or so girls who resented Miss WhatsHerName for refusing to let them have more than one period a month-- gave these delicious little yelps at the spray every time someone reluctantly passed them the ball. If only they knew how good it could have been. At the whistle, my stomach cramped with anticipation for the first fall-- no doubt a few of them engineered by some reckless moves, if one can even be reckless at netball-- drawn to mud and water the way one is drawn to the edge of a roof (yuck, what a composition-y though accurate analogy). The answer? Football [soccer] with the boys, skidding and sliding and yelling "shooooot", even when no one, really, was in the position to score, just so I could get a mouthful of rain...

later having the kids on the bus wrinkle their noses at mud in your hair, getting home to peel, and I do mean peel, your everything off, white socks never quite the same.

Weightless Statements Said With Conviction

Truly beautiful women look better in clothes.

EDIT
A.Truly beautiful women look better in clothes (than naked).
B.Truly beautiful women look better (than ordinarily beautiful women) in clothes.

If you chose A, you may be a christian man.
If you chose B, you may be a bitter woman.

I actually meant A.
English, sheesh.
END EDIT

YYY

If this were the sort of pornography that one's perfect boyfriend enjoyed, one ought to be:

(a) touched (by his innocence);
(b) alarmed (by her innocence);
(c) relieved (no one is bound and gagged).

And subsequently do:

(a) add "sensitive" to list of his good qualities;
(b) dial 999 or 911, or one's mother;
(c) dust off one's old school uniform.

 

 

John the Mayer has a T.V. show. (Red Letter Version)

Episode 1: John the Mayer has street cred

T double-D, can I call you T double-D?
Trick Daddy: Yeah, of course, T double, T double-D.
T double. Let’s do T double.
There’s something about the girl with the fake breasts that I really like.
Trick Daddy: I agree with you to a certain extent because girls with fake breasts... they all are nice... they're usually big... and they usually wear a small shirt or a see-through shirt or something that lifts them up [makes self-raising motion with both hands in front of chest]. But the pleasure is gone once you take off this shirt... one bigger than the other... high low...
Sometimes you catch a corner of it, and it's like a bag of legos and you’re like wo-oh.
Trick Daddy: Implants are only for wet T-shirt contests... cause nipples ain’t supposed to be this big [makes semi-circle gesture with hand].
Right, it’s like: It’s an areola, it’s not a helipad.

Explain to people at home your theory on wanting to open a series of night-care centres.
Trick Daddy: A lot of young girls, they have babies, but they still want to party, still want to mess around, they want to work out there at the strip clubs. I’d make this big day-care where you can bring the kids in, I’d keep the kids and you’d come get the kids when you leave the club or, if you’re too drunk, you come get them in the morning. All night, you know, day-care for the kids, with some decent-type hoes that’s looking over ‘em.
Now, I like this. I like this. Because you want the hoes to get more decent and that’s what I’ve always [been] talking about.

Melancholia, what is it good for?

We have not posted in a while because we came up against a particular brand of self-loathing of the sort that can only be assuaged by drawing one’s own blood.

It has not yet passed.

For now, we ask ourselves two things:
1. Is it possible to like Crunk if you don’t like R 'n' B or Rap?
2. Serif or Sans-Serif?

The Empty Set

review: Justified

And Timberlake went on to the next town on his tour and began proclaiming The nepTunes to them. And the multitudes with one accord were giving attention to what was sung by Justin, as they heard and saw the signature moves he was performing. For in the case of many who thought they had no soul, it came out of them, squealing in feverous falsetto; and many who had their backsides paralysed and their groove things lame were heaved. And there was much raking in of cash.

Fourth Form, second term

The only chapter we ever finished in our (lusciously named) Computer Studies class was the one on Viruses. Mrs. What'sHerName enthusiastically shared her antivirus toolkit with us her students. We passed the floppies between ourselves and then returned them to her. Incidentally, one of them got infected. We didn't have the heart to tell her; when she spoke of Dr. Solomon, she glowed.

circumstantial evidence

mrOBE thinks I like to sit in the window seats C at the front of the plane in order to flirt with the older businessmen who sit in the aisle seats B. I care little for businessmen, but older men are, how do you say, fascinating.

There was this one man. I remember that he wore glasses, a waistcoat that looked both ridiculous and darling.

Apparently, I was flirting with the gentleman, according to mrOBE, yet which of my guileless phrases might've been misconstrued as coquetry?

"I'm sorry," I say, fidgeting with vermin-infested cushion and course reading, both equally disagreeable. I feel silly for fidgeting, then for apologising.

He turns on my reading light.

"I'm sorry," I say, entangled in coat. It is not that chilly, but we are piercing some rather ugly clouds.

He reaches behind to fix my hood and collar.

"I'll be good now," I say, re-sitting after having most kindly asked him if he could please stand up for a bit so I could quickly get some cash from overhead before the nice lady bumps into me with her cart. [The nice lady who would later say, over the turbulence, that we have the best captain on the fleet. And the captain would later say that we have the best flight attendant on the fleet. Lucky us.]

"I'm not an alcoholic," I say, downing double Tanqueray, "I've just forgotten how to fly." [They do not card up there. That, or the nice lady saw me approach tranquilliser territory. Or I significantly aged in only one year.]

Now I don't remember most of what he might've said himself, but he maintained direct eye contact, demonstrating that he is indeed a businessman. Although, I am sure he said:

- "Oh, are you feeling it?"
after I started smiling at nothing in particular (gin has that effect on me).
- "You did take it rather fast."
maybe in answer to my facial expression.
- "Where do you go to school?"
as small talk of some sort?
- "My daughter's doesn't cost as much."
after I went quiet, tallying my debt to society.
- "You must be so smart."
just before I spilt Sprite on my thin turtleneck.

It wasn't until the next day that I remembered his hand on my knee, lightly, briefly, a few times, innocent, familiar, but innocent. He stopped assuming that maintain-personal-space-at-all-costs flight position, which for most people involves shrinking into one's seat to decrease body volume and probability of collision.

Then he let his leg lean against mine. Or I let his leg lean against mine. It's hard to say who let who.

MUM (most unscientific method)

I have never understood why men liked long legs and why women coveted them. (Like most of our psets, at least according to those lab assistants, it is intuitively obvious.) So whenever boys would moan and girls would groan at the thought or sight of them, I would simply smile or sympathise appropriately, even though I didn't get it. But now, eureka! It's all about putting things into their least proper perspective:

All skirt lengths remaining equal, the longer a woman's legs are, the easier it is to look up her skirt.

In most cases, women's legs do not catch my eye unless they are somewhat muscular, but men's do. This may or may not have something to do with being primarily heterosexual.Serie A, anyone?

Now, why would women want to have long legs? It can't be just because men like them; too simplistic.

gore is like carbs, you can't have just one

I was going to get some Häagen-Dazs-- not any more!

I don't know why I somehow end up at websites like Faces of Death. And then I can't help but want to see something. And once I see one photograph I want to see another and another and another and another... here I am half an hour later with my beloved sweet tooth good and Rotten.

The Path of Descent:
1. Yahoo instead of Google.
2. Get distracted and click on a pic of Gwen Stefani.
3. Watch her "exclusively live performance" on Launch.
4. Start to wonder what kind of music videos make the top 100 list.
5. Scroll through three pages and see the name Cradle of Filth.
6. Think: What self-respecting musicians would call themselves that?
7. Decide: It must be a literary reference.
8. Notice that their video is called Nymphetamine.
9. Wonder: Like Amphetamines?
10. Think: The video is as strange as I expected, the music is...
11. Read the bio and discover it's referred to as "gothic black metal."
12. Follow the Cradle of Fear link (the official Cradle of Filth site is down).
14. Announce: There is a worse taste in movies than one could ever imagined.
15. Decide: This attraction to the ugliness in life is juvenile, but compelling.
16. Click, click, clickety-click, et voila, Ogrish Dot Com.

I didn't link the sites because I just wouldn't do that to you now, would I? And, by the way, I'm not knocking carbs. When I was a vegan, that's all I lived on, and, let me tell you, life was good and happy (and not at all fat).

the tumour in my humour

So-and-so is signing my Change of Course form and he speaks to himself, he says, "Er, what IS the date-- oh, November the second, of course, the course of our history is being changed."

And I politely interjected, "As is mine."

He just looked at me.

Did he not get it or am I taking this ruler-of-the-free-world business too lightly?

Dear Friends

I am partaking (teehee) in a 16 day fast. From what I have gathered, this curtails time spent online in addition to all other media. And just when I was getting into it, how inopportune.

To comfort you, I leave you this image:

There is something about this picture. It speaks of wealth of health. Of physical enough-ness. And a certain kind of beauty that I don't think inspires lust. If I were a man, I'd want her to be the mother of my children. (Okay, so I'm ignoring the fact that this picture accompanied a psychological news article in a major women's magazine.) I am transfixed and I don't know why. Do you?

an exercise in whimsy

I woke up, and there was a cloud outside my window. Armed with an umbrella, I went about my business. I came back to find that it had moved a little, outward, onto the field, but still so close. I wanted to follow it. Had it been any lower, I could have worn it as a hat.

My 2005 New Year's resolution shall be to rid my speech of ALL coarse words-- not that I curse that much, my usage is rare (holidays) to moderate (school year).

Yesterday, as we read out one of those modern plays that are full of fucks, I realised that, gasp, I had no reaction whatsoever to it. It felt normal. That's it! I want to rewind a few years to the days I winced at the word shit.

I hear that the only way to stop a bad habit is to adopt a good counteractive habit. In that case, what we need is a substitution of words and phrases:
-for what sensible people would shrug off, aka "the small stuff," the phrase:
I am displeased.
-when something bad happens after a sequence of other bad happenings, aka "the last straw," a stronger phrase is due, such as:
My displeasure is critical.
-to be reserved for the worst ever things, not like losing a limb, to which I would be speechless, but along the lines of... this has the potential to ruin the whole week or, at worst, my whole academic and social life:
My displeasure has peaked.

hip hip hurray

"Since the solutions are now public, I cannot accept any late psets. Those of you who didn't turn one in are receiving a zero."

And that would be me.

A jolly good fellow, I am!

One's birthday is a perfect time to premiere a personal philosophy, especially when one looks at their past few years and realises that one has accomplished all their goals primarily because one never had any to begin with. In fact, one's never understood what that goal-making-business-thing is all about

I think I'd've made a better-adjusted young woman if (only) I'd killed small animals as a young child.

Just one or two, don't look at me like that.

toffee-caramel-virgin-bride

I am not a very successfully poor student.

But I did it in the pursuit of knowledge. What is toffee-caramel? a pressing question in confectionary science.

I can hear it already:
"D'you know what $15.96 will get you, young lady?"
"This box of chocolates?"

It sounded like that unholy mix of peanut-butter and jam, only edible. So I am well prepared to be dissapointed.

Yes, "I am" is present tense. You see, the box is so pretty I cannot bring myself to break it.

So if ever we find ourselves in the (perhaps metaphoric) position of imminent deflowering on our wedding night, and our then husband hesitates, we won't panic and think that he's having late second thoughts. We won't even ask the classic, "What are you thinking?" Because we already know what he is thinking, poor man. "Do I really have to break the box to get to the sugar?"