Well, I've been home sick, and while I've been home, they've cleaned off his desk, and I've been negotiating clearing out his apartment. His apartment is weird enough, but it's his desk that's filling me with dread. It was somehow very nice to go to work every day and having everything just as he left it, like that semi-conscious expectation of mine that at any point he'd walk around the corner and just sit down was right and true . . .
This experience is teaching me something about the nature of pity, and how damn useful it it. It is an interesting and unique emotion in that, more than love on its own, more than compassion on its own, it has the capacity to overwhelm negative feelings - disgust and disdain and anger, even hate - you can feel all of those and then feel pity on top of them, and while it doesn't neutralize them it certainly makes it easier to live with them without turning into the world's massivest fucking bitch.
Anyways.
Visualizzazione post con etichetta jive broad. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta jive broad. Mostra tutti i post
martedì, gennaio 19, 2010
mercoledì, giugno 03, 2009
Don't ask any questions
This is the best thing in the world. I feel sorry for children who didn't have Sesame Street.
I guess they had good shit in Britain too, but only Sesame Street is Sesame Street. Who else ever combined black marketeering and illustrating the difference between O's close-mid back rounded sound and the open back rounded sound? In one brief song, they teach you how to speak, spell, and traffic. Three of the most useful things in the world.
I think about that sometimes, you know. With the economic climate being what it is at the moment, with me living on a continent where organized crime has such massive economic dominance. How long before the black market becomes not only dominant, but indispensable? How long before credit problems cause production to slip below consumption, or seem to? My guess is that when taxes are hiked like crazy to pay off the extra-big deficits major governments are running up at the moment as they go a little bail-out crazy, it's going to blossom like a flower. Like in the post-war period here. My guess is that governments will make an effort - a more politically acceptable effort - to recoup their losses by taxing corporations more carefully, and well they should. And then the price of everything will go up - and people will realize they can run an economy more cheaply by themselves, selling things back and forth in cash - and manufacturers will tear a page out of the tobacco companies' books, and find clever and illegal ways to sell things off-book.
It will be a new golden age of crime. But instead of the golden age that just ended - where company management was able to persuade shareholders to pay them massive bribes for just not leaving or breaking confidentiality, when we lived in a blackmail economy; when products were unsafe, poorly regulated and irresponsibly flogged for the sake of share price and government complicity - it will be scroungy and dangerous in a different way, which is much more visibly annoying, especially to a population already rightly fed up to the teeth with manufacturers. And then when people get annoyed enough, the strong men will come, and after them - if there is an "after them" in the nuclear age - what? Perhaps a new, stupid, sickening version of freedom which is actually just a relaxation of any regulatory financial law - just a big corporate free-for-all that rewards utter incompetence as long as it has an MBA, like what has just imploded.
You read it here first. Now do you understand why I want to move to an isolated commune in Australia? Hopefully we can choose the right strong men.
Would you like to buy an O, round and neat . . . a nearly perfect circle, tidy and complete?
I guess they had good shit in Britain too, but only Sesame Street is Sesame Street. Who else ever combined black marketeering and illustrating the difference between O's close-mid back rounded sound and the open back rounded sound? In one brief song, they teach you how to speak, spell, and traffic. Three of the most useful things in the world.
I think about that sometimes, you know. With the economic climate being what it is at the moment, with me living on a continent where organized crime has such massive economic dominance. How long before the black market becomes not only dominant, but indispensable? How long before credit problems cause production to slip below consumption, or seem to? My guess is that when taxes are hiked like crazy to pay off the extra-big deficits major governments are running up at the moment as they go a little bail-out crazy, it's going to blossom like a flower. Like in the post-war period here. My guess is that governments will make an effort - a more politically acceptable effort - to recoup their losses by taxing corporations more carefully, and well they should. And then the price of everything will go up - and people will realize they can run an economy more cheaply by themselves, selling things back and forth in cash - and manufacturers will tear a page out of the tobacco companies' books, and find clever and illegal ways to sell things off-book.
It will be a new golden age of crime. But instead of the golden age that just ended - where company management was able to persuade shareholders to pay them massive bribes for just not leaving or breaking confidentiality, when we lived in a blackmail economy; when products were unsafe, poorly regulated and irresponsibly flogged for the sake of share price and government complicity - it will be scroungy and dangerous in a different way, which is much more visibly annoying, especially to a population already rightly fed up to the teeth with manufacturers. And then when people get annoyed enough, the strong men will come, and after them - if there is an "after them" in the nuclear age - what? Perhaps a new, stupid, sickening version of freedom which is actually just a relaxation of any regulatory financial law - just a big corporate free-for-all that rewards utter incompetence as long as it has an MBA, like what has just imploded.
You read it here first. Now do you understand why I want to move to an isolated commune in Australia? Hopefully we can choose the right strong men.
Would you like to buy an O, round and neat . . . a nearly perfect circle, tidy and complete?
martedì, giugno 02, 2009
It smokes, it drinks, it philosophizes . . .
Old impending-doomy feeling is back. I don't know if it was that Air France thing, which is basically an example of my worst or strongest nightmare, or all the film noir we've been watching or the fact that the weather has been encouraging the idea in me that it is summer, but I'm perpetually incapable of carpe dieming and thus am living in fear the sun will once more be snatched away from me and leave me as summerless as I've been since leaving Canada. The idea of Australia in the circumstances is a little like heaven; I don't know anything about it except that where we're thinking of is as warm in the winter as it is here now, and that's enough to make up my mind for me.
Summer. Could it really be summer?
Watched a really funny movie last night: Beat the Devil, that Truman Capote participated in writing. A few real laugh-out-loud moments. The bit where O'Hara offered a critique of Maria Dannreuther's portrait had us howling and quoting at each other all night, trying to get that creepy, crawly Ren-from-Ren-and-Stimpy voice down. Some great characters and performances, but I wonder how Truman Capote was with writing women. The lead blonde may as well have been Holly Golightly airdropped in from Manhattan. Maria Dannreuther was fine, though, and all of the men characters were great. Rather funny to see Humphrey Bogart being funny - funnier than in The African Queen.
Summer. Could it really be summer?
Watched a really funny movie last night: Beat the Devil, that Truman Capote participated in writing. A few real laugh-out-loud moments. The bit where O'Hara offered a critique of Maria Dannreuther's portrait had us howling and quoting at each other all night, trying to get that creepy, crawly Ren-from-Ren-and-Stimpy voice down. Some great characters and performances, but I wonder how Truman Capote was with writing women. The lead blonde may as well have been Holly Golightly airdropped in from Manhattan. Maria Dannreuther was fine, though, and all of the men characters were great. Rather funny to see Humphrey Bogart being funny - funnier than in The African Queen.
martedì, maggio 05, 2009
Dumbfuckery and consequences
How I would love to blame this on someone else. But that shithouse choke yesterday at the exam was 100% Mistress La Spliffe, and now my mighty organs of indignation and anger must be turned against myself. I can't blame the examiner; he was clear, reassuring, and friendly; I can't blame my instructor, who taught me how to drive well enough that I did everything else perfectly - painfully perfectly; I can't blame Belgium, because while it's given me innumerable examples of drivers doing exactly what I did to fuck up the exam yesterday, that has translated into innumerable opportunities for me to curse Belgians for their dangerous stupidity - there was certainly no pressure to emulate it.
It really hurts to have managed the parallel parking, the three point turn, the following the flow of traffic, the signalling, the left turning, the braking smoothly and safely in time to avoid mowing down a family of geese ambling across the road without risking getting rear-ended, and all the other things that had me shitting myself, just to fuck up in this new, dramatic, dangerous, and fucking mentally debile way that I never did during my lessons or practice sessions. But what it is informing me is that despite my finesse behind the wheel and my reasonably good impression of calm, competent driving, if I'm happy to tool out on a roundabout without judging my distances properly at my fucking exam like a fucking retard, I'm not ready to drive on the roads unaccompanied yet, and that's all there is to it.
Well, not quite all. Here's the thing: I know how to drive now, and have even mastered the roundabout - I never would have driven on and cut somebody off on a roundabout if I hadn't been having a massive brainfart; I'm aware of the fucking laws of priority, painfully so, because they're so counter-intuitive from a Canadian perspective, as we don't have roundabouts and every intersection is adequately signposted so we don't have to fart around with the massive trust exercise which is Rightwards Priority. So the worry is that what's making me unfit to drive isn't my driving skills per se, but my inadequate brain, and that's worrying because while one can improve their skills, it's a different proposition altogether to improve one's brain.
So in punishment but also in an effort to help myself, I'm cutting off the reefer. No more reefer for me. Not until I've got that fucking dimestore salmon foldy piece of shit these Belgian stone-age nincompoops call a full fucking B-class license. I've already been cutting down but now I'm cutting out. Even when I go to Amsterdam at the end of the F-word's school term. I will go to Amsterdam and I will not smoke or eat reefer. I will watch David Attenborough ocean documentaries and I will not be high while I do it. I realize that makes my blogonym a little non au courant, so in the meantime you may address me as the Dread Pirate Jessica.
It really hurts to have managed the parallel parking, the three point turn, the following the flow of traffic, the signalling, the left turning, the braking smoothly and safely in time to avoid mowing down a family of geese ambling across the road without risking getting rear-ended, and all the other things that had me shitting myself, just to fuck up in this new, dramatic, dangerous, and fucking mentally debile way that I never did during my lessons or practice sessions. But what it is informing me is that despite my finesse behind the wheel and my reasonably good impression of calm, competent driving, if I'm happy to tool out on a roundabout without judging my distances properly at my fucking exam like a fucking retard, I'm not ready to drive on the roads unaccompanied yet, and that's all there is to it.
Well, not quite all. Here's the thing: I know how to drive now, and have even mastered the roundabout - I never would have driven on and cut somebody off on a roundabout if I hadn't been having a massive brainfart; I'm aware of the fucking laws of priority, painfully so, because they're so counter-intuitive from a Canadian perspective, as we don't have roundabouts and every intersection is adequately signposted so we don't have to fart around with the massive trust exercise which is Rightwards Priority. So the worry is that what's making me unfit to drive isn't my driving skills per se, but my inadequate brain, and that's worrying because while one can improve their skills, it's a different proposition altogether to improve one's brain.
So in punishment but also in an effort to help myself, I'm cutting off the reefer. No more reefer for me. Not until I've got that fucking dimestore salmon foldy piece of shit these Belgian stone-age nincompoops call a full fucking B-class license. I've already been cutting down but now I'm cutting out. Even when I go to Amsterdam at the end of the F-word's school term. I will go to Amsterdam and I will not smoke or eat reefer. I will watch David Attenborough ocean documentaries and I will not be high while I do it. I realize that makes my blogonym a little non au courant, so in the meantime you may address me as the Dread Pirate Jessica.
giovedì, aprile 23, 2009
Call me a prude but I don't give fishing until there's a ring on my finger
Ugh. Can't sleep this morning. Atrocious dream about watching a pessimistic volcano survival documentary while a murderer broke into our holiday flat. At least that's made me too tired to be very nervous about today's meeting.
Speaking of, nerves beat parsimony and I ordered four extra hours of driving practice. The ex-cop who guides me during the sessions seemed to know that means I really don't want to fail the exam in a week in a half, so he cracked down and got all martial with me. 'Alright - scan the intersection - scan, scan - pedestrian sign changed - take your foot off the brake - relax on the clutch - release - give it gas! But don't hit that black guy!* Okay, now more! More! More! Second gear! More gas! Pretend your husband has been kidnapped and he's in the car ahead! You can't lose them! Pretend that adorable puppy in the car is your husband! Hit the gas! Third! Gas! Give it some fishing!* Fourth! There, now you're driving like a normal person. Scan! Scan the street! Why are you slowing down? WHY ARE YOU STOPPING? It's priority from the right, my cabbage!* Don't hesitate! You check the priority and you go, go, go! No, no, first gear! Now step on the gas!" It was stressful but fun and I feel marginally more ready for the exam. And it was nice to make the car go rrrrrrr. Nine more hours of practice to go.
Baywatch commented yesterday that all the rigmarole associated with getting your license here hasn't seemed to make Belgians better drivers than in places where the test I'm shitting myself over is a non-event, and he's right. People are really atrocious drivers here - getting into accidents all over the place and doing jaw-droppingly stupid things on a secondly basis. In view of their monumental suck I admit I wonder how hard the test can possibly be. . . but it's probably quite hard. My feeling is that learning how to drive here is just like the general French/Francophone Belgian educational system; you're not training people to not be retards, you're training them to pass an exam. Also traffic police are a complete non-presence in town. There's nobody checking up on you - just some speed cameras and blaring horns - so people have full rein to drive with their ids*.
*Belgian ex-cop, not a French one, obviously
*Belgian idiom for 'do it with balls'*
*Continental French idiom for 'sweetie'
*Freud is only good for traffic
*Just had a chat with my perfectly bilingual boss, who exlained the expression 'mis de la pêche!' makes slightly more sense than my translation 'give it some fishing!' - 'pêche' there is actually 'peach', homophonous with 'fishing' in French. I still don't get it, but there you are.
Speaking of, nerves beat parsimony and I ordered four extra hours of driving practice. The ex-cop who guides me during the sessions seemed to know that means I really don't want to fail the exam in a week in a half, so he cracked down and got all martial with me. 'Alright - scan the intersection - scan, scan - pedestrian sign changed - take your foot off the brake - relax on the clutch - release - give it gas! But don't hit that black guy!* Okay, now more! More! More! Second gear! More gas! Pretend your husband has been kidnapped and he's in the car ahead! You can't lose them! Pretend that adorable puppy in the car is your husband! Hit the gas! Third! Gas! Give it some fishing!* Fourth! There, now you're driving like a normal person. Scan! Scan the street! Why are you slowing down? WHY ARE YOU STOPPING? It's priority from the right, my cabbage!* Don't hesitate! You check the priority and you go, go, go! No, no, first gear! Now step on the gas!" It was stressful but fun and I feel marginally more ready for the exam. And it was nice to make the car go rrrrrrr. Nine more hours of practice to go.
Baywatch commented yesterday that all the rigmarole associated with getting your license here hasn't seemed to make Belgians better drivers than in places where the test I'm shitting myself over is a non-event, and he's right. People are really atrocious drivers here - getting into accidents all over the place and doing jaw-droppingly stupid things on a secondly basis. In view of their monumental suck I admit I wonder how hard the test can possibly be. . . but it's probably quite hard. My feeling is that learning how to drive here is just like the general French/Francophone Belgian educational system; you're not training people to not be retards, you're training them to pass an exam. Also traffic police are a complete non-presence in town. There's nobody checking up on you - just some speed cameras and blaring horns - so people have full rein to drive with their ids*.
*Belgian ex-cop, not a French one, obviously
*Belgian idiom for 'do it with balls'*
*Continental French idiom for 'sweetie'
*Freud is only good for traffic
*Just had a chat with my perfectly bilingual boss, who exlained the expression 'mis de la pêche!' makes slightly more sense than my translation 'give it some fishing!' - 'pêche' there is actually 'peach', homophonous with 'fishing' in French. I still don't get it, but there you are.
martedì, dicembre 16, 2008
The Red Dragon has an appetite for development
Wow. I'm in a very dragony mood indeed today. Better think pleasant thoughts.
1. Appetite for Destruction. Had the F-word acquire it after having a dream that I'd heard the first single from Chinese Democracy (which I haven't) and that it was surprisingly, enchantingly good (which I doubt). Remembered what a good song 'Mr. Brownstone' was and demanded the whole thing. I'm glad I did, except for some of the lovey-dovey crap in those whiny grating vocals, ugh, but mostly glad to have 'Mr. Brownstone' again. That must be one of the best songs ever. Add it to the list, I guess. I always think I would have liked that sort of '80s grock music better if the composers had limited themselves to writing about drugs. Once they start singing about sex or violence I start figuring I should either be listening to soul or the Bad Seeds. Anyways. 'Mr. Brownstone'. Awesome.
2. Arrested Development. Finally MSN is streaming the full episodes to markets outside of the US and we're trying to watch it all before we leave for Italy on vacation, after having seen and lurved the first season. Almost there now. Well into the third. I can't find ways to praise that show enough, besides to say I don't think I've ever seen such a successful American television comedy, besides maybe the first season of the Sopranos. And that makes it the funniest situation comedy ever, as far as I can figure out. Don't believe me? Watch the fucker and try to argue. Or at least read this exchange:
Gob: My God. What is this feeling?
Michael: You know, the feeling that you're feeling is just what many of us call... a "feeling".
Gob: It's not like envy, or even hungry.
Michael: Could it be love?
Gob: I know what an erection feels like, Michael. No, it's the opposite - it's like my heart is getting hard.
That's all I can list at the moment. Very hard to look for bright sides today. Tomorrow will be better, when deadline is past and I can really appreciate we're about to go somewhere warmer and sunnier for a couple of weeks. It's just so dark here - so cold and dark - half a week away from the darkest day of the year. I fucking detest living this far noth. A full seven fucking degrees north of Toronto. It may be easier to die of exposure or get frostbite in a Canadian city than it is here, but at least there's some light. At least you don't get fucking rickets there. I could cry. But I won't. Instead I'll drink a coffee and work.
1. Appetite for Destruction. Had the F-word acquire it after having a dream that I'd heard the first single from Chinese Democracy (which I haven't) and that it was surprisingly, enchantingly good (which I doubt). Remembered what a good song 'Mr. Brownstone' was and demanded the whole thing. I'm glad I did, except for some of the lovey-dovey crap in those whiny grating vocals, ugh, but mostly glad to have 'Mr. Brownstone' again. That must be one of the best songs ever. Add it to the list, I guess. I always think I would have liked that sort of '80s grock music better if the composers had limited themselves to writing about drugs. Once they start singing about sex or violence I start figuring I should either be listening to soul or the Bad Seeds. Anyways. 'Mr. Brownstone'. Awesome.
2. Arrested Development. Finally MSN is streaming the full episodes to markets outside of the US and we're trying to watch it all before we leave for Italy on vacation, after having seen and lurved the first season. Almost there now. Well into the third. I can't find ways to praise that show enough, besides to say I don't think I've ever seen such a successful American television comedy, besides maybe the first season of the Sopranos. And that makes it the funniest situation comedy ever, as far as I can figure out. Don't believe me? Watch the fucker and try to argue. Or at least read this exchange:
Gob: My God. What is this feeling?
Michael: You know, the feeling that you're feeling is just what many of us call... a "feeling".
Gob: It's not like envy, or even hungry.
Michael: Could it be love?
Gob: I know what an erection feels like, Michael. No, it's the opposite - it's like my heart is getting hard.
That's all I can list at the moment. Very hard to look for bright sides today. Tomorrow will be better, when deadline is past and I can really appreciate we're about to go somewhere warmer and sunnier for a couple of weeks. It's just so dark here - so cold and dark - half a week away from the darkest day of the year. I fucking detest living this far noth. A full seven fucking degrees north of Toronto. It may be easier to die of exposure or get frostbite in a Canadian city than it is here, but at least there's some light. At least you don't get fucking rickets there. I could cry. But I won't. Instead I'll drink a coffee and work.
giovedì, dicembre 04, 2008
Consider the lilies
I don't like detailing the minutae of my life, but to prove something of a point this morning I must. Yesterday, started feeling very sick at work yesterday, flu-like symptoms, and went home for the afternoon. Got here, felt better, and sewed one of these. The F-word came home, had a nice chat about stuff, he did his carpentry thing while I finished off the circle pad (if it works, I'm fucking sold - lovely easy pattern and relatively tidy-looking once done). Spent some more pleasant time with the love of my life, he cooked dinner, I did laundry, we ate dinner, watched the funniest episode of Bottom I've seen so far. I felt quite tender towards him, so baked some oatmeal cookies (these ones, though giving the butter flavoured shortening [????] a miss in flavour of more butter, and used crunchy evaporated cane juice instead of white and brown suger, and gave the raisins a miss altogether for the simple reason of not having any), which were good. Spent more pleasant time. Finished reading the Periodic Table. Went to bed happy.
Woke up this morning. Realized I had to go to work all day. Nearly puked, got headache, nose started running.
My point is, even at the laziest of times I'm not a lily of the field, who neither spins nor toils, and Solomon in his glory was probably arrayed rather more tidily than me (Matthew 6). Left to my own devices I find things to do - tender things, utilitarian things, things that exercise my spatial relations, which I realized as I was executing yesterday's simple pattern have not been much exercised for a long, long time - and oh, it felt so good to exercise them just a wee bit yesterday!
I have a sort of unfocussed hunger for a life with more time, for an escape from the slavery we've imposed on ourselves; before the Industrial Revolution nobody incinerated so much of their lives in a profession, even the farmers got the winter off! It's contrary to our genetic makeup to do the same damn thing all day every day, and then try to cram our entire animal existence into our weekends - to devote the bulk of our waking hours to the abstract accumulation of money, of an intangible, of something whose value fluctuates on the whims of markets and speculators, and is totally beyond our control as individuals, or even a society!
In short, feeling like I have quite a strong Messianic lifestyle message this morning. I wonder how many Messiahs this credit crunch is going to produce.
Woke up this morning. Realized I had to go to work all day. Nearly puked, got headache, nose started running.
My point is, even at the laziest of times I'm not a lily of the field, who neither spins nor toils, and Solomon in his glory was probably arrayed rather more tidily than me (Matthew 6). Left to my own devices I find things to do - tender things, utilitarian things, things that exercise my spatial relations, which I realized as I was executing yesterday's simple pattern have not been much exercised for a long, long time - and oh, it felt so good to exercise them just a wee bit yesterday!
I have a sort of unfocussed hunger for a life with more time, for an escape from the slavery we've imposed on ourselves; before the Industrial Revolution nobody incinerated so much of their lives in a profession, even the farmers got the winter off! It's contrary to our genetic makeup to do the same damn thing all day every day, and then try to cram our entire animal existence into our weekends - to devote the bulk of our waking hours to the abstract accumulation of money, of an intangible, of something whose value fluctuates on the whims of markets and speculators, and is totally beyond our control as individuals, or even a society!
In short, feeling like I have quite a strong Messianic lifestyle message this morning. I wonder how many Messiahs this credit crunch is going to produce.
mercoledì, dicembre 03, 2008
Of toys and genital comfort
Yesterday I bought a sewing machine. The F-word and I aren't big consumers; we eat like royalty and travel around a good bit, but we don't spend money on things, as a generality, in a desperate bid to scrounge as much cash as possible into the basement. But this is a fucking cold winter and we need curtains for our enormous and eccentrically shaped single pane Art Deco windows. So enormous and eccentrically shaped are they that finding appropriate curtains for them would be prohibitively expensive, or rather prohibitively expensive for us. Or at least, more prohibitively expensive than buying a sewing machine and 20 square metres of fabric.
So on Monday I heard this machine would be on sale as of yesterday at one of the big box stores I could take a tram to. Great! In fact, very great. So great that I was blindsided with how excited I was getting. Really happy and sort of Christmas-y feeling for the whole three days. I'd forgotten that feeling which stands to reason as I don't remember the last time I bought a toy. And now that it's here I'm totally fetishizing it. The Singer 8280. Read all the reviews. Low-grade, entry level machine that some people hate and some people think is lovely for the money. And now that I have it all I can think about is how it purrs so nice once you figure out the ridiculous front-load bobbin and Step 4 on the threading. I don't want to go to work today; I'm less excited about going back to Amsterdam this weekend for Fledermaus Attempt Redux. I want to stay here and sew stuff.
Particularly some of these. Call me a hippie, and I am, just cleaner, but having menstrual cycles is really great. It gives me an excuse to inform the world of some plain truths for three or four days a month, and reminds me that some day I might make babies, and reminds me that no matter how shitty things at the office get, in the end I'm a female mammal - that is, the awesomest creature that God ever brewed. What I fucking hate about riding the red dragon is keeping a piece of plastic and superprocessed woodpulp over my delta for a fucking week or wadging a rough compressed mix of cotton and superprocessed woodpulp up my pussy. Fucking ew. Ew. And, for the fucking privilege of so abusing the tenderest part of my surface, I get to hand over about 5 euros a month (more than I pay for telephoning now that Voip exists) to multinationals that advertise this shit with some of the fucking stupidest, lamest commercial campaigns that have ever advertised anything, all featuring people getting Blue Lagoons all over the unwrapped product. Jesus, it's just so pissy on so many levels.
So in Canada I bought some lovely supersupersoft cotton flannel that's practically begging to be wrapped around my naked body. And if the whole thing works I'm starting on the silk and satin. Because the delta deserves it. She's a good girl.
So on Monday I heard this machine would be on sale as of yesterday at one of the big box stores I could take a tram to. Great! In fact, very great. So great that I was blindsided with how excited I was getting. Really happy and sort of Christmas-y feeling for the whole three days. I'd forgotten that feeling which stands to reason as I don't remember the last time I bought a toy. And now that it's here I'm totally fetishizing it. The Singer 8280. Read all the reviews. Low-grade, entry level machine that some people hate and some people think is lovely for the money. And now that I have it all I can think about is how it purrs so nice once you figure out the ridiculous front-load bobbin and Step 4 on the threading. I don't want to go to work today; I'm less excited about going back to Amsterdam this weekend for Fledermaus Attempt Redux. I want to stay here and sew stuff.
Particularly some of these. Call me a hippie, and I am, just cleaner, but having menstrual cycles is really great. It gives me an excuse to inform the world of some plain truths for three or four days a month, and reminds me that some day I might make babies, and reminds me that no matter how shitty things at the office get, in the end I'm a female mammal - that is, the awesomest creature that God ever brewed. What I fucking hate about riding the red dragon is keeping a piece of plastic and superprocessed woodpulp over my delta for a fucking week or wadging a rough compressed mix of cotton and superprocessed woodpulp up my pussy. Fucking ew. Ew. And, for the fucking privilege of so abusing the tenderest part of my surface, I get to hand over about 5 euros a month (more than I pay for telephoning now that Voip exists) to multinationals that advertise this shit with some of the fucking stupidest, lamest commercial campaigns that have ever advertised anything, all featuring people getting Blue Lagoons all over the unwrapped product. Jesus, it's just so pissy on so many levels.
So in Canada I bought some lovely supersupersoft cotton flannel that's practically begging to be wrapped around my naked body. And if the whole thing works I'm starting on the silk and satin. Because the delta deserves it. She's a good girl.
lunedì, ottobre 13, 2008
Sometimes it's good to have an pseudonymous blog
My reaction was complex. But the dominant thought in my brain, which was being too complex to actually be hurt or whatever you might expect in the circumstances - though what would one expect in the circumstances? - perhaps like it felt the first time, incredulity at the poorness of his decisions, that had led the poor man to the point in his life where, despite our fluid-based association having ended years ago when I'd left town forever, he had failed to realize in the meantime that his balls and all their contents belonged to me in perpetuity in testament to the awesomeness that was his Manhood having been in my Womanhood in a mutually satisfactory sort of way.
Anyways, the dominant thought in my brain, instead, was "aw, why can't I fuck up the rhythm method?", which is a very silly dominant thought to have, as I would never use the rhythm method - "oh, I've got a great idea, I'll contraconceive by refusing to let my man plunge deep and climax in my pulsating Womanhood at exactly the time of the month when every fibre of my physical and emotional being most wants my man to plunge deep and climax in my pulsating Womanhood." Yeah. Fucking genius. That's why no-one ever says 'as smart as a childless Catholic'.
Two conclusions:
1. I'm glad he told me now, when I can channel any possible resulting funk (from complexity, and from the sudden inevitability of acknowledging that the fucking banging in my cranium may not be incipient psychosis but is in fact the 'ticking' of my biological clock) into my rambles through the woodland of my homeland and into the hectic preparations for Magnum's wedding next Saturday, instead of subjecting the F-word to it, who knows as well as I do the logistical problem with replicating our awesome DNA nine months from now.
2. I'm glad you're here, dear readers, to read about things without thinking too hard about who's who and whether it's who you think it is, since so many of you don't know who anybody is anytime I use a pronoun in Costume Jewelry, and the rest of you are almost definitely barking up the wrong tree at any given moment, and certainly right now. I can't tell you how soothing that is, because it's lovely to write the things it's not a good idea to say out loud. But today I think I've already written enough. Some things get to fester, or mature, or distill, or ferment, or something. It builds character. But thank you. Thank you.
Anyways, the dominant thought in my brain, instead, was "aw, why can't I fuck up the rhythm method?", which is a very silly dominant thought to have, as I would never use the rhythm method - "oh, I've got a great idea, I'll contraconceive by refusing to let my man plunge deep and climax in my pulsating Womanhood at exactly the time of the month when every fibre of my physical and emotional being most wants my man to plunge deep and climax in my pulsating Womanhood." Yeah. Fucking genius. That's why no-one ever says 'as smart as a childless Catholic'.
Two conclusions:
1. I'm glad he told me now, when I can channel any possible resulting funk (from complexity, and from the sudden inevitability of acknowledging that the fucking banging in my cranium may not be incipient psychosis but is in fact the 'ticking' of my biological clock) into my rambles through the woodland of my homeland and into the hectic preparations for Magnum's wedding next Saturday, instead of subjecting the F-word to it, who knows as well as I do the logistical problem with replicating our awesome DNA nine months from now.
2. I'm glad you're here, dear readers, to read about things without thinking too hard about who's who and whether it's who you think it is, since so many of you don't know who anybody is anytime I use a pronoun in Costume Jewelry, and the rest of you are almost definitely barking up the wrong tree at any given moment, and certainly right now. I can't tell you how soothing that is, because it's lovely to write the things it's not a good idea to say out loud. But today I think I've already written enough. Some things get to fester, or mature, or distill, or ferment, or something. It builds character. But thank you. Thank you.
venerdì, ottobre 03, 2008
Not so lush
I'm still so sick. Went to the doctor's yesterday because I knew I wouldn't be making it to the office today, either, barring a miracle, and he told me that Brussels is a polluted hole that squanders billions of euros of its gross civic production by having roughly half the workforce ill like I am at any one time in the winter. I already knew it but it's good to hear it from a health professional and good to imagine that someday I'll live somewhere that won't fucking make me sick.
Didn't finish the Seymour Hersh book yesterday because I watched the entire first season of a twee little BBC comedy called Gavin and Stacey one of my bosses lent me. British television seems to have got so fucking cutesy and don't-worry, you'll-all-find-love, even-if-you-give-it-up-on-the-first-night-while-your-best-mates-fuck-in-the-hallway. At least there's a refreshing element of realism there. All my most emotionally satisfying and enduring romantic relationships began with a genital collision at the first opportunity, mostly because all of my romantic relationships began with a genital collision at the first opportunity. Why waste time, why deny yourself physical joy just for the benefit of cockteasing some poor sap into thinking you're less accessible than you feel? Sometimes I've wondered where my Britishness comes out, besides the passport and the inordinate fondness for money management, and I think I can safely say that my sexuality used to be far more British (why waste time?) than Italian (wherein the vagina is a wrench to be used sparingly to extract various benefits and concessions) or Canadian (Cosmo-style internal wrangling and calculation about when to first give it up, in a generally futile effort to emotionally compete with a Canadian man's PlayStation). But now I'm in a long-term relationship and those are little nationalities onto themselves, or all over themselves as the case may be.
Anyhoo, Gavin and Stacey was almost unrelentingly twee but I couldn't look away. And the Welsh accents were so cute. And now it's behind me. After that the couch was too comfy to move so I watched the rest of The Life of Mammals - the tree animals, the monkeys, and then, in the final episode, the Us - the great apes. I'm all for giving those other assholes full status as humans. Why not? They might be a pack of big homicidal jerks, especially the pan trogs, but then so are people. And seriously, how is an orang-utan any less human than a 17-th century drunk from a Hogarth engraving or the sort of moron who feels represented by this? Anyways, David Attenborough is class on a stick, man, that alone makes up for every bit of twee crap the BBC has invited me to laugh at.
Didn't finish the Seymour Hersh book yesterday because I watched the entire first season of a twee little BBC comedy called Gavin and Stacey one of my bosses lent me. British television seems to have got so fucking cutesy and don't-worry, you'll-all-find-love, even-if-you-give-it-up-on-the-first-night-while-your-best-mates-fuck-in-the-hallway. At least there's a refreshing element of realism there. All my most emotionally satisfying and enduring romantic relationships began with a genital collision at the first opportunity, mostly because all of my romantic relationships began with a genital collision at the first opportunity. Why waste time, why deny yourself physical joy just for the benefit of cockteasing some poor sap into thinking you're less accessible than you feel? Sometimes I've wondered where my Britishness comes out, besides the passport and the inordinate fondness for money management, and I think I can safely say that my sexuality used to be far more British (why waste time?) than Italian (wherein the vagina is a wrench to be used sparingly to extract various benefits and concessions) or Canadian (Cosmo-style internal wrangling and calculation about when to first give it up, in a generally futile effort to emotionally compete with a Canadian man's PlayStation). But now I'm in a long-term relationship and those are little nationalities onto themselves, or all over themselves as the case may be.
Anyhoo, Gavin and Stacey was almost unrelentingly twee but I couldn't look away. And the Welsh accents were so cute. And now it's behind me. After that the couch was too comfy to move so I watched the rest of The Life of Mammals - the tree animals, the monkeys, and then, in the final episode, the Us - the great apes. I'm all for giving those other assholes full status as humans. Why not? They might be a pack of big homicidal jerks, especially the pan trogs, but then so are people. And seriously, how is an orang-utan any less human than a 17-th century drunk from a Hogarth engraving or the sort of moron who feels represented by this? Anyways, David Attenborough is class on a stick, man, that alone makes up for every bit of twee crap the BBC has invited me to laugh at.
lunedì, settembre 29, 2008
Chasing the Red Dragon
Headed home early yesterday because of the uterus becoming the owwwwwterus. Probably exacerbated by some psychological things mixed in there as a friend here is having a real medical uterus scare, and by the fact I'm stressed over the prospect that I'm stressed, if you know what I mean. I mean, if I'm stressed, and I think I am, what do I do about it at this point? A fat fucking load of nothing, that's what. Keep being stressed, is all, for another good long time; they just promoted me, for heaven's sake. And just keep having the escapist fantasies about things I won't be able to do for another good long time. Yesterday I found out what the minimum wage in Australia is, and okay, it's less than half what I get post-tax each month, but still enough for me to have a house and a family. Insane, though in a good way of course. North of $2000 a month. Imagine! A country where Labour-with-a-capital-L is still important enough to get a minimum wage it can actually live on!
And they're finally introducing mandatory paid maternity leave - next year probably - and the plan they're looking at is rather more generous than the existing mandatory plan in Belgium, so I'll never need to regret refusing to breed in this paedophile's playground. Still a shit plan in Australia, of course. Women who breed should get a year paid at least, and so should their partners. The Bulgarians really surprised me on this one! Just like with the way they wouldn't participate properly in the Holocaust. Nobody ever talks about Bulgaria as anything except a place where they're assholes to gypsies and aren't Hungarian, and here they are with this fantastic parental leave programme and WWII history that's slightly less shameful than the rest of Europe's.
That's all I have to write this morning - too stressed, too owwwterus-y - enjoy the financial meltdown, everybody! Americans, don't worry, you're insured up to $100,000 in bank accounts - if all else fails you can cash out and move to one of the countries your administration has spent the last century bankrupting, $100,000 still goes a long way there. It's all good! And if, in fact, you don't have $100,000 - if, perhaps, you have $100,000 in debt - just relax and watch that debt devalue as your currency crashes. Laugh at all the silly people who struggled to keep their heads above water and pay down their credit when the dollar was strong. All you have to do is fuck off to Asia for a year and teach English and/or sell your used underwear, and then you'll be singin'.
And they're finally introducing mandatory paid maternity leave - next year probably - and the plan they're looking at is rather more generous than the existing mandatory plan in Belgium, so I'll never need to regret refusing to breed in this paedophile's playground. Still a shit plan in Australia, of course. Women who breed should get a year paid at least, and so should their partners. The Bulgarians really surprised me on this one! Just like with the way they wouldn't participate properly in the Holocaust. Nobody ever talks about Bulgaria as anything except a place where they're assholes to gypsies and aren't Hungarian, and here they are with this fantastic parental leave programme and WWII history that's slightly less shameful than the rest of Europe's.
That's all I have to write this morning - too stressed, too owwwterus-y - enjoy the financial meltdown, everybody! Americans, don't worry, you're insured up to $100,000 in bank accounts - if all else fails you can cash out and move to one of the countries your administration has spent the last century bankrupting, $100,000 still goes a long way there. It's all good! And if, in fact, you don't have $100,000 - if, perhaps, you have $100,000 in debt - just relax and watch that debt devalue as your currency crashes. Laugh at all the silly people who struggled to keep their heads above water and pay down their credit when the dollar was strong. All you have to do is fuck off to Asia for a year and teach English and/or sell your used underwear, and then you'll be singin'.
mercoledì, settembre 10, 2008
Cholera, the musical
Hell of a pisser this morning, and I'm blaming it on the combination of reading the first couple of chapters of Mosquito Coast, the shitfight at work, and this ludicrous lipstick flap in the States. Let me start with the lipstick.
On leaving North America, and meeting lots of lovely yankee expatriates who've become good friends, and being constantly mistaken for a yank myself, talking like a yankee and working at a yankee company as I do, I've struggled against the widespread European notion that the United States is a nation of fucking retards. And you know what, it has been a struggle. Especially lately, speaking to Americans at work whilst in the company of Europeans, and hearing these Americans are satisfied about the way things are going in Iraq now post-surge when those poor fucking people are getting cholera - cholera! That's a sign of things going well? Holy fucking shit! What the fuck is the matter with you? Oh Lord, the depth of Your mercy, patience and mystery that You suffer such coldblooded idiocy to blight the face of Your creation and to employ me at my present company! Fucking cholera! Holy fuck! Do you know what happens to a person when they get cholera? Fuck!
Anyways. You know what some more, lots of people are dangerously under-informed or misinformed about the horrible things their countries did or do abroad. The two most anti-American countres I've spent any length of time have been here and France. And in France, despite your typical asshole on the street having a better generalist education than most Anglos and a better understanding of international, well, everything, people generally had very little idea of their own country's relationship with Africa. And here - well, let's just say that they haven't quite got around to revamping their Congo museum yet - it remains an unironic trophy case touting how they rescued the darkies from the Arabs and brought civilization to the jungle - civilization that involved rape, murder, kidnapping and slavery on a truly staggering scale - fuck Belgium, in short. So, yeah. There you are. People are all idiotic assholes; Americans haven't cornered the market. Hence my struggle against European opinions on the intelligence and moral fiber of your typical American.
However. If this lipstick thing flies - and by this lipstick thing flying, I mean Republicans winning the next presidential election - I'm fucking done. I mean, it's right there. The stupid is right there. The lie is right there, the bullshit is right there, it's right fucking there. It couldn't be more obvious if John McCain whipped out his cock and started slapping you around the face with it. And if these unabashed crybaby liars are voted into office, I'm going to have to assume all those European ideas of Americans - too lazy, selfish and stupid to do anything but go with their ENORMOUS guts, like goldfish gorging themselves to death - are simply not worth struggling against anymore. It's right there.
Anyhoo. Moving on. Shitfights at work. One thing to say: my main problem is the disgust. Similar to my disgust at the prospect of the lipstick smear working, actually. Disgusted that the two men who are giving me grief at the moment despite having left records about how they obfuscated, fucked up - lied, in short, about the two different issues at hand have a) conveniently edited the truth out of their memories: b) no relationship with the truth, but function from moment to moment like sharks swimming through the sea, doing whatever seems right at the time, or, c) the theory that if they're loud and bitchy enough it won't matter that they're full of shit because I won't want to be confrontational. And you know what? I don't want to be confrontational. Confrontations give me headaches. They fill me with disgust. They make me feel like I'm lowering myself to some sort of adolescent level. I hate confrontation. But I'll fucking do it, and be all the more pissed off they've forced me to! This isn't a presidental election and I'm not a political party tip-toeing around, trying to get a black man elected in a racist country.
Anyways. Combine the political disgust with the professional disgust, throw in Paul Theroux's Mosquito Coast, and you've got the shitty mood I'm in this morning. So far (50 pages in or so) the father, the 'hero' of the book, is the sort of insane I can feel pounding against the inside of my own chest when I get over-indignant, as I am at the moment, about all the rottenness in the world. Great, I think, cholera in Iraq, threats of pandemic stupidity in the most overarmed country in the world, and apparently I'm a fucking lunatic too. Perfect. That said, the book's pretty good so far, and I hadn't been a fan of Theroux's fiction up to the moment. He has a child's voice narrating and I think it was a good choice for him. When he uses adult narrative voices or perspectives he starts writing about sex, and his way of writing about sex is one I find to be both squicky and sterile. Like ultrasound gel.
On leaving North America, and meeting lots of lovely yankee expatriates who've become good friends, and being constantly mistaken for a yank myself, talking like a yankee and working at a yankee company as I do, I've struggled against the widespread European notion that the United States is a nation of fucking retards. And you know what, it has been a struggle. Especially lately, speaking to Americans at work whilst in the company of Europeans, and hearing these Americans are satisfied about the way things are going in Iraq now post-surge when those poor fucking people are getting cholera - cholera! That's a sign of things going well? Holy fucking shit! What the fuck is the matter with you? Oh Lord, the depth of Your mercy, patience and mystery that You suffer such coldblooded idiocy to blight the face of Your creation and to employ me at my present company! Fucking cholera! Holy fuck! Do you know what happens to a person when they get cholera? Fuck!
Anyways. You know what some more, lots of people are dangerously under-informed or misinformed about the horrible things their countries did or do abroad. The two most anti-American countres I've spent any length of time have been here and France. And in France, despite your typical asshole on the street having a better generalist education than most Anglos and a better understanding of international, well, everything, people generally had very little idea of their own country's relationship with Africa. And here - well, let's just say that they haven't quite got around to revamping their Congo museum yet - it remains an unironic trophy case touting how they rescued the darkies from the Arabs and brought civilization to the jungle - civilization that involved rape, murder, kidnapping and slavery on a truly staggering scale - fuck Belgium, in short. So, yeah. There you are. People are all idiotic assholes; Americans haven't cornered the market. Hence my struggle against European opinions on the intelligence and moral fiber of your typical American.
However. If this lipstick thing flies - and by this lipstick thing flying, I mean Republicans winning the next presidential election - I'm fucking done. I mean, it's right there. The stupid is right there. The lie is right there, the bullshit is right there, it's right fucking there. It couldn't be more obvious if John McCain whipped out his cock and started slapping you around the face with it. And if these unabashed crybaby liars are voted into office, I'm going to have to assume all those European ideas of Americans - too lazy, selfish and stupid to do anything but go with their ENORMOUS guts, like goldfish gorging themselves to death - are simply not worth struggling against anymore. It's right there.
Anyhoo. Moving on. Shitfights at work. One thing to say: my main problem is the disgust. Similar to my disgust at the prospect of the lipstick smear working, actually. Disgusted that the two men who are giving me grief at the moment despite having left records about how they obfuscated, fucked up - lied, in short, about the two different issues at hand have a) conveniently edited the truth out of their memories: b) no relationship with the truth, but function from moment to moment like sharks swimming through the sea, doing whatever seems right at the time, or, c) the theory that if they're loud and bitchy enough it won't matter that they're full of shit because I won't want to be confrontational. And you know what? I don't want to be confrontational. Confrontations give me headaches. They fill me with disgust. They make me feel like I'm lowering myself to some sort of adolescent level. I hate confrontation. But I'll fucking do it, and be all the more pissed off they've forced me to! This isn't a presidental election and I'm not a political party tip-toeing around, trying to get a black man elected in a racist country.
Anyways. Combine the political disgust with the professional disgust, throw in Paul Theroux's Mosquito Coast, and you've got the shitty mood I'm in this morning. So far (50 pages in or so) the father, the 'hero' of the book, is the sort of insane I can feel pounding against the inside of my own chest when I get over-indignant, as I am at the moment, about all the rottenness in the world. Great, I think, cholera in Iraq, threats of pandemic stupidity in the most overarmed country in the world, and apparently I'm a fucking lunatic too. Perfect. That said, the book's pretty good so far, and I hadn't been a fan of Theroux's fiction up to the moment. He has a child's voice narrating and I think it was a good choice for him. When he uses adult narrative voices or perspectives he starts writing about sex, and his way of writing about sex is one I find to be both squicky and sterile. Like ultrasound gel.
lunedì, luglio 21, 2008
Tuesday morning mounting moral disappointment extravaganza
Hey, all my fellow guinea descendants who are tired of mobster-and-pasta stereotyping - tired of letting ol' Tony Soprano speak for us, especially now that the show's been (belatedly) cancelled - how about a new stereotype? I think we can call it INHUMAN FUCKING CUNTS.
What the fuck is the matter with us, anyways? Any Italian you meet will be able to explain some of the modern unpleasantnesses of our culture by telling you about the years of oppression in the countries they immigrate to and the centuries of oppression in Italy itself, but you know what, assholes? So could the Irish, Spanish, and everybody from Asia, and you don't hear about THEM fucking sunbathing next to children's corpses. Or voting for that grinning cunt-eyed motherfucker Berlusconi. Fuck me.
And while we're on the subject of vicious retardation, how the fuck is this shit legal, let alone vastly profitable? My last job in advertising brought home to me that the moral corruption of the entertainment industry is greater than any hysterical Biblesucker who doesn't like seeing gays kiss could imagine. And my present job is bringing home to me that the way we've been dealing with capital, at least over the last 100 years, is how a clever pan trog chimp would deal with a machine gun. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand does indeed exist; the Market is using it to wank its Invisible Penis, spilling its Invisible Jissom into your coffee, and using its other Invisible Hand to wipe Invisible Tears of laughter from its Invisible Eyes over what a fucking sucker you are.
Sometimes I feel like if there is a Satan, he'd be feeling really redundant these days. Silly to feel that way, of course. People have always found a way to be congratulated for doing bad things, and people have always sought to do bad things not out of naughtiness, but because they seemed the thing to do. People ain't no good. Sigh.
What the fuck is the matter with us, anyways? Any Italian you meet will be able to explain some of the modern unpleasantnesses of our culture by telling you about the years of oppression in the countries they immigrate to and the centuries of oppression in Italy itself, but you know what, assholes? So could the Irish, Spanish, and everybody from Asia, and you don't hear about THEM fucking sunbathing next to children's corpses. Or voting for that grinning cunt-eyed motherfucker Berlusconi. Fuck me.
And while we're on the subject of vicious retardation, how the fuck is this shit legal, let alone vastly profitable? My last job in advertising brought home to me that the moral corruption of the entertainment industry is greater than any hysterical Biblesucker who doesn't like seeing gays kiss could imagine. And my present job is bringing home to me that the way we've been dealing with capital, at least over the last 100 years, is how a clever pan trog chimp would deal with a machine gun. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand does indeed exist; the Market is using it to wank its Invisible Penis, spilling its Invisible Jissom into your coffee, and using its other Invisible Hand to wipe Invisible Tears of laughter from its Invisible Eyes over what a fucking sucker you are.
Sometimes I feel like if there is a Satan, he'd be feeling really redundant these days. Silly to feel that way, of course. People have always found a way to be congratulated for doing bad things, and people have always sought to do bad things not out of naughtiness, but because they seemed the thing to do. People ain't no good. Sigh.
mercoledì, giugno 04, 2008
Duckfucking
Life feels like a shit sandwich buffet at the moment. The atmosphere of this fucking place is like Mexico City, with visibly yellow air; the fishermen are rioting; cocksucking shitwit Belgacom is still trying to defraud us; and the F-word has been being stalked by a black dog - painful to watch, and the corollary is that I feel absolutely alone in terms of organizing our vacations, disputing our fraudulent bills, grocery shopping, general household maintenance, etc, at a time when I'm absolutely exhausted from last week's junket and this week's deadline.
And then yesterday I grabbed his laptop to google 'Jews New York Jesse Jackson' ('Hymietown', he'd called it - I couldn't remember), and as I started to type the memory function called up a search phrase with my name in it that rather took me aback. I combed my porous memory for a time I could have used it myself for whatever vanitygoogle reasons and couldn't come up with one, which doesn't mean it didn't exist. Nonetheless, I was thrown on the possibility, which had never really crossed my mind before, that the F-word is not sure of my fidelity. I'd rather break my own nose than be unfaithful to him but I don't know how to bring that up in casual conversation. And then there's the possibility such worries are inevitable, no matter what assurances are given and received, because I travel for work a good deal. And when someone is absent for such lengths of time, especially to attend subsidized drinking events where the boy:girl ratio is 5:1, maybe it's hard not to wonder. That 5:1 ratio may be a more concrete bit of knowledge than the abstract fact that all those boys are unattractive. I've never met anybody at these functions who I'd have nailed even if I was on the prowl - there's something, as far as I'm concerned, fundamentally anti-sexy about business events, something just too groomed piggy.
But the bitch of it all is that there's probably some perfectly lighthearted explanation, and I'm just adding another section to an already overwhelmingly comprehensive shit sandwich buffet with this sort of double-edged paranoia. I'll sort it out. But fuck, fuck, fuck, am I ever tired of sorting things out. There's so much to sort out just living in this stupid fucking mentally feeble grinning cocksucker of a country, and while I know I need to put this central and most important relationship with the man I adore above and beyond concerns over our telephone service provider gouging us for hundreds of euros or how we're going to spend my all-too-short summer vacation, I feel like I'm trying to compose a symphony in a zoo while dodging all the shit cackling schizo monkeys are tossing at me.
And then yesterday I grabbed his laptop to google 'Jews New York Jesse Jackson' ('Hymietown', he'd called it - I couldn't remember), and as I started to type the memory function called up a search phrase with my name in it that rather took me aback. I combed my porous memory for a time I could have used it myself for whatever vanitygoogle reasons and couldn't come up with one, which doesn't mean it didn't exist. Nonetheless, I was thrown on the possibility, which had never really crossed my mind before, that the F-word is not sure of my fidelity. I'd rather break my own nose than be unfaithful to him but I don't know how to bring that up in casual conversation. And then there's the possibility such worries are inevitable, no matter what assurances are given and received, because I travel for work a good deal. And when someone is absent for such lengths of time, especially to attend subsidized drinking events where the boy:girl ratio is 5:1, maybe it's hard not to wonder. That 5:1 ratio may be a more concrete bit of knowledge than the abstract fact that all those boys are unattractive. I've never met anybody at these functions who I'd have nailed even if I was on the prowl - there's something, as far as I'm concerned, fundamentally anti-sexy about business events, something just too groomed piggy.
But the bitch of it all is that there's probably some perfectly lighthearted explanation, and I'm just adding another section to an already overwhelmingly comprehensive shit sandwich buffet with this sort of double-edged paranoia. I'll sort it out. But fuck, fuck, fuck, am I ever tired of sorting things out. There's so much to sort out just living in this stupid fucking mentally feeble grinning cocksucker of a country, and while I know I need to put this central and most important relationship with the man I adore above and beyond concerns over our telephone service provider gouging us for hundreds of euros or how we're going to spend my all-too-short summer vacation, I feel like I'm trying to compose a symphony in a zoo while dodging all the shit cackling schizo monkeys are tossing at me.
giovedì, maggio 08, 2008
Hourglasses
Creeping towards the weekend like a parched man dragging himself to a well. Starting to get a disconnected feeling. No time for my own brain. Mighty force of will to give the F-word some of the attention he deserves. Bad dreams about being trapped in a library with the fear Bluebeard will pop up behind me and we'll have to try to have a conversation, or else a duel to the death - either would suck. Still can't believe my aunt is gone.
And on top of all that, I really don't like Bruce Chatwin's Songlines, or at least the first 72 pages of it. I love Bruce Chatwin as a travel writer, and I really liked On the Black Hill, his weirdo Welsh epic I read a couple of months ago. Songlines is crappily smug and tedious in comparison. That hurts, as it's the first thing of his I haven't liked, and I like liking all of what a person publishes. Like Jane Austen or Nick Cave or Patrick Süskind or Bach. Knowing that I can grab whatever of theirs and get into it without worrying that I'll be wasting my time with crap. Time . . . can't waste it.
I have a feeling Emily Brontë would be another person who would have written stuff I'd have loved consistently. You know, they reckon she did write another book before she died besides Wuthering Heights. Her sister Charlotte burnt it, after Emily died. If that's true, Charlotte should be remembered as much for that as for Jane Eyre. But I suppose time has tamped down the possibility of knowing that for sure. Time - always a question of fucking time! It's why I would have liked to be a professional historian - cheating time a bit and finding out its secrets before it buries itself in itself forever. And it's also why I chose not to be a professional historian despite the exhortations of my professors - I was afraid I'd bury myself in time before my own personal time buried me itself.
And on top of all that, I really don't like Bruce Chatwin's Songlines, or at least the first 72 pages of it. I love Bruce Chatwin as a travel writer, and I really liked On the Black Hill, his weirdo Welsh epic I read a couple of months ago. Songlines is crappily smug and tedious in comparison. That hurts, as it's the first thing of his I haven't liked, and I like liking all of what a person publishes. Like Jane Austen or Nick Cave or Patrick Süskind or Bach. Knowing that I can grab whatever of theirs and get into it without worrying that I'll be wasting my time with crap. Time . . . can't waste it.
I have a feeling Emily Brontë would be another person who would have written stuff I'd have loved consistently. You know, they reckon she did write another book before she died besides Wuthering Heights. Her sister Charlotte burnt it, after Emily died. If that's true, Charlotte should be remembered as much for that as for Jane Eyre. But I suppose time has tamped down the possibility of knowing that for sure. Time - always a question of fucking time! It's why I would have liked to be a professional historian - cheating time a bit and finding out its secrets before it buries itself in itself forever. And it's also why I chose not to be a professional historian despite the exhortations of my professors - I was afraid I'd bury myself in time before my own personal time buried me itself.
domenica, aprile 20, 2008
The chemical dragon rides again
An encounter a little while ago saw more slap than tickle, with the consequence that we had a latex wardrobe malfunction and I was forced to seek out emergency contraception. But Belgium isn't France; it's much more Catholic, and consequently they don't throw around la pillule de lendemain in such a confetti-like fashion here. After an hour of fevered searching on Sunday morning I was left with the unfocused impression that I'd need to go to a family planning clinic that wouldn't be open until Monday to get it; after another ten minutes of even more fevered searching I got the impression I could get what I needed from a special Sunday pharmacy, and I did. The experience leaves me with three things that really must be said:
1. I try to be open to the message of the pro-life movement, as I know that for many of them it's from the heart, but any campaigner of any category who is campaigning against access to the morning-after pill is a twat. The action of the morning-after pill is a contraceptive action, not an abortive action. It jellifies the works up there so that wee sperms cannot go anywhere or so that a fertilized egg cannot fix itself in the walls of the uterus and start sucking sustenance from the mother's body.
I understand that there's a big group of people who feel life starts once a wee tadpole from the daddy swims into a big beachball from the mummy. Well, they're fucking wrong. Life starts ages before that. The wee tadpole is alive and the big beachball is alive, and the action of the tadpole swimming into the beachball is a part of both their lifecycles. Things really get interesting when the beachball that got swum into by a tadpole lodges itself in the uterine wall of the mummy and starts sucking sustenance from her. Up until that point, however, it's just another short-lived cell in a body full of short-lived cells.
And I understand there's also a big group of people who are against contraception, and to half of them, I say: Catholics, let it go. You might be able to get your adherents to have big families, but you're just going to lose them to the Pentecostals anyways. They have childcare and singing, and all you have is guilt and gloomy rituals.
2. The morning after pill is a fucking bitch. I've heard that you can get the same effect, in a pinch, by swallowing 20 birth control pills at once, and it fucking feels like it. I hate the pill because it turns me into a raging, weeping mess, and I hate the morning-after pill even more because it turns me into a raging, weeping mess days after the fact, when it's not a reflex to make a connection between the sensation that the world is a torture chamber and the fact that six or seven days ago you ingested an elephant's dose of sex hormones. I didn't notice the effect so much before, because the last time I needed the morning after pill was when I was with Bluebeard, when I was a raging, weeping mess all the time. But now that life is fundamentally good and I'm generally in a chirpy mood, it's been nigh-on unbearable.
3. Belgium is a fucking pain in my ass. It's the national equivalent of a teenage boy's bedroom. Getting anything done here takes so long, like, Italy-long, without Italy-weather or Italy-food or Italy-beauty. Having a panic as I thought I was due for an ectopic pregnancy through waiting too long to take the morning after pill because the centralization of information is an absolutely unknown concept here isn't even the most recent example of Belgium pissing me off. There has also been the fun of trying to get my residency card, trying to change debit accounts for my fuckin' useless health insurance, trying to go outside without choking on the visibly unhealthy air, trying to cross streets without getting hit by cars, and trying to stroll down pavements in a country where apparently people don't know how to walk.
1. I try to be open to the message of the pro-life movement, as I know that for many of them it's from the heart, but any campaigner of any category who is campaigning against access to the morning-after pill is a twat. The action of the morning-after pill is a contraceptive action, not an abortive action. It jellifies the works up there so that wee sperms cannot go anywhere or so that a fertilized egg cannot fix itself in the walls of the uterus and start sucking sustenance from the mother's body.
I understand that there's a big group of people who feel life starts once a wee tadpole from the daddy swims into a big beachball from the mummy. Well, they're fucking wrong. Life starts ages before that. The wee tadpole is alive and the big beachball is alive, and the action of the tadpole swimming into the beachball is a part of both their lifecycles. Things really get interesting when the beachball that got swum into by a tadpole lodges itself in the uterine wall of the mummy and starts sucking sustenance from her. Up until that point, however, it's just another short-lived cell in a body full of short-lived cells.
And I understand there's also a big group of people who are against contraception, and to half of them, I say: Catholics, let it go. You might be able to get your adherents to have big families, but you're just going to lose them to the Pentecostals anyways. They have childcare and singing, and all you have is guilt and gloomy rituals.
2. The morning after pill is a fucking bitch. I've heard that you can get the same effect, in a pinch, by swallowing 20 birth control pills at once, and it fucking feels like it. I hate the pill because it turns me into a raging, weeping mess, and I hate the morning-after pill even more because it turns me into a raging, weeping mess days after the fact, when it's not a reflex to make a connection between the sensation that the world is a torture chamber and the fact that six or seven days ago you ingested an elephant's dose of sex hormones. I didn't notice the effect so much before, because the last time I needed the morning after pill was when I was with Bluebeard, when I was a raging, weeping mess all the time. But now that life is fundamentally good and I'm generally in a chirpy mood, it's been nigh-on unbearable.
3. Belgium is a fucking pain in my ass. It's the national equivalent of a teenage boy's bedroom. Getting anything done here takes so long, like, Italy-long, without Italy-weather or Italy-food or Italy-beauty. Having a panic as I thought I was due for an ectopic pregnancy through waiting too long to take the morning after pill because the centralization of information is an absolutely unknown concept here isn't even the most recent example of Belgium pissing me off. There has also been the fun of trying to get my residency card, trying to change debit accounts for my fuckin' useless health insurance, trying to go outside without choking on the visibly unhealthy air, trying to cross streets without getting hit by cars, and trying to stroll down pavements in a country where apparently people don't know how to walk.
martedì, aprile 15, 2008
Small mercies
Bit of a funk today. In lieu of whining, I'll post a video from Bulgaria's hottest export since Vladislav the Grammarian. You've all seen it, no? Most popular video on the web, et cetera?
Well, I've never been a fan of Mariah Carey, and I figure the above version makes about as much sense as the original, but watch the classy way she shuts down this wizened French bitch who wants help making fun of the contestant:
Even at my lowest moments - and I am not over Silvio Berlusconi's victory - I can still thank heaven I'm not French.
Well, I've never been a fan of Mariah Carey, and I figure the above version makes about as much sense as the original, but watch the classy way she shuts down this wizened French bitch who wants help making fun of the contestant:
Even at my lowest moments - and I am not over Silvio Berlusconi's victory - I can still thank heaven I'm not French.
martedì, marzo 25, 2008
I'm glad I came but just the same I must be going
Now that the last bit of retardation at work has been sorted out, I'm looking forward with baited breath to my trip to Lisbon. Only two of the five days I'm there will demand actual work and that work will mostly involve getting companionably drunk. I enjoyed being in Portugal so much last time - the sun, the frozen drinks, the delicious, delicious, delicious food . . .
I need a thing like this to help me relax; I've hit a point of tension. Luckily the F-word understands, as do several other people, but not everyone does - been getting pissy emails about why I don't call, why I don't email, and they make me want to hit the roof as they're always from people whose lifestyles have less stress built into them. Do they think I like being busy? Do they think I wouldn't rather be being a better friend, and then sitting in a park in a much warmer, sunnier country, smoking a spliff and reading the Bruce Chatwin novel that I've been slowly stumbling through every night before falling into a deep, deep slumber, punctuated only by dreams of bizarre sexual combinations, positions, and locations?
Last night, for example, I dreamt I was sitting in a park watching television with about 200 other people, mostly exchange students at the school I was attending. I thought there was something wrong with the hedges behind the set, so I got up, checked, and saw two Russian couples, one boy-on-boy, the other boy-on-boyish-but-female-little-person.
"Can you please go fuck over there?" I said, pointing to the forest behind where the 200 people were sitting to watch the television. "When you do it behind the TV it's distracting. Also, if you face it from the forest, that way you can fuck and watch TV."
"Liz Phair!" shouted the little person.
"I wanted to like her, but I didn't," I said glumly.
"That's what I like about Canadians," said the man who had been fucking the little person. "They always say what they mean."
"I wish," I said even more glumly. And everybody laughed.
It's times like this I miss my analyst.
I need a thing like this to help me relax; I've hit a point of tension. Luckily the F-word understands, as do several other people, but not everyone does - been getting pissy emails about why I don't call, why I don't email, and they make me want to hit the roof as they're always from people whose lifestyles have less stress built into them. Do they think I like being busy? Do they think I wouldn't rather be being a better friend, and then sitting in a park in a much warmer, sunnier country, smoking a spliff and reading the Bruce Chatwin novel that I've been slowly stumbling through every night before falling into a deep, deep slumber, punctuated only by dreams of bizarre sexual combinations, positions, and locations?
Last night, for example, I dreamt I was sitting in a park watching television with about 200 other people, mostly exchange students at the school I was attending. I thought there was something wrong with the hedges behind the set, so I got up, checked, and saw two Russian couples, one boy-on-boy, the other boy-on-boyish-but-female-little-person.
"Can you please go fuck over there?" I said, pointing to the forest behind where the 200 people were sitting to watch the television. "When you do it behind the TV it's distracting. Also, if you face it from the forest, that way you can fuck and watch TV."
"Liz Phair!" shouted the little person.
"I wanted to like her, but I didn't," I said glumly.
"That's what I like about Canadians," said the man who had been fucking the little person. "They always say what they mean."
"I wish," I said even more glumly. And everybody laughed.
It's times like this I miss my analyst.
martedì, marzo 18, 2008
Cry, the Beloved Penguin
So at the moment I'm reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, as I found it for Euro O.50 at the Oxfam bookshop here. God, I love that bookshop. They have no idea how much Anglos in Brussels would be prepared to pay for books. I should tell them, really, because it all goes to a good cause, but I'm having a hard time giving up the possibility of getting a new copy of Heart of Darkness every time I need one for a mere Euro 0.25.
As far as a book goes I'm not crazy about but it's full of facts that I didn't know and that are so neat. For example, did you know a key barrier to the domestication of the zebra was that, unlike horsies, they can follow the trajectory of a lasso as it sails through the air and then dodge it, so they were almost impossible to catch unharmed? Neat. And of course some of his ideas are also interesting. For example, he goes on a bit about the role of literacy as a way to monopolize rather than simply preserve knowledge - in that one small class is literate, and therefore has access to written information that the illiterate classes can't hope to access reliably or first hand.
That got me thinking about lawyers and about how the legal systems of most countries are so inaccessible to the defendants and accusers who use them. It's rather frightening, the degree to which a largely legally illiterate population trusts its fortunes to a small legal class who we believe has access to all this legal literature and jargon and history we can't possibly understand.
So today I'd like to say bravo to this crazy chick who managed to get £10 million more than her estranged husband was offering even though she sacked her lawyers mid-trial and represented her own fantasistic ass. The outcome probably says more about the clarity of UK divorce laws than about her competence, but nonetheless, what a gutsy move. Now she has £10 million more than she might have had, that she can devote to ruining the livelihood of our East Coast natives, because baby seals are cuter than the Canadian aboriginal population.
Just remember, beeyatch, those cute little pups grow up to eat the cutest animals of all:
As far as a book goes I'm not crazy about but it's full of facts that I didn't know and that are so neat. For example, did you know a key barrier to the domestication of the zebra was that, unlike horsies, they can follow the trajectory of a lasso as it sails through the air and then dodge it, so they were almost impossible to catch unharmed? Neat. And of course some of his ideas are also interesting. For example, he goes on a bit about the role of literacy as a way to monopolize rather than simply preserve knowledge - in that one small class is literate, and therefore has access to written information that the illiterate classes can't hope to access reliably or first hand.
That got me thinking about lawyers and about how the legal systems of most countries are so inaccessible to the defendants and accusers who use them. It's rather frightening, the degree to which a largely legally illiterate population trusts its fortunes to a small legal class who we believe has access to all this legal literature and jargon and history we can't possibly understand.
So today I'd like to say bravo to this crazy chick who managed to get £10 million more than her estranged husband was offering even though she sacked her lawyers mid-trial and represented her own fantasistic ass. The outcome probably says more about the clarity of UK divorce laws than about her competence, but nonetheless, what a gutsy move. Now she has £10 million more than she might have had, that she can devote to ruining the livelihood of our East Coast natives, because baby seals are cuter than the Canadian aboriginal population.
Just remember, beeyatch, those cute little pups grow up to eat the cutest animals of all:
giovedì, marzo 13, 2008
My bosom buddies
In a monster of a grump today. Something is painfully wrong with my back. Combination of this damned cold wet climate, desk posture, hefting my six-year-old monster Dell laptop and as many tall cans of beer as I could carry across western Germany, and having tits that are way too big for my frame. Although I don't expect to age any more gracefully or willingly than the next person, there's at least one sense in which I look forward to menopause - the second I know they won't be required for reproductive/feeding purposes anymore, I can think about getting rid of them.
I guess I'm complaining but I shouldn't. I'm pretty sure having big tits changes everything and generally for the better. If I wasn't so cheap I could fix aching backiness by buying a computer that weighed less than a fucking full-grown mastiff - really I'm only blaming the tits because they're right in front of me and I'm in a grump. And as for other drawbacks - unwanted male attention? Who doesn't get that? Other men get unwanted male attention. And on the other side of the coin, I know that the tits have been an icebreaker when I've been getting to know men I turned out to really like - an asset whose absence I'd have had to make up for somehow, with a scintillating personality or a more convincing ability to laugh at their crappy jokes, or something. I don't know.
The truth is, I don't know much about men in some pretty key ways. While I don't feel like they're some weirdo alien species, and I prefer them to women in many ways both practical and impractical, and I have a sense that I'm a very mannish sort of woman - all that notwithstanding, I don't know anything about scoring with men or talking to them in a seductive way or flirting or dancing cooperatively with them or anything. As far as I can tell, my entire modus operandi as a seductive being has been having big tits and then saying no to the men I didn't like, and sometimes pining helplessly for the ones who weren't tit men.
My adoration of the F-word aside, sometimes I'm glad in a basic way that I'm not single anymore. I really liked being single and had lots of fun at it and wouldn't have stopped if not for someone as great as him, but I had no idea what the fuck I was doing and really, I still have no idea what the fuck I was thinking half the time. Thank Jeebus my tits were watching my back.
I guess I'm complaining but I shouldn't. I'm pretty sure having big tits changes everything and generally for the better. If I wasn't so cheap I could fix aching backiness by buying a computer that weighed less than a fucking full-grown mastiff - really I'm only blaming the tits because they're right in front of me and I'm in a grump. And as for other drawbacks - unwanted male attention? Who doesn't get that? Other men get unwanted male attention. And on the other side of the coin, I know that the tits have been an icebreaker when I've been getting to know men I turned out to really like - an asset whose absence I'd have had to make up for somehow, with a scintillating personality or a more convincing ability to laugh at their crappy jokes, or something. I don't know.
The truth is, I don't know much about men in some pretty key ways. While I don't feel like they're some weirdo alien species, and I prefer them to women in many ways both practical and impractical, and I have a sense that I'm a very mannish sort of woman - all that notwithstanding, I don't know anything about scoring with men or talking to them in a seductive way or flirting or dancing cooperatively with them or anything. As far as I can tell, my entire modus operandi as a seductive being has been having big tits and then saying no to the men I didn't like, and sometimes pining helplessly for the ones who weren't tit men.
My adoration of the F-word aside, sometimes I'm glad in a basic way that I'm not single anymore. I really liked being single and had lots of fun at it and wouldn't have stopped if not for someone as great as him, but I had no idea what the fuck I was doing and really, I still have no idea what the fuck I was thinking half the time. Thank Jeebus my tits were watching my back.
Iscriviti a:
Post (Atom)