I see you baby

When I listen to Mozart, I feel like I'm full of little splinters I'd forgotten about that are being painlessly pulled out. The concert was a series of pieces he'd written for specific singers, sang by three Canadian singers with similar strengths. Karina Gauvin, the soprano, was fucking divine. Gigi gave me a CD of her singing Handel - listening to her sing 'Barbara' right now. So clean, so beautiful, like Handel should be. Yet not even Handel gives me that sensation of something bad being taken out.

The songs were interspersed with Colm Feore reading passages from Mozart's correspondence with his singers, his father, and his wife. Mozart wrote a pretty fucking solid dirty letter. Teasing, funny and filthy. As soon as I stopped laughing at it I got a lousy voyeuristic feeling, though. This was a unparalleled genius who could knit reality together in the most beautiful way, and suddenly a sold-out concert hall is laughing (on his 250th birthday no less) at a dirty letter he wrote to his wife? Seems hellish in a way. Perhaps he wouldn't have minded.

I wonder why we don't mind. Why are the lives of the famous open season to us? Is it a fascination with the creative process, and some instinctual or unconscious equation of celebrity with creativity? Is it cool to hear Mozart's pet name for his wife's snatch in a super-public forum because we need to understand as much as we can about a man who could do the almost supernatural things he did? And does whatever emotion that allows that have any relationship with what allows us to be interested in the marital dynamic of Spederline? Or is it just sheer nasty schadenfreude, consoling ourselves about not being rich and famous?

Hmmm. Went from dirty Austrians to dirty Americans with the late-late showing of the Scientology episode of South Park. This episode was banned in the United Kingdom and may not re-air in the United States due to the efforts of poor Tom Cruise. It was a Mormon episode style exposé of the belief system, but much less gentle. This one was one-flying-bird in the face of Scientology. Closeted-Tom-Cruise was the least of it, although that was funny enough to almost pee over. Splashing out the 'secrets' of Scientology and the dare to sue at the end. . . I bet the Tom Cruise brou-hah-hah was no more than a device to spin attention away from the Scientology exposé. Although it would be socially interesting if it really was about someone trying desperately to stop any suggestions he's gay. He may be the last A-list actor this gets to be some crazy issue with, if our society keeps evolving towards Renton's vision of 'no men, no women, just wankers' from Trainspotting. Must be frustrating for him.

But, you know, fuck him. What can I say. Both Trey Parker or Matt Stone are - what they are. Which is something I don't have words for. Something really fucking awesome. They have balls, and their balls make me laugh. Is there anything more lovable than that? Besides baby penguins and Lady's dealer.

Love notwithstanding, I'm still not getting television in my own place. My goodnight spliff last night in front of Bravo saw a video of Dolly Parton covering John Lennon's Imagine. Oh Dolly. I love you, but I think I'll just listen to Jolene again. It also saw that Il Divo's two albums are occupying the top two spots on the 'classical' charts. I can feel the bile rising in my throat. But maybe that's from having to work today to prepare for Wednesday's transfer. Oh well. Tonight should be fun.

Lovely dirt

Mr. C has the best view. You can see the sunrise over the lake, and Toronto being Toronto you have a gorgeous shoreline of rotting factories and tumble-down smokestacks. Wish I had a camera for y'all. I wonder if it was growing up in a forest that makes me love urban decay. Maybe it's Toronto. Daily Dose of Imagery, linked in the sidebar, is heavy into the beautiful urban decay of Toronto. I just read Camera Lucida, a Gigi loan, by Roland Barthes. Pretty yummy, and it's made looking at photographs more fun. I can't wait until the defense is over! I'll forget the Canadian cannabis industry and the French language and read semiotics books and Jung and study Italian and smoke reefahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Today, my dulcet darlings, is the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Oh, Mozart. I bet in 1756 God realized the end of January was the most depressing time of the year, so he threw down a bit of fucking perfection to make the world a better place. Can we please invent some new adjective to describe Mozart? Some mix of 'lovely' and 'perfect' and 'spell-binding'? Saying Mozart is perfect is like saying the Beatles were kinda nice and the Temptations had decent harmonies. To celebrate, Gigi is taking me to Mozart: A Life in Letters tonight. I'm wiggly with excitement because it's Mozart, and it's mostly singing. This is going to be a long day. I want to go now! NOW!

Last night my analyst and I worked with a dream whose dénouement featured me and Gigi struggling to explain to one of my ex-boyfriends why Sebastien from Invasions barbares was hot - in non-physical terms so Ex wouldn't feel inadequate. As if hearing things like 'he's hot because he's supremely competent without having to talk much' isn't going to make somebody in the mood for inadequacy feel inadequate. Anyways, at the end of the session the analyst delivered it:

'You have a problem with men.'

Ah, all is clear now. Cue Eroica, please.

Really, last night it came clear that I can roll around in singledom like a happy little pig in shit as much as I want but the men I love - my family, my friends, any possible male spawn - deserve more affection and understanding than I give now. I think this is what bothers me about the self-help industry oriented around gender relations. There's a lot more to gender relations than romance, yet that industry objectifies the opposite sex through the prism of romance because that's what pre-occupies most people enough to pay for help with. But these tend to be the easiest formed and easiest broken emotional bonds. So do they really deserve so much proportionate attention? Is the fact that I can take my non-naked men for granted a reason to take them for granted? Surely not.

Moving on. Riding the metro when I'm snaked always opens up paranoid and shocking visions of human existence. Last night I was borrowing a handsome man-purse that I'd used to get my thesis out of Kinko's without getting hurt, obviously worth a couple hundred, and I think it made more people approach me for money than I get when I'm wearing my six-year-old courrier bag. Anyways, that made the paranoia a touch worse, so when I was tired of it I started reading Naked Pictures of Famous People, the Jon Stewart book Lady gave me for Jesus's birthday. Oh, how I laughed. I think that was the first time I've laughed alone in public since the glass-dick joke FEB told me in 1999 popped into my head while I was shopping at H&M this summer. People don't laugh enough.

Coffee, assassin of youth

For those of you who care, which could be nobody, Country Style is introducing espresso machines. You should care. I’ll tell you why.

If I’m in Italy, want espresso and am not able to make it myself for some reason, I have some options:

1. Go to a sit-down pasticceria or any gelateria
2. Go to a café and throw it back at the bar
3. Go to a bar and throw it back at the bar
4. Go to a vending machine (I promise, 80% of the time it’s drinkable)
5. Have a Pocket Coffee – oh Pocket Coffees, I miss you soooooo much.

What do you not see in that list? I’ll give you a hint – our options in Canada outside of a downtown core or non-caker neighborhood:

1. Starbucks

And our options in Canada outside of gasoline alleys, suburbs, and shopping complexes:

1. Dick

Dick has its places, but my coffee cup isn’t one of them. Starbucks is what fucking gets me. Selling insanely over-priced coffee in the equivalent of Holiday Inns, coffee which is at best reasonable and at worst horsepiss, offering no particular benefits but an essential monopoly on espresso, some Fair-Trade products, and a successful brand image. And the people who work there talk to us in the morning when we have sunglasses squished over our faces, a deep green complexion, and one hand held over our stomachs, bracing ourselves to get a latté down there to fuel the Walk of Shame.

All of which is to say, I fucking hate Starbucks. There was a line on the Sopranos once touching on this – I think it was Pauly who called these places the rape of a culture. Comedy? Hyperbole? Sure, but not a lie. Starbucks has successfully branded espresso as a luxury drink in this country, and charges accordingly. But espresso is for the masses, not just for those of us who have the time, money and patience to put up with that shit or who live in a city with real cafés. So the fact that Country Style – the Burger King to Tim Horton’s McDonalds, no less – is going to get it out there thrills me to my toes. I doubt it will hurt Starbuck’s present business much since people are unreasonably addicted to the brand. But I wish to fuck it would. And I sincerely hope it's just the first step leading to a large population of cakers who drink espresso without ever having set foot in one of those dens of thieves.

Now, if only the Fair Trade shit caught on . . .

Good morning good morning good morning a

I've got nothing to say, but it's ok. Except that to point out that in the 1980's Bruce Springsteen was a damn fine-looking man. Bit of a horsey-face, but I reckon I like that. It's possible he wasn't fine at all, of course. I could probably live comfortably without ever hearing one of his songs again, but the lyrics of Born to Run are everything I've ever wanted my men to say to me that they haven't, so there you are.

I blame television.

My heart is sore today. Sort of a general tenderness, like it spent ten minutes too long on the elliptical trainer. I think it's contrary to my breeding to take a step back from the ridiculous power struggles of loviness; I can feel at least five different emotions chomping at the bit to jump back into the fray and scream,

"I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WROOOOOOOOONG! ALL HAIL SPLIFFE."

But I shan't. I need to restrain my megalomania to the political arena, or I'll never take over the world. And then who would take care of y'all? Also, for once I'm not sure I'm right.

Mercy mercy me, look at that sunshine. I have to go walk in it, though it's looking colder than a defence secretary's tits out there. Last night I noticed my skin and the 'whites' of my eyes are damn close to the same colour. Gross. Although I'm feeling physically better since I started eating normal food and going to the gym again, I need the weekend a little, I think. It will be hectic, but there will be music and long lazy mornings involved. Sweet.

Mostly, I want to see Lady's hair. Where's your hair, bitch?

I don't know if you ever look at the food blogs I have linked in the sidebar, but I really must advise you to look at the salmon galette recipe posted on Cindy's Kitchen today. It's fucking pornographic. I think she has a function to read the page in English, for all you monophones.

Oh fuck . . .

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Somebody get me a fucking paper bag to hyperventilate my fucking rage into. Honestly, first the Hollywood establishment tries to obliterate my fond memories of John Schnieder's fine motherfucking ass, and now this. What the fuck kind of nasty fucking world do we live in?

No, no, no, tell me this is a nightmare, slap me, pinch me, fist me and punch me in the fuckin' face. This is the sort of shit that happens when you vote Conservative. Fuck all y'all. Bitches. That's it, that's the fucking living end. I'm going to form a tribe, live a nomadic life on horseback, and descend on your cities like the wrath of God every couple years for gold, grain, and booty. Then you'll be sorry this idea ever even fucking entered civilized consciousness.

Hee hee hee . . . booty.

So since the COC accidentally sent me two season passes I have a spare ticket for Gotterdammerung. 5.5 hours of pure Wagnerian bliss. Gigi is otherwise engaged that night and I don't know anyone else willing to spend 5.5 straight hours with Wagner, including my opera teacher, her husband, or any of the other students. Seems rather a waste.

California dreamin'

Last night, instead of sleeping like a sensible girl, I watched the Colbert Report. He reported some British psychologist issued a paper about the 24th of January being the roughest day of the year, depression-wise. I hope that’s true. I felt fucking r-u-p-t rough yesterday – ready to burst into tears between 16h and 19h at the slightest provocation and fucking irritable all day. Not Lady irritable, but if-I-stab-this-dick-in-the-face-with-a-pen-will-the-relief-be-worth-the-guilt-and-incarceration irritable. The crappy thing about language classes is the other students, you know what I mean, jelly bean? Especially when you have to work in pairs with one with a selective mental debility about the subjunctive tense.

I had just ascribed the pig-shit feeling to sheer physical and mental exhaustion from the thesis. But then it makes sense that this would be the most physically and mentally exhausting time of year for people generally, what with being broke from the holidays, back at work, plunged in darkness for most of the day, and all the relationships snapping like twigs after people had held out for those few extra soul-destroying months to score Christmas presents. All that physical and mental exhaustion throws you right into the arms of depression, so it would be the most depressing time of the year for most of us I suppose. This is cool, because really I wasn’t all that depressed yesterday. I mean, I wanted to stab other people in the face, not myself, so it’s all good.

So yay. This bitch of a month is almost over, and the short bitches of days are getting longer, bitches. Soon we'll be porting around that sexy sunscreen smell and smoking outside because we want to, and not because we have to. Sooooooon, my pretty. We'll be getting hooled and tanned on our roofs and drinking right from the keg under the stars. Our biggest seasonal worry will be getting badly-placed sunburns or poison ivy rashes while making love in the warm, bright outdoors. The men will strip down. The ladies will start waxing again. The hibernating animals are already twitching in thier sleep, cranky-ass bears are starting to wake up and look for food, and the leopard frogs frozen into the mud at the bottom of the swamps are dreaming up cacaphonous symphonies of sexy song.

And I'll start calling y'all 'sweetie' and 'darling' instead of 'bitch'. Give me time.

On my way out of work, a manager asked what I'm going to do with my time now that the thesis is submitted. The easy answer is re-learn sleep, watch cable while I house-sit, and think about how I should prepare the defense. The harder answer is,

"Uhhhhhhhhhmmmmm . . . ."

There are too many things to wrap my brain around. And I'm having a hard time thinking about it when I should be thinking about preparing the defence and all the Europeanity that will be surrounding it.

Scratch that. I have a hard time thinking about it when I should be sleeping. Why can't I sleep?

I require narcotics.

Do your time, then come home for good . . .

So the electioneering is over for a few years. I can't wait to see the feeding frenzy for the Liberal leadership - have a serious soft spot for Ignatieff. Not based on the fact that he's fine. Being the anti-TV trog I am, I hadn't knowingly seen a visual of him before yesterday.

Anyways, I'm not looking into emigrating to Finland quite yet.

Asking myself if I dealt with the thesis crunch well. First because I'm thinking the jury won't care it was submitted before the election results came in and I was playing a game of 'run-away-from-the-pyscho-killer-by-getting-into-your-apartment-extra-fast' with myself. Anyways, it got the bug out of my ass. Second because I went cocking crazy panicky Saturday. Never used to do that over academics. Of course, academics used to be my undergrad, which was a piece of piss.* I reacted to the panic by gorging on Korean junk food, canned coffee, and cigarettes. If I'd been sensible, I would have kept up my energy with perogies, ginseng, cardio, and NOT cigarettes. Now I feel gross and cranky as I stop smoking again. Not to mention I'm still looking like yellow translucent hell. I need to find better ways to panic, apparently. I should do that BEFORE the next time I panic.

In other news, it's the 1965th anniversary of the assassination of my favourite examplary case of why patrician classes self-destruct, Caligula. Winston Churchill died today too. Rather later, of course. Edith Wharton was born. The Age of Innocence was nice, don't be scared off by the Martin Scorcese film. Neil Diamond was also born on this day, once upon a Jonathon Livingston Seagull. I read something else by that author, Richard Bach, when I was fourteen or something - Illusions - don't remember it too well except I liked it and it made me really hungry.

*I wonder how 'piece of piss' got to mean super-easy. You reckon it's because you're saying something is as easy as peeing a little? Or because pee is liquid so it's easy to seperate into little sections which would be pieces if they weren't liquid? I reckon it's the first one.

It's finished. It's printed. It's delivered. It's gone. Well, three of them are gone. One of them is with me. I've been showing it to everybody, like photos of my grandkids. You know, I was completely wrong to compare this to a dead-on-its-feet relationship. I love you, little thesis, with your nice laser pages and your pretty maps and exhaustive references. I luuuuuuuuuuv you. I know you only hurt me because you love me too.

It's the joke of all time that I'm at work. I can't even talk.

I have J'attendrai stuck in my head, because I've heard the Dalida disco version a few times and the smoking hot captain in Das Boot listened to another. For once, I like the French words better than the Italian words. Obviously because I'm a bird who's been flying away, and who now needs to seek unconsciousness in her nest, because I haven't slept in a few days. But thinking about that for two minutes, I don't know how to translate 'l'oubli'. It just occurred to me it could also mean the forgotten one, right? Like, the other bird the bird who flies away flew from? And there's no-one I'm in a hurry to fly back to today. Maybe tomorrow. These things come and go, don't you know.

So, if you know me you probably have a good idea of who I'm voting for. Let me show you something that is having absolutely no impact on my decision in any way, except to think dude's a fucking dick:

>>>Michael Moore Statement on Canadian Election>>

Michael Moore is currently in production on his next movie. As an avid lover of all things Canadian, he has issued the following statement regarding Canada's upcoming election on Monday:

Oh, Canada -- you're not really going to elect a Conservative majority on Monday, are you? That's a joke, right? I know you have a great sense of humor, and certainly a well-developed sense of irony, but this is no longer funny. Maybe it's a new form of Canadian irony -- reverse irony! OK, now I get it. First, you have the courage to stand against the war in Iraq -- and then you elect a prime minister who's for it. You declare gay people have equal rights -- and then you elect a man who says they don't. You give your native peoples their own autonomy and their own territory -- and then you vote for a man who wants to cut aid to these poorest of your citizens. Wow, that is intense! Only Canadians could pull off a hat trick of humor like that. My hat's off to you.

Far be it from me, as an American, to suggest what you should do. You already have too many Americans telling you what to do. Well, actually, you've got just one American who keeps telling you to roll over and fetch and sit. I hope you don't feel this appeal of mine is too intrusive but I just couldn't sit by, as your friend, and say nothing. Yes, I agree, the Liberals have some 'splainin' to do. And yes, one party in power for more than a decade gets a little... long. But you have a parliamentary system (I'll bet you didn't know that -- see, that's why you need Americans telling you things!). There are ways at the polls to have your voices heard other than throwing the baby out with the bath water.

These are no ordinary times, and as you go to the polls on Monday, you do so while a man running the nation to the south of you is hoping you can lend him a hand by picking Stephen Harper because he's a man who shares his world view. Do you want to help George Bush by turning Canada into his latest conquest? Is that how you want millions of us down here to see you from now on? The next notch in the cowboy belt? C'mon, where's your Canadian pride? I mean, if you're going to reduce Canada to a cheap download of Bush & Co., then at least don't surrender so easily. Can't you wait until he threatens to bomb Regina? Make him work for it, for Pete's sake.

But seriously, I know you're not going to elect a guy who should really be running for governor of Utah. Whew! I knew it! You almost had me there. Very funny. Don't do that again. God, I love you, you crazy cold wonderful neighbors to my north. Don't ever change.

Michael Moore


Gosh, that letter is inspiring in its inappropriacy. In fact, it's inspiring me to write quite an emotional letter to a man I've never met.

Dear Michael Moore:

In Bowling for Columbine, you showed serious disrepect for the truth not only when you presented some slightly sauced chick in a bar and a 21 year old Starbucks pedant as typical non-door-locking Canadians, but worse, when you ignored the copy-cat killing that took place in Alberta soon after the Columbine massacre. I think you ignored it because contradicted your central idea about America's violence being about fear and not self-righteous jerkdom combined with easy access to firearms. You strike me as the sort of man who would be happy to adjust the facts to suit his thesis, even if it meant treating the death of some poor highschool kid like something that didn't and couldn't happen. You also strike me as the sort of man who would fire off a ridiculous, condescending letter to my country because a Conservative majority would make the ideas of Columbine look dated and even sloppier. You know. As a jerk.

Of course that incident may have escaped your fine-tooth research comb because the perp could only get his hands on a rifle (gun control laws, ya know?) so there was only one death. But if that was the case, then instead of being a jerk, you'd just be a dick. The sort of dick who'd naturally assume Canadians are as ignorant of the nature of their political system as Americans.

Either way, nothing could make me vote Conservative this year, but your letter made me think about it.

Stop being a dick, you jerk,

Mlle La Spliffe

All of which is a way for me to say, vote the way you think is best. That's what democracy's about. But really, voting Conservative just because they aren't Liberals is a touch petulant. I hope whoever votes Conservative does it for real ideological reasons. No matter how half-baked, stupid, and self-defeating they are.

So - I dozed fitfully for a few hours and then went to Kinko's to check the proof. As I did - checked the silky pages gently like a daddy checking for all his newborn's fingers and toes - I felt a feeling I haven't felt for awhile. I think the kids call it 'pride'. Highly reccommended. It makes you feel like what I imagine having the biggest whang in the boy's room would feel like. I've blitzed this bitch for the past two weeks in an almost unholy way, and at the risk of not living up to my self-deprecatory mangiacake half, I do believe it's good. I hope the French agree. On verra.

Now I wait for the finals. Go to work for a few hours, despite my visually apparent sleep-deprived uselessness, work off some of the stress and Benson toxins in the gym, come back to Davisville, and sleep with a final copy of my thesis tonight instead of a teddy bear or a slut.

Take care of your darlin' selves.

I sent it to Kinkos. The Kinkos guys I talked to were awfully helpful. I'm guessing they're accustomed to dealing with a massive quantity of cracked out grad students sending them things in the middle of the night and not being absolutely sure what needs to be in colour.

MADD has some great don't-drive-stoned ads out. Don't drive stoned, y'all. I have no idea if what I just sent to Kinkos makes any sense. My brain, my beautiful beautiful brain. I wonder if I can sleep.

The only emotional experience I can compare this ordeal to at the moment is a long break-up. The same sort of empty, what-have-I-been-doing-for-the-past-year-and-a-half feeling. I look like that kind of hell too. Still, if the defense isn't just a way for France to dig its knives into me one more time, I think I'll feel pretty good when it's ACTUALLY over. And the empty feeling might have something to do with the dénouement of Das Boot. Don't have wars, y'all.

Fucking dark before the dawn

Panicking again. This time because I'm so close to finished I know something has to cock up. And people ask why I'm in analysis . . .

I don't know what I would have done without Lady, without Gigi (who just did some beeeeyoudiful last minute revisions for me), without Mlle C or Mme N - I don't know what I would have done without ALL y'all who held my hand through this garbage. It'll be over soon, bitches, and then I'll re-grow some sort of personality, and make it allllll up to yiz.

I had a point, though - yes, I remember. The house I'm sitting has History Television. It fucking rocks. I'd forgotten how nice it is as background during revision. Still not tempted at all to get cable, but I'm enjoying it. Except the Serta mattress/bed ads. Now I'm going to book out of the office and watch Das Boot on History Television as I do the final revision. That's probably a bad omen (make it through the writing just to get mown down by the aerial firepower of the defence! Nooooooooooooooo!) but now that it's occurred to me it's a bad omen it'll probably be a worse omen if I don't watch it.

Anaaaaaaaaaaalysis . . .

UPDATE

I did say something awhile ago about accentuating the positive, right? So I'd like to take this opportunity to point out Koreans are awesome and sometimes the ones with shops sell cans of iced coffee there. Therefore I have to thank them along with everybody else, in terms of getting this thesis done. Props to you, Koreans. Mad props. You've always been there when I needed you.

Also, the captain in Das Boot is just astonishing. Like, drop-my-drink astonishing. Blue eyes don't often work, but when they do . . . aw, fuck it, brown's still better.

The eye of the storm

The word processing programme appears to be requiring a breather from the sheer fucking genius I'm lathering it down with, so I'll let y'all know I'm not dead yet. I was supposed to go to the Lula Lounge tonight to help celebrate the anniversary of Mr. N's auspicious birth. By three o'clock, it was clear that wasn't going to happen. By four o'clock, it was clear I wasn't even going to pass by to drop off his present. I called to let him know.

"Man, that thesis is going to be the death of you."

"Yeah, I can't get it together, I'm panicking. I'm getting out of town until this is finished."

So here I am, out of town. In Davisville. And the retarded thing is that I really meant it, and I really feel like I'm out of town now. When I first spent the summer in Toronto back in the last millenium, some smart-ass told me Northern Ontario started at St. Clair. I probably said something rude in response, and now I'm out of town in fucking Davisville.

The place, which I'm nominally sitting while the owner's in Ireland, is giving me a taste of the 80-k plus life. Hot men live in this building. Hot straight men. They move uptown, it seems, like spawning salmon moving upriver. Beautiful view of the skyline, clean both in basic sanitary terms (neither Little G or I have got the dish-soap we so desperately need for five days - 'nuff said - we're both Sag and can live in filth indefinitely) and design terms. Big flat-screen, fake fireplace, tasteful colours, Coldplay CDs, a swimming pool downstairs that isn't open at any of the hours I'd dream of using it. Five things that definitely do not exist in my apartment. It turns out Coldplay is good revising music. Who'd a thunk? I don't have a particular problem with Coldplay, I'd always just thought it was the sort of thing sensitive-type men put on when they light some candles and touch themselves. Which is fine. Me, I like the Magnum P.I. theme.

Hunkered down as in a barrack here, with my evil friend-in-need Benson H, $15 worth of Korean junk food (which, for those of you unversed in Korean junk food, is a whole fucking fuckload of Korean junk food), two computers and you, gentle reader. When I emerge, I'll be $15 of Korean junk food fatter and this fucker will be ready for presentation. I found a huge factual error running through it that made me suspect I'd been slipping myself crack, but I think the damage is controlled now and everything will eventually be hunky-dory. Now go. Get out. It's Saturday night. GO!

Soon I will be a dynamo of activity.

Tell me, does cat food really have to fucking smell like that? Galaxy eats hairball control food; maybe that smells worse than most. It just worries me so to hear her make that awful pukey cough. Also, as much as I love her, I can’t get used to the idea of her producing excrement from her mouth. Probably because I love her. It just poses such a challenge to my world-view, to love something that does that. Remember Witches of Eastwick? The book was much clearer in terms of that chick being cursed with the oddments coming out of her mouth and her baffled husband killing her. Also, in the book the Witches were kind of hos (not ‘hoes’, Emlyn, those are garden tools) and smoked lots of reefer, which was cool. Of course, the movie had Cher. Poor Cher. She had her moments. Moonstruck offended me to the very bottom of my genetic structure, though.

I saw the Constant Gardener last night chez Monsieur C. He fell deeply asleep about 15 minutes in. I have a feeling a lot of people would. Me, I like looking at Ralph Fiennes. He could fucking chip the ice out of his freezer for two hours, and as long as he was letting that uncertain delicate smile play across his face while he did it I’d be absolutely fascinated. Man, he could wear his Voldemort makeup and that smile would still make me want to sing Blossom Dearie standards and rock him gently to sleep. Fuck, if Maid in Manhattan was playing on an aeroplane, I wouldn’t avoid looking at the screen; that’s how much I like looking at Ralph Fiennes. I’m pretty sure it was also a good movie. The story was interesting and topical, and the visuals were just lovely. But on reflection I think to really like this movie, you’d need to really like looking at beautiful images of Africa while seeing how it gets fucked over like a $5 rent boy in a frat house during a city-wide stripper strike, or else really like looking at Ralph Fiennes. There was something a little messy about it - one has the sense that things were being left out, and that the book is probably good. Don't know.

Ah, someday I'll read novels again. Mr. D asked if I like spy novels, and I realized I've never read a single one. Someday . . . like Tuesday. I have to hand in my thesis Monday before the election results are announced, because I’m too lazy to do the half-hour of revisions it would take to incorporate whatever new government we’re blessed with into it. We are talking down to the motherfucking wire here. But now it’s opera lesson time. Yay!

Everybody is the devil today

Yeeeeeah . . . so . . . I try to avoid writing personal things here, and today won't be much of an exception. But I had a really good session last night with my Jungian analyst after I told him I was starting to feel a little de-centred as we proceeded. I reckon I'm feeling even more de-centred today, but that's not so bad. My centre was a bit unhelpful when it was there.

Anyways, talk got onto love, and he said that it's like a joke; when you describe love it doesn't sound like love at all. I saw his point. The weird ideas of justice that let you fucking rip right into each other as if you were worst enemies, in a goose-for-the-gander way - all so extra nasty if you combine them with a scrabble for the moral high ground! And then that goddamn refrain, "I'm not angry", when you so, so are. And still are, fucking years later. I bet lots of people stay together just to go on taking out their anger on the lover they figure owes them because they did them wrong. I'm talking mostly about me, but not only. I sense some reckonings approaching in the next eight weeks, and I don't mean writing an angry email to the manager.

I'm dreaming of a day when two people, one of whom is me, says "This happened to you, that happened to me, and it's part of us now, but this mix of us is new - it's never happened before." Clean slate? Sorta-no-not-really. But something like that.

Okay, I'll write something snarky about the Pope later to get the taste of that out of your mouth. This post is so introspective I can't think of an appropriate picture to break up the typing. So here's one of some bizarre deep sea creature washed to shore by that catastrophic tsunami.

UPDATE

No, I'll write about Yahoo. It's fucking evil. Maybe even more evil than MSN. Call me Utopian, but I reckon the invisible hand of the free market and a universal aspiration to the middle class are the only things that will save the world. Obviously, the invisible hand can't do its work without freedom of communication. So MSN and Yahoo can fuck themselves and Chinese law right in the fucking ear, the shitbags. They're businesses like any other - but I hope to fuck consumers make an informed choice about using them so they understand where their interests really lie. Which is in not being fucking dicks facilitating the survival of a repressive government whose Byzantine, fucked up, messy, staggered economic reforms are probably hindering the development of the country. Holy fucking fuck.

It's certainly more worth getting upset about than McDonald's being worse for you than the cooking of your keen vegan-chef girlfriend. God, the more I think about Morgan Spurlock, the more he pisses me off. He goes through that ridiculousness, McDick's recoups its market share in no time by throwing some healthier-looking chicken based items on the menu, and its labour and supply practices don't fucking change at all. Faaaaaaaack.

Moniliose Sativa Indica

I was made to chill. No one chills like me. Like a lily of the field, to toil not nor to spin, or however it goes - probably not like that, since spinning is a sort of toil. But I'm toiling these days. And while it's making me lose weight and get a perkier complexion, it's also making a vein in my forehead throb, and that's not cool.

I need a pep talk. Thank god for the Go! Team. If I miss Stéphane Rousseau, maybe I can time it to see them in Paris on the 9th of March. That'd make up for it. Seriously, day or night, pissy or sunny, sleepy or sound, Bottle Rocket makes me feel like I've snorted two bumps at once and can fight the most dastardly crime in the world.

Okay. I'm getting on the ball now. Maybe I'll write a pope update later. He's fucking hilarious.

Update: Nah, I think I'll save up the Pope. Look at Hilary Clinton being tough. Oooo, she tough. She so fucking tough, man. Just like Jacques Chirac. He fucking tough too. He blow you up! Blow you up vrai bon!!!!!!! (insert a French rebel yell here - non à la semaine de 37. 5 heures! perhaps). Hilary Clinton needs some branding lessons. Here's one: consumers distrust mixed messages in brand presentation. Here's another: a lagging brand shouldn't let the leading brand determine the communicative environment. I mean, if you're going to participate in some ridiculous circus of a political system, at least watch a few beer commercials and pick up some lessons from the Cola wars.

Tender

Did you know that in his 'Try A Little Tenderness', towards the end Otis Redding urges his audience - as one of many proposed tendernesses to try on weary young girls - to 'rub her softly now'? WHY ISN'T ANYBODY LISTENING? The last time I was rubbed softly was in the year 2000, and considering my youth, my occasional weariness, and the quantity of men I've spent quality time with since then - not astronomic, but certainly visible to the naked eye - that's fucking shocking.

Otis Redding was fucking hot. I bet his live shows were fucking unbelievable. Why the fuck someone hasn't made a Johnny Cash/Ray Charles/The Day the Music Died type biopic about him is beyond me considering how fucking lovely he is and how many songs he added to the popular canon. 'Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay' has got the shit covered out of it but his is still it - no one else I've ever heard has managed to make that song plaintive without whiny, bittersweet without twee. Three fucking days before he fucking dies. What the fuck. Oh Otis. He's one of the reasons aeroplanes scare me shitless. If God could let Otis Redding die in an aeroplane crash, I got dick-all.

This entry is full of parolaccie. I think I'm in a bit of a mood. I knew going into analysis that it wasn't going to be all epiphanies and gumdrops, but I'm starting to understand in a practical way that there are reasons we do the things we do to our heads - that our neuroses protect us. Being frozen into a certain mental or spiritual immobility might kill you slowly, but it saves you from understanding what you want and don't have, what you have and don't want, why you don't want what you don't have but want to want it, what you can do and why you're not doing it, why you have to, and alot of other things. Pop songs are becoming meaningful again; as in Yours to Break, post-break-up meaningful. No Suprises has been in my head for a solid day; I haven't listened to OK Computer for months and months.

I think I need to chill in Italy for awhile. Another pop song that is ever so meaningful for me at the moment is Sirénes de la fête, from the Brazilian Girls. Italian pop might suck, but the lead singer doesn't. I think I've listened to that song at least once a week since I first heard it back in the summer. Speaking of sweet live shows - they put on a sweet live show. The Verve label is still lovely, it seems.

Look! The New York Times thinks movies are suffering from a bout of heavy thought. The New York Times is fucking lame sometimes. Hilary Clinton is lame-ass alot of the time. American 'liberals' are fucking lame sometimes. I mean, the way they let themselves be branded by the right-wing is just pussy-rific. And then they wonder why George Bush won the 2004 election. Lame bastards.

Reefer Sanity

Sooo . . . today amongst work, Italian class, the traditional Tuesday family dinner and once and for all mastering the appendices to the thesis, I have to produce a 1000 word article about the politics of the cannabis industry through the centuries. Weeeeeee! It's really superb these opportunities to write for money and for people to look at have come up. At the same time, I catch myself wanting to travel back in time and yell at my 25-year-old self, 'Okay, a master's is a master's, but the subject of your thesis is going to haunt you for awhile!'

And of course my 25 Year Old Self would argue that if we decided to go all bourgeois we could get a job in a law enforcement organisation or that fun thing in Vienna where they talk about drugs all day. I would retort that's not what I bloody meant and I knew it; I should understand writing 150 pages about anything wasn't only going to challenge my interest in it, it was going to put me in a position where I'd probably have to go on being involved with it afterwards, after I had no doubt found the limits of this interest. Therefore, I should choose something as broad as I'd be allowed; maybe parallel market in general. My 25 year old self would have got that fucking half-lidded, dismissive, Calabritchian look, sparked a joint, and pointed out that I seemed PLENTY interested in reefer to stay in the field for awhile.

My 25 year-old self is a dick. She smoked reefer to ignore the world around her, which in all fairness to her was mostly France and the embraces of a madman, but still. If I ever take an anti-reefer stand with my juniors, or anybody for that matter, it will be because it's easy to have the sort of habit that lets you get by nicely while it lets you believe you're too lazy and stupid to change the shitty things in your life. It's far too easy an excuse.

On a somehow related topic, I suppose because I'd smoked some reefer beforehand, I saw the Family Guy movie last night as a reward for finishing my glossary. I found it fucking lame. I loved the original seasons, so the sentiment isn't from a dislike of the Family Guy. This was simply a fucking turkey that was too self-referential even for someone like me, who must have seen all the original seasons twice. In 88 minutes I laughed twice, and what I laughed at wasn't memorable enough for me to recall now. Wow. Did it ever suck. It sucked as bad as Godfather III, in the sense that if I ever see the original episodes again my enjoyment of them will be hurt by having sat through this mess.

Pope Watch: Key word Antipope

Welcome to the first in a series of midday 'I's bored' entries on the adventures of Joseph Ratzinger, otherwise known as the sixteenth Pope Benedict.

The Benedicts, for the benefit of all you unanointed, have been a funny bunch - the tenth in this series of sixteen, for example, was what Catholics call an antipope. I know that sounds scary and Exorcisty, but all it really means was that one pope (in the case of the tenth Benedict this one pope was Gerhard of Burgundy, the future second Nicholas) was able to gather enough troops to wage war upon and then imprison another pope (the tenth Benedict, evidently) for perpetuity. And then say 'Oi! You're the antipope! Hah!'

There have been three other antipopes called Benedict: the first thirteenth Benedict, Pedro Martinez de Luna from the Avignon mess, and the two first fourteenth Benedicts, Bernard Garnier and Jean Carrier. These antipopes were the first thirteenth and fourteenth Benedicts in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The second thirteenth Benedict and the second/third fourteenth Benedict were popes in, I believe, the eighteenth century. Is that confusing? Good. For the ways of God are not the ways of men, kiddies.

Did you know that there have been more antipopes called Benedict than anything else, with Clement and John tying for second place? It's an auspicious name for an auspicious man, who as Johannes let us know a little while ago has high hopes for the Christian church based on the fact that the Bible is messier than the Koran. Weeeeeeeeee!

Anyways, here are some of the things the sixteenth Benedict -definitely an uncontested, above-board pope with no rival popes I'm aware of levying armies against his ferocious Swiss Guards - and his magical friends have been doing lately.

1. Sneaking around in disguise
2. Starting a war - no, not that kind
3. Standing up for immigrants, especially the chicks
4. Looking mad hot

Whatever shall he do next? Stay tuned . . .

Final rant of the dragon ride

Hate is a strong word, but I think I hate Simon Cowell. Forget all the pop shit he cranks out like he’s vacationing in Thailand; if he didn’t do it, someone else would. The principal reason I hate Simon Cowell is Il Divo. It’s the final death twitch of the Renaissance, the triumph of economic rationalism over beauty.

‘Unbreak My Heart’ from Toni Braxton was not my cup of tea, but you know, it was good for macking in highschool. ‘Regresa a mi’ is only good for making me want to stick knitting needles in my ears and the ears of those I love. ‘My Way’ (check out the original French lyrics on the link – crazy) from Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Elvis Presley, and even that guy who performs it on Italian variety shows, going “I did it my-my-my-my-my way” instead of “I did it myyyyyy way’, was my favorite post-second-guessy-breakup song. Besides maybe ‘I Changed My Mind’ by the Quannum Project. Of course, that was before Il Divo gave us “A Mi Manera”, a noise as messy as regret itself. What’s next? Are you going to target the Quannum Project next, you sick bastard? No. Worse. On the new album they do ‘Unchained Melody’, giving a cold shower to one of the best oral sex songs ever written, as if putting it in ‘Ghost’ hadn’t done enough damage. Is there so much oral sex in the world, Simon Cowell, that you want us to have less?

Simon Cowell. Jehovah did not plague him with locusts, nor did the earth gape open to swallow him whole when he decided to create a monster that could simultaneously piss on opera, pop, and R&B. For he, in himself, is our God-sent plague, he our road to perdition. We deserve him, for he knew that ‘Unbreak My Heart’ or ‘My Way’, poorly opera-cized from the pretty mouths of two tenors, one ‘vox populi’ and one lonely little baritone, was going to sell like hotcakes to people who want to be too sophisticated for elevator music but aren’t city enough to see classically trained singers like Fides Krucker, Romina di Gasbarro or kajillion others who successfully incorporate pop sounds into their repertoires. And he also had to have known it was going to suck. Suck in a way that is almost impossible to comprehend.

Another reason I hate Simon Cowell is that he ragged on Geri Halliwell in 2004 for being a UN Goodwill Ambassador, saying it made her look foolish as ‘she knew nothing about it’. What sort of dumbass expects a UN Goodwill Ambassador to know anything about anything? Their job is to be famous. That’s why they’re UN Goodwill Ambassadors, for fuck’s sake, and not actual ambassadors. Is that rocket science, Simon Cowell? Is that like ‘lecturing NASA on rocket physics’? Dick.

On a cute note, look what Carlos Marin listed as his personal ambition in the biography section on Il Divo’s website. God, I miss European boys sometimes.