Kate and Pansy Think about Taking Over the World

But What About the Book?

2009-07-17T02:41:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed it. It was light, fluffy and surprisingly poignant. And I am very curious how the book club feel about it. Nugent explores the feeling of being socially adrift and how nerds attempt to create a social system that works and makes sense. I, not surprisingly, very much understood this sense that social rules and who was popular and who was liked made no sense to me. I remember feeling very much isolated and the strong desire to find a community of like-minded souls. And this book left me with the question, is this how everyone feels? Or is it just the way nerds feel? Or do nerds feel it more acutely? Or perhaps, nerds take agency and try to make a new, better society, with their rules and their hierarchies and secretly don’t understand why people don’t join with them in their utopia.

Why was it poignant? I loved the bits about Nugent’s nerd-past. And I think in exploring his past, he comes back to my central question of why do nerds pick their order and is their sense of social dissonance universal? I think I am a bit like Nugent, very self-absorbed and seeing things from my own perspective. He assumes that people are nerds for the same reasons he was. That they played d&d for his reasons. When he goes back and talks to his friend, he realises that isn’t so. The nerdish pursuits and the nerd community was serving different functions for his friends. In some ways the little community of social rejects provided its own escape for kids who had a whole lot of confusion and instability in their lives. That he didn’t have this same need becomes apparent when he takes the opportunity to shed his nerdom and hang with the cool crowd. I can fully understand why he did that. His motives make complete sense. But his actions had a horrible cost. It wasn’t enough that he betrayed the people who were there for him in the lean years but that he had to falsely accuse another and sever that person’s connection to the nerd world too (which suddenly reminds me of a story in werewolf comic—they walk by night—but that is an aside too far). He is judas and I am glad he feels the guilt even now.

I am an American Nerd

2009-07-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

After a couple of attempts, I realised I need to have two posts about the book. The first will be a complete navel-gazing recitation of my historical nerdiness. The second and probably much more on subject post will look at the book and some of the questions it has left me with. That I am genuinely looking for answers to.

I like to think of nerdiness as a continuum. And while I most certainly know nerdier people (I knew undergrads I knew who would plan their evening meal so that it wouldn’t interfere with watching reruns of Star Trek where the game was to name the episode before the opening titles came up and then discuss how the teleplay differed from the novelisation of the episode), it would be wrong for me to deny my past.

I was raised by a NASA engineer who used to bring home films of clear air turbulence experiments and have the whole family watch.

When I was 11, I read Shakespeare. Two years later, I organised my friends into digested productions of Macbeth. I am not sure I have ever really solved how to stage the scene where Macduff walks in with Macbeth’s head tucked under his arm (though my was I impressed when I saw how the Reduced Shakespeare Company solved that problem).

In 1979, I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons. Last year, on a visit to my brother, I was reunited with my original boxed basic set, my advanced d&d player’s guide and monster’s manual and my set of dice. I think the twenty-sided is currently sitting on the tv. I was saddened by the news of Gary Gygax’s death.

The first computer language I learned to programme in was Fortran Four. I was working for NASA as a SHARP(summer hire apprentice research programme) on the X-29 forward swept wing project. My mentor tried to convince me that when I went to university I should major in maths because a) it was a great way to meet guys and b) it was a ‘mickey mouse’ major.

Did I mention I was a mathlete? That the first boy I kissed (Farley Stewart who went on to do computer science at UCSD—where they wrote Pascal) was the captain of the mathlete team. We both played in the same dungeon. I was also on the mock trials team, captain of the Academic Decatholon, four years in marching band, student representative on the school board, hated by the general school population and a geek pin-up. I’ve dated a lot of nerds. They like that I read science fiction. And I had breasts.

I may also have written fanfic, been involved in on-line role playing games based on a popular fantasy series, been a regular at the Renn Faire, considered joining the SCA, started blogging over five years ago and have a picture of myself with the crew of DS-9. I have, however, never been to a star trek convention or ComiCon or GenCon even if I have looked up the dates and times for one or more of those events.

I’d like to leave the subject of geek music untouched.

All in all, I fully expect to have a different experience in reading this book than other people. But go on, surprise me.

2008-12-01T02:17:00.000-08:00

Well, my hope of blogging all the books I read this year has fallen by the wayside. Who knows what I read in a year? I now won't be able to report.

Anyway, according to the gp, I was depressed. And I am now on generic prozac. And a slightly elevated dosage. And actually, I feel fabulous. Life seems like a grand adventure. I suspect I have been depressed for years. At least two. Maybe longer. Maybe I am permanently depressed in my natural unchemically altered state. I don't know. But I think it helps explain the lack of blogging.

Because I have recently wanted to blog. About CSI:Miami. Today, I just wanted to mutter that now it is December, I figure I should send my paycheck straight to Amazon. Is their a more dangerous site out there? How many amazon boxes will my house collect this year?

I also went to Toys R Us yesterday. This didn't happen. But I can picture it happening. Easily.

I have been reading (as always). John Connelly (yes, I do read Michael Connelly too) which is a bit like a crime novel with a little bit of Stephen King mixed in. I think I rather like it. And well, I have been indulging in my complete and total guilty pleasure, regency romances. Ah....

Julia Quinn. She is fab. Read two. Cried over both. I am such a sucker.

Now rereading The Stand because it is 30 years old. Not as old as me. But still.

2008-09-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

More Books!

So I read Everybody Worth Knowing by the woman who wrote The Devil Wears Prada (which I also read, years ago). Why'd I read? It came free with a magazine and I bought it thinking I was getting the free mystery. What can I say, its about impossibly rich new yorkers and working every minute of the day. And finding true love.

I also read The Outcast by Sadie Jones. Why did I read it? because I convinced my mother to buy it when she was looking for books to buy. What can I say. Period details. bits of brutality. Oh yes, and finding true love. Because people do that when they are fifteen.

Then I read Fame Fatale. Because I wasn't sure I had read it before. I had. Its a typical Wendy Holden. Heroine working under miserable conditions, horribly partner. Truly horrible female lead who is all about materialism and bad fame. Then you find true love.

Read Louise Bagshawe too. I am obviously rebelling against the lit fic I have been reading. Horrible sister. Downtrodden heroine working heroically in today's world. And then you find true love.

I promise I am reading a proper book at the moment.

2008-09-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

What have I been reading, other than the fabulous Brief Wondrous Life? Well, I can tell from my bookshelf that I read Straight Talking (free chick lit with a magazine) at some point and then immediately forgot about it. Speaking of which, I have now had enough of Harlan Corben. Read Gone For Good, had to big up book to remember title, characters, plot. And well, I am tired of it. I've read three stories of his now. Really liked the first. But I can't remember any of them individually and they all seem to follow the same narrative arc and with the same narrative twitches. Love, separation, crime committed in the past, Some one isn't who you think it is. The bad guys get killed in a divine providence kind of way, often there is a minor character of a Jersey crime family and we have had two reunited children too! Don't think I will read anymore.

Read another Tess Gerriston. The Apprentice. Which occurs in time before The Body Double. I enjoyed the novel. I like how its a bit of a literary CSI. Lots of explanation of the tech and forensics. Good villain. However, I could live without the clunky romance and well it builds nicely and then bam! its over. I kept thinking how can she finish this novel in the pages that are left and well she does it with a Hamlet ending. One villain dead (we never find out who he is, why he does what he does, how he hooked up with the other guy). Heroine saves herself and well the baddy ends up with his just desserts. Must admit I will read more but I may be looking to see if this is a pattern.

Read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Which surprised me. Old Country and The Road are both quite stark in style and language. This wasn't. It was verbose and bloody and well, I think keeping with the milieu. But much as I haven't watched Ride with the Devil (and I love Ang Lee), I don't think nineteenth century blood thirsty American complete with mud does much for me.

Which may come as a surprise when I talk about my classic for the year, Huck Finn. Loved it honestly. Loved Jim. Thought Tom Sawyer was a twit. Loved the language and Huck's gradual conscious awakening. And I can cross one more 'great work' off my list.

2008-09-13T09:36:00.001-07:00

(cross-posted on the bookies--where it did have formatting).
Wow. No tears this time for a book of such brilliance it humbles me even as I watch in awe as Diaz manages to weave so many different currents, different, worlds, different universes together in a narrative both original and yet part of so much great literature. This is a work of genius. At first, I had a hard time imagining someone teaching creative writing at MIT. What kind of a (schizophrenic) person could do that?!? Having finished Wao, I now have no problem imagining Diaz holding his own with the geeks while writing (and I suspect reading) fiction. I think this is a book that could be read several times, and each time, the reader would learn more, see something new, appreciate it in a different light. Diaz speaks in so many languages like Spanish, the new footnote style of David Wallace Foster, incorporating the style of magic realism used by Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa. And I am not even mention the comic book/graphic novel references, all the rpging terms scattered about or the hip hop. Each a language telling the reader that little bit more, adding another layer to the compelling story of a family and its curse. I think I am most impressed at Diaz’s calling out to the literary canon(like a rap artist). Years ago, rocks were soft, dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in an American High School in a small town and actually I was 15, sophomore year, the year you have to do American Literature. More a lot of people that meant The Scarlet Letter. I was college prep. In our classes it was Thorton Wilder and Emerson and Thoreau (On Civil Disobedience not Walden) and a little bit of Hemingway. Specifically, The Old Man and the Sea and the Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. You think Diaz just picked his title out of then air? He’s running with the giants and I like him a whole lot more than Papa. Wao, like Mr. Macomber, takes life in his own hands, find happiness, if only for a brief time (fyi, Wao’s happiness is of a longer duration that safari participant Francis) Then final year, we had to read a lot (looking back on it now) including Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. And that is what I recall in Oscar’s last words. In his life, it is not “the horror” he sees, but “the beauty”. For all the tragedy and unhappiness of the life of his family, Oscar finds love. But it isn’t just Oscar’s story that captivates me, its all those women: his sister, his mother, his abuela. Great story telling. But more. A book that illuminates on every page. Though I am not sure I am going to give it to my mother to read.

2008-08-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

Other crime book: The Bone Garden by Tess Gerriston. It got slated by readers on amazon but I thought it was okay.

2008-08-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

Got to keep bloggin on books or who knows where we will end up. I am sure there should be another crime novel in there somewhere but I can't remember what it was. I did also read Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon. I quite liked it. Cyberpunk meets detective noir. I am not sure all of what happened. Or why some people did somethings. But it did read a little like a 25th century Big Nowhere. And we know how I feel about that.

Oh a completely different note, I am contemplating joining the Women's Institute. Do you think they read cyberpunk?

2008-08-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Don't blog for a month. Forget all the books I read. I know I read two Harlan Corben. And I enjoyed them. But I can only remember the plot of one and I have no idea what the title of either was. I don't know that this is a good thing in a book.

I did read Barack Obama's autobiography, Dreams of My Father and I'll cross-post what I wrote about it.

I also have read Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day so now I think I will try and get the library to get me When We Were Orphans and The Unconsoled. I also read No Country for Old Men. I think I preferred the movie but my what is a sparse novel, a bit like The Road. Oh and I read Diary of a Nobody because my podmate loves it. I thought it was okay. I am planning on doing Huck Finn for my classic of the summer. But that is it for me for today.

2008-07-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

Me and the Canon.

More confessions of a reader, I am afraid.

I don’t know when I fell in love with books. I do remember as a child learning to read and needing to sound the words out loud. I was fascinated and jealous that adults could silently read the paper and I thought this was a wonderful, wonderful thing.

I also remember being six and forgetting to bring my library book to school on Monday (it was about the Easter Bunny and how Easter Eggs ended up different colours). Because I didn’t return the book, I wasn’t allowed to check out a new one. I cried. I told the teacher and the librarian that I knew where the book was (I did!) but to no avail. No new book for me that week. Strangely, though I remember the trauma, I still manage to keep out my library books for too long. Which could be a question(or two) for fellow readers. Do you have a library car? Do you return your books on time? Do you have a favourite library?

Some other time maybe I’ll blog about my childhood reading, lifelong love of Enid Blyton, how my brother denied me books, and my occasional interaction with comic books. The only important result of it was, I spent a lot of time at school having to read a lot of the western canon, though not necessarily the books that most other people my age did (not my choice, I think we had a renegade English teacher for four years). What do I mean? That for American Lit, instead of doing The Scarlet Letter, like other fifteen year olds, we did Thorton Wilder’s Our Town and Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience. We did do Hemingway. I was underwhelmed.

We did Marlowe’s Faustus as a warm-up for a whole six months of Shakespeare. I did The Epic of Gilgamesh for the mythology six months and lots and lots of poetry. Final year we did bits of The Cantebury Tales (and got tested on our ability to translate middle English), Ibsen (I loved The Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler), Crime and Punishment(which as far as I was concerned was the Tell-tale Heart only much, much longer), some Becket, Dante’s Inferno, Heart of Darkness and who knows what else. Somehow, I successfully argued that Kurt Vonnegut was a serious Author and got to do an in-depth study of him (as my brief infatuation with DH Lawrence was wearing off). [this is also where I like to point out that a) I went an american comprehensive high school in a small rural town and b)I’d match my American education with any here in the British Isles, not that I am sensitive or anything, mind you].

But it meant I arrived at university not needing to do any more English Lit, unlike most American students. I spent several years living with English majors and reading some of their books before seriously keeping company with and English major and well we ended up very close to getting married, arguing over books and playing that great game of trying to think up authors in the canon that no one else at the party has read (I swear this is an honest to goodness post-grad English student party game. I swear).

Despite this, or because of this, there are all sorts of ‘great books’ I haven’t read. Or authors I have read one book of and sworn never again (are you paying attention Misters Dostoyesky, Hemingway, and Dickens?). Me and the canon aren’t as well acquainted as if I had been male, raised in the 30’s and educated in St. John’s. Or face it, just educated at St. John’s (and my familiarity with plays by Machiavelli are entirely down to those political theory classes—again that substandard American public education system). So several years ago, on New Year’s Eve, I resolved to read one ‘classic’ a year. Some I like. That new translation of The Illiad (in verse form). Edith Wharton (starting with House of Mirth), Henry James. Less, not as successful (Mr. White Whale I am talking about you and you madwoman, Madame Bovary).
And its that time again, time to read a ‘classic’. I keep losing Conrad’s Nostromo (I had a similar problem with both 100 years of Solitude and Midnight’s Children—neither wowed me. Rather read Morrison’s Song of Solomn). Think I might try Middlemarch despite almost universally hating all 19th century literature. So, I will end with another question for my fellow readers, what is your favourite ‘classic’?

oh and if my library ever stops taking industrial action, I will be ordering in those Cormac McCarthy books and mr. Ishiguro.

2008-07-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

You know, I used to funny. And witty. And entertaining. Now I couldn’t type to save my life. But I used to send my opinions out to the blogsphere and well, it was amusing!

I’ve just been reading old blogposts. In part so I can remember what my top 10 films list looks like (for the record its:
Chinatown
Yojimbo
Miller’s Crossing
Matewan
The Big Sleep
Philadelphia Story
Heathers
Valley Girl
FightClub
The Killing
And well I was amusing. Admittedly, all I did was talk about Vegas, alcohol, CSI, alcohol, say disparaging things about my child (and now that would be children). But I gave the appearance of having a life! That wasn’t completely composed of a)not eating; b)playing Age of Mythology while c) waiting for my plants to grow in Plant Tycoon. Look at me now. Maybe I will try and be a bit more inspired.

Anyway, I have read a bunch. In particular a double volume of Jenny Coglan of Finding Addison and Amanda’s Wedding. I needed to buy a cheap book because the H weasled out of taking me out to a nice serious grown up lunch so that he could work in his office. I don’t know why he isn’t a slacker like me. Alas, I think I read Finding Addison once before from the library but can’t really remember. So, no, I don’t think I would recommend her work. I also read Harlan Corben’s Don’t Look Back, which I also can’t remember but thought that I enjoyed quite a bit.

On the non-fic side of things I did Blood River which may have convinced me that I don’t want to go and work in Africa doing something worthy but also Under the Banner of Heaven. Crazy Mormons!
I ploughed my through Mary Queen of Scotland and the Western Isles by Margaret George. Someone gave me her Autobiography of Henry VIII when I graduated high school and I really enjoyed it. But I didn’t like Cleopatra and I didn’t really like this. Though I did spend a bit of time on wikipedia afterwards. I could update some more but as I don’t know how to blog below the fold, I am quitting now.

2008-06-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

More books!
I was in the library/computer room/music room this morning writing out cheques to pay for childcare when I looked over and noticed a book on the shelves and realised I had read it but not blogged about it. So I have no idea where The Ladies of Grace Adieu goes in narrativeof reading for a year. Now I loved Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell and I enjoyed the Ladies even though I rarely do collections of short stories. Jonathon Strange is one of the books/authors I came across thanks to blogs and Crooked Timber in particular. They were doing a seminar on Jonathon Strange and I thought I should read it. I actually find Crooked Timber quite good at finding books for the H. I got sent to George R.R. Martin by them (and if you find a Northern Ireland physicist reading some of the song of fire and ice it is all because of me and Crooked and look publishers, you want to increase your readership, well that is where you start) and also Mieville. Martin hasn't done a seminar on Crooked. But I am so in awe of Mieville--academic! thinker! and noted author! and on the left! It is amazing I am not consumer as a small pile of envy right here and now. Of course, I would also like to plot and narrate like Martin. Oh, so much writing envy and what do I spend my spare time doing? Playing Age of Mythology!?!?

Also this week, I went to the library and checked out more books (after returning all that Stephenson). Read Wendy Holden's Filthy Rich. Which didn't have the unreconsistituted villain of typical Holden novels and well the main couple were still in love by the end but otherwise is pretty much the same old formula. And the Wag will obviously be getting future novels of her own. I did have one particular bone to pick. The rich American couple took out the rustic aristo for sushi in london. His first experience of sushi. But they took him to Yo! Now I love yo. I love the whole conveyer belt bit of it and the sparkling water jets. However, i think any self-respecting rich American in London would have gone to Nobu before being caught dead in Yo! So that part read completely false and like something a middle class chattering class would eat and not serious New York banker. I mean really!

2008-06-02T01:14:00.000-07:00

Book update time.

So I finished the second and third volumes of the Barock Cycle, The Confusion and The System of the World. I think I liked The Confusion best of the lot because it was only in that volume I started to like Jack Shaftoe and well, there was quite a bit of Eliza in it too and I like Eliza a lot. Not as much as Daniel Waterhouse who is just a wonderful character. And I do think it is an amazing work. I now know so much more about the politics of early science and the beginnings of the slave trade. I do which Louis XIV would have come to a bad end, but I suppose that wasn't something I could realistically expect.

I also went to Portugal and stayed at Club Med Da Balaiai. Which was amazingly child friendly. Took child number two. The Blessing stayed with the grandparents and got bought a hand beaded £40 pair of sandals. I am planning on stealing them at the end of the summer because some people's feet will continue to grow and mine will remain the same. But having a week off meant that I read a few other things, like How to be Good, which was okay but nothing spectaccular if you ask me and then The Body Double (It came free with a woman's magazine) which was much better than I expected and The Echo. I suppose I was a bit disappointed with The Echo and I love Walters. Now reading a book about the Congo. I think I have a romantic idea of Africa.

2008-05-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

Wine and Music (and books)

I had to link to this.

Not that I am drinking at the moment. I have started a diet. A long bataan death march diet. The cambridge diet. So far I have lost about a pound for every day I have been on it. But I do think about food.

I also read William Boyd's Restless which had a connection to Iran (again) and I enjoyed, particularly how the mother got out of a difficult situation in New Mexico and I liked the somewhat ambiguous ending but not the suicide. Didn't buy that. Finished a pratchett novel and am almost done with the second book of the barock cycle.

2008-04-30T05:14:00.000-07:00

The Return of Snooker Blogging
Yes, I saw Ronnie's, I didn't see Ali's. Guess Ronnie can't go an dbuy that Bentley convertible now.

2008-04-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took so long. I forgot my email and password for a while. I only have two passwords I use with any frequency (alright three if we count the family password, four if we include work and five if we include the work password I wrote down because it was a variation of my original (maybe four words I would normally use). Alright, I no longer access my Egg account because I have absolutely no idea what the password might be. I would like to be chipped. Then I would like to be scanned. Then I could stop having to use passwords and pin codes. Because I can’t remember them all. Somebody want to pretend to be me? I hope you have a good memory.

Two Posts in one Month!

Anyway, I have read a couple more books. Digging to America by Anne Tyler. I haven’t read any of her stuff since The Accidental Tourist so long ago. But I really liked this. Maybe because I am an adopted child (from another country—though we never had arrival day in my house) but I also really liked the Iranian elements. We read (at my instigation and my mother’s urging) Reading Lolita in Tehran for the book club I was attending. And so I am doing lots of thinking about dissidents Iranians and the Islamic revolution. Which also touches upon the other book I finished last night (but I can’t remember the title and will have to blog about it later. I am giving my mother Digging to America when she arrived in July. I do hope she likes Life of Pi.

Oh, and now I remember, I also just read Wintersmith. I love Pratchett. I will make no apology for it. I am currently rereading Moving Pictures because I am waiting for the library to bring me more of the Baroque Cycle. I like the little blue men (sort of) and absolutely love the witches. Glad I am not one. But I would like to meet Death and go on my summer holidays to Uberwald and join the Watch and yes, I have a secret crush on the Patrician and a little bit of a yen for Winter.

2008-04-24T03:49:00.000-07:00

Time for blogging again. If only because I really am trying to keep an accurate account of what I read in a 52 week.

First off is The Yacoubian Building. Which I enjoyed. I don’t think I read enough ‘foreign’ lit. (Does anyone else feel this way?). I know there are all these authors out there writing great books but not in English and chances are I am missing them all. I liked the characters a lot. I liked the complexity of society it showed and also the corruption and what it all ended up doing to people. I am not sure there was quite enough poetic justice for me. I was saddened by the murder. A lot. But read it.

Then it was holiday time. And so I took a giant book with me to America. A giant book with little print. Neil Stephenson’s Quicksilver. It lasted me the entire holiday. I didn’t like the middle part so much. I don’t care about Jack Shaftoe. Eliza and her hatred of slavery is another matter. But my do I love Daniel Waterhouse. And do I love the descriptions of the early Royal Society. I just can’t understand why it won the Arthur C. Clarke. Cuz it seems like straight historical fiction to me. I don’t love enough to buy the other two parts of the cycle. But I am going to the library tomorrow to order them in. More big books with little print!

Towards the end of Quicksilver, I got a bit ground down by the density of it all (and my is it a dense book. With lots of characters and lots of writing styles. I could have lived without the fake restoration plays) and so I got on my flight with an airport paperback. The Ruins. Look, I had picked up the book in an airport before and been intrigued because it was written by the guy who did A Simple Plan. Now, I haven’t read that novel but I loved the film. Though it traumatised me. Maybe not as much as Requiem for a Dream. But I am haunted by it and not with happy warm feelings either. I was just horrified by the end. So the guy writes a horror film. About Ruins. (and while I was stateside the film came out so I was seeing adds). I don’t do horror films. They scare me too much. But I spent a lot of my teenage years reading Stephen King (and I have the hardbacks to prove it—I was also traumatised by Ghost Story back then. The novel not the film but that is another story). So I read The Ruins on the plane back. Blah. Nothing special. I knew the plants were trouble from the get go. And I wanted a better ruin. With something lurking underneath that was direction those damn plants. I was surprised everyone died. But I wouldn’t recommend it or stay up to watch the film on sci-fi (while I do want to see 30 Days of Night).

So last week I read The Road. Which is beautifully written. Really a work of craftsmanship. But bleak. Oh so bleak. I don’t know how I feel about the end. And surely something could grow? In special soil. In a barn. Under lights powered by the last diesel? Or am I grasping at straws. Because I am growing potatoes in my back garden come the collapse of the global economy and I don’t even like potatoes (but I don’t think I can grow rice, despite the fact that I live in a swamp).

Why I am back

2008-03-10T03:22:00.000-07:00

Because it is all about me. And what I want. And I kind of would like to keep a record of what I read in 365 days. I have no idea how many books I go through in a year. I think I read pretty voraciously. And across all sorts of fiction genres (for some reason I don't do a lot of non-fic). Now that I back at work (and am now officially back to all work all the time) I am taking the train every day and reading lots again. I've read some great things this year too. But I can no longer be sure what I did finish in January so I think I am going to start this record at the first of March. What has passed through my hands?

First, Half of a Yellow Sun. Which I loved. When I read The Kite Runner a few years back, I could be often found weeping on the train with the book in my hands. I didn't weep over Yellow Sun though I think I found it sadder and more effective. The despair and hardship were so much more believable in not being so brutal and awful. And it almost inspires me to read some non-fic. I was fascinated by the novel and wanted to know more about Nigeria and Biafra which I can only remember as little blips on my consciousness as a child. I think I am currently having a fascination with Africa. Whether it is rooted in my biological mother living in Kenya for more years than I can count, I don't know. But I do wish I knew more about the continent and I do wish to visit and perhaps even live there for a year or two to break myself out of my decadent western lifestyle. But perhaps Africa doesn't really offer the salvation I want. Perhaps it is just a place.

A friend gave me Life of Pi back in August when we went off to the Farnham Estate to escape our children and spend lots of time with oils and water and warmth. It took me this long to get around to reading it. I finished it last Thursday and I was blown away by it. Now, I admit I wasn't blow away until the very end. I thought it was just okay in the first part. I found the second part interesting enough though a bit, may I say, Moby Dick in talking about how to catch fish and turtles, how to butcher them and the whole surviving at sea. i did love the conversation with the tiger when he thinks he is about to die. But the ending! The conversation with the Japanese claims adjusters. Suddenly it reveals an entire different side to the novel and a different way of looking at what has just taken place! I am still mulling it over in my head, days later and am still admiring the skill that accomplished that. Sunday, in The Observer, there is a piece on who should win the next booker of booker and this novel is mentioned strongly as a possibility. I am telling everyone to read it.

'I'm Back (I think)'

2008-03-10T03:13:00.000-07:00

So I am sure you have missed me. I did have the child. End of May. On a Tuesday. Because surgeons don't like to schedule c-sections on a bank holiday Monday. He is fabulous. Happy, social and only now starting to toy with the forces of destruction. Of course we nearly killed him, his second night home. His big sister, the blessing tried to drown him in the bath. Alright, she only dropped him, but still there was frantic calls to the out of hours doctors, a rush up to Belfast and I now know the Royal Hospital for Sick Children far better than I ever wanted to. Its a great facility. The Blessing Mk II has been three times now. I know where to park, when the lift stops working and how to keep the original blessing entertained in the waiting room.

In 48 hours I take the whole family on a great adventure, vacation! We are road tripping through half of the US. Flying to Las Vegas. Going to the Grand Canyon, visiting my favorite relative in Salt Lake City (where High School Musical was filmed) before seeing the 'rents in Rapid City. I may keep you informed of all the fun and adventures. I may not survive. I suspect this trip will have far fewer strippers than previous trips.

2007-02-22T02:49:00.000-08:00

I know I said I would blog but, but, but....

I can remember watching this at the time on the BBC and just being amazed at how he almost didn't wait for the white to stop moving before making the next shot. Never a big Ronnie fan. And I would definitely question his emotional suitability for the games these days but when he played like this, he was snooker.

2006-12-08T01:38:00.000-08:00

Announcing a Hiatus
Not that this blog has been a hotbed of activity for a while now, but I am trying to rationally think about aspects of my life and well, as I am currently quite exhausted with the whole process of working and don't think that will change anytime soon, I figure I out to be honest about it.

I'm with child. Which shouldn't surprise really anyone who reads this. And well, I figure that until I am back from the hospital and a couple weeks into recovery (probably early June), I am not likely to blog. I did briefly think of trying to blog as a record of the pregnancy when I first found out, giving full details of the naseau and my general grumpiness around people drinking wine and eating unpasteurised cheese at the same time! But I haven't and well I don't know that I will.

Pregnancy has given us the option to raise a lot of issues with the Blessing, who has been desperate for a baby. Even before I knew, she wanted to know how you knew you were pregnant and even better once women's cycles were explained to her, how old you were when the cycle stopped and crucially, how old was I? She asked last weekend how the baby got out of the tummy. I don't think she was impressed with the answer; all she said was, "hmmm."

She also quite emphatically wants a baby sister. When we suggested she might get a baby brother, she replied "I'd kill him." Last night she elaborated, "I'd kill him. I'd choke him. Then I'd get a baby sister." I am now starting to regret letting her watch CSI with me.

Otherwise, we are all agog in the house over polonium 210 (I am just so relieved that the H hasn't tried to buy it over the internet like his radioactive rocks). My boss's sister would regularly stay at the hotel (her company uses it for all their stays in London. I suppose I would be worrying about cancer around now if I worked for them.

See you in the summer!

2006-11-06T05:30:00.000-08:00

Two Years!?! I need this device now. After a relatively nit-free year last year. They are back. And we are once again waging warfare.

2006-10-27T02:38:00.000-07:00

I love snooker. I may not love Ronnie O'Sullivan and well John just beat Matthew. But I still love snooker.

2006-10-24T04:28:00.000-07:00

The Blessing is currently obsessed with murder. Her own. She wants to know if we would be sad if someone murdered her. I know, I know, its all my fault for letting her watch CSI. This morning, listening to Radio 2 (or radio poo as she likes to call it) we heard the news bulletin and a story about the arrest of a man for abducting a girl in Wrexham. The Blessing was all, "Its a girl that's been murdeted." I answer, "No, she went missing and is back and safe and well." "No, she was murdered in North Wales. The police are involved." My child, future journalist for The Daily Mail.

2006-10-20T04:30:00.000-07:00

So I am doing my morning commute. On the train. Reading. I get through about a novel a week. And this means I buy too many books. I own too many books and I am constantly needing new books. Speaking completely and tangently, does anyone know of who is cool and happening and worth reading in the Sci-Fi world these days? I need to think about buying books for the H for christmas and well, he liked the China Mieville I made him read. He liked Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrel. He is enjoying George RRRR Martin's song of fire and ice series and he now refers to Margaret Atwood as that female Sci-Fi writer. Anyone have a suggestion? At all? It could even be little know neglected classics. Yes, he loves the whole Star Trek/Battlestar Galactica thing too.

Anyway, I am currently reading Julian Barnes' Author and George. And enjoying it. But I particularly like a bit this morning,
"Wine Growers had Rioted in Beziers, where the Towb Hall had been Sacked and Burnt by the Peasants."

And I thought, plus ca change. 100 years ago, wine riots in the D'Oc. And still they are unhappy. And blowing things up. And protesting.

I like the French.

2006-10-13T04:23:00.000-07:00

Thursday Night is My Current Favorite Night of TV
Maybe its because I know I am going to watch tv and not get distracted by other things that I watch so much bad tv in the lead up to my good tv highlights. It goes something like Judge Judy/Hollyoakes, America's Next Top Model. Yes I watch all 3 at once depending on which captures my imagination. I love when they critique the models. Then its Channel 4 News/More Hollyoakes, and any bit of ANTM that I missed the first time around (thanks to living+1 channel). Then I watch Veronica Mars.

I've only recently come to Mars aftter reading it about it over and over. And I like it. I like the Noir bit and I like the class bit and I was thinking last night how it takes a noir setting to do class politics in the US and then realised that Noir really has always been about class. That Chandler and especially Hammett were just doing the class thing and showing just were capitalism took you, particularly morally. And that all the modern noir practioners are just keeping to these old established rules. Anyway, I like Mars. I am not getting into Battlestar Galactica. I have better things to do. The H is wild about it. Absolutely wild. But I don't know if its because of the politics. May have to cross examine him.

Thursday doesn't end with Veronica though. Then we get Extras, which last night was laugh aloud funny (and it had Sir Ian McKellan with a great description of what actors do. They get the words from the script. They pretend). Followed by The Sopranos. I didn't think I would make it through The Sopranos last night because well, the night before someone in the house was watching Doctor Who and someone else got scared and talked about nightmares and cried and had to sleep in my bed so there wasn't necessarily a lot of sleep Wednesday night. But The Sopranos was excellent. Christopher went to Hollywood. And mugged Lauren Bacall. It was fantastic.

Friday is always a let down.

2006-10-10T01:37:00.000-07:00

He had style and panache and could beat Ronnie Sullivan. He many have been the most glamourous boy on the circuit.

So I went on this Hen Weekend

2006-10-09T02:12:00.000-07:00

It actually turned into a Kate mini-UK tour visiting old friends and eating raw fish (not nearly enough sushi restaurants in Northern Ireland). First it was off to London for work and a chance to check in on the tonester and see if he was adjusting to life in the seething metropolis London. Got a chance to check out another London airport, use the train, the tube and the buses, eat at a gastropub and then have a big disrupted commute to the offices. Then off to catch a train to Cardiff. Because though I had a plane ticket for a Belfast to Cardiff flight, I was in London. So off to Paddington. And Yo! Sushi. What can I say, I love conveyer belt sushi. I love watching the stuff go round and round, debating whether I wanted another dish of raw tuna. And I like the little spigots of fizzy water. All you can drink. Hopped on train but didn't go to Cardiff. Got off at Bristol to spend an evening role-playing. No, not like that. A game. A game set in the 1919's American College and had an evil Babylonian spirit that was taking over people. I was hoping to commit a murder but ran out of time. Next morning I woke up in Cardiff (after staying up until 3 am drinking Welsh whiskey and talking). Off to hear the bride give a lecture to year 1 and 2 medical students and then visit Ikea. Then other hen participants started to arrive. And more Japanese food! At Ichiban which was fabulous. Some people stayed up very late but I head off to bed at 2 am. Then it was Saturday. Full hen-party. More guests. A big breakfast. Off to get hair done. Bride spent over an hour at the Clarins counter getting her make-up done. It was brilliant. Drinks and nibbles in hotel room, then dinner, then the club. The night we were there, Miss Kitty and Miss Dazzle were performing. Their verdict? One of the hens says, that the drag artist(once he had changed & was ready to leave himself) came over to the 'girls' in the feather-boas (apparently the last to leave?) & congratulated us on being the best/most-classy audience he'd ever had!! - What a claim to fame & surelythat will be a talking point at the wedding. That would be us. Considered classy by drag queen's in Cardiff.

Cardiff is a lovely town with great shopping. But my is it rough. I haven't seen that much blood in so short a time in ages. Sirens, police cars, man with blood running down his face, another man walking quickly with hood up (only to put it down when he got 100 meters in front of us and the police). Police coming into the pub and questioning people. Bar fight at Minsky's. Lots of punches a few good kicks. Bouncer blood-stained. Cardiff, go for the shopping, avoid the town at night.

Is This the End of Civlisation?

2006-10-09T02:03:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to blog. I have a good two serious blog posts running around my head (one has drag acts and blood and hoddies in it!) but I just read this in the Guardian and I am desolate. Open 365 days a year, there are no holidays at Tower. I remember breaking up with Tony after christmas break, freshman year at UCLA. The break-up happened in The Apple Pan. I believe the conversation went something like this:

"I guess this means we're breaking up"

"I guess it does."

"What do you want to do now?"

"Let's go shopping at Tower."

After-christmas sale. It was paradise. But then Penny Lane opened in Westwood Village (selling used vinyl!) and I became more of an Islands kind of girl.

2006-09-12T02:10:00.000-07:00

I know I owe the blog some posts. Stuff about drinking bottles of rum, reading a great novel, what is up with the Blessing. But I saw this and thought about all the reasons we should not get involved in the pony scene. But what a thought. I'd love to be that mother.

2006-08-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

I know I am coming late to this, but here are my five quotes:

When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.
Anzia Yezierska

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Mae West (1892 - 1980), Klondike Annie (1936 film)

Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness.
Author Unknown

Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.
Hannah More, 1775

It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1950)

Of course Simone is there.

2006-08-21T03:05:00.000-07:00

Its time for another Blessing post. She is starting to golf. I know, I know. It isn't my idea. Trust me. But the grandparents got her a set of clubs. Then she went out on the driving range (something about being able to hit 90 yards...I have no idea if that means anything) and the next thing you know, she and the H are going across the road to the 9-hole municipal course after it closes. Sometimes Jasper the cat goes too and chases the golf balls. Anyway, then she was getting blisters so now she has a little golfing glove which was worn to bed last night.

It gets worse. I think we will be starting riding lessons in the next few weeks and well, the H is wondering if we are reading to get an actual piano to help out with those lessons. I don't know how she managed to get so middle-class. Soon she will need a double-barrelled name.

2006-08-16T02:01:00.000-07:00

And Americans doubt global warming.

2006-08-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

I don't think my schedule is going to mean I have time to make it to the tournement this year. Which is sad as now it is ranking event. Might have to look at my weekend plans. Despite this, I still find time to post to other blogs about snooker! And the Villa new?!? Like hearing UCLA are going to the rosebowl.

2006-08-11T01:55:00.000-07:00

I am about to make a confession I am sure to regret. And yes, it will show me in a horrible selfish light. But the recent arrests in Britain and the grounding of all those UK domestic flights? Its practically my ideal scenario.

See I am going to the 'rents for the holiday this year. The H and the blessing are going to get tickets (if I can ever get Continental Airlines to sell me a ticket. Don't even ask me how much their website sucks, how bad their customer service or why I hate them) but as I will also head westward for some time in So Cal, I am going to fly stand-by on a buddy pass. I've done this before. It always goes horribly wrong (I've been taken off planes, been told its too hot and that the plane can't take the stand-bys and their luggage and then there was the time that the caters refused to deliver any food to any delta flights in atlanta) and well in order for me to get on a plane, there needs to be empty seats. So, I thought, a nice terrorism attack, involving planes, and the US and no one gets hurt! Well, then people get nervous about flying, more seats on planes and the next thing you know I am wandering around Sephora buying nail polish I will never use.

So I wonder, what it have been better to happen in November (people have short memories, they could be flying all over the place by December) or now so that they sort out the new security arrangements. I mean, how am I to travel without a couple of novels? And well, if you go stand-by you need a change of clothes and hair brush,. Cos gues what? you may not get on that flight and you are spending the night near the airport (yes, I have that story too). Let alone, how do you keep the Blessing entertained for 17 hours of travelling. This may be the last trip to the states for a long, long time.

2006-08-09T02:19:00.000-07:00

I know the sanctuary. I've been on tours there (after watching a friend race at Willowsprings) but I never knew who started it.

2006-08-07T04:05:00.000-07:00

Ah summer time, when I fondly recall my times at camp. And though I did attend Girl Scout Summer Camp in Virginia, I did not attend this one. I am however, quite frightened of squirrels. They can carry rabies and plague!!! Cute? I don't think so. Which also reminds me of the dead body in Yosemite story.

We (the boy I almost married and I) were travelling around California with some Brit-friends. We had done the Southern California beaches, Death Valley (the alternator on my car was going) and then up the mountains to Yosemite. We planned a picnic and had settled ourselves down with some Paul Mason wine (in the keep forever carafe) next to Yosemite falls. This was September and it had been a dry year so the falls were really a trickle. And the squirrels were aggressive! Harrying us for picnic food! We were picking up sticks and throwing them at them when the ex-boy picked up one and said, 'Look its a human jawbone. And it has teeth.' And you know it did. Three of them. One with a filling. So we, scoured the ground, found another piece of bone and then decided we should find the authorites.

Drove down to the visitor centre. Asked a uniformed park person on the way in and they suggested we go and visit the museum and the archeologists. We weren't sure this was the right place so we went up to the information desk. Waited patiently. As the park employees bitched about something or another. Finally, we were allowed to approach and we put our bones out on the counter.Their eyes got wide. Phone calls were maid and a ranger with a gun showed up and asked us to take him to where we had found the bones. We did. We didn't find anything else. We theorised who it might be and he said it would be a winter project to try and identify the body. They might have a chance a they had some teeth. Don't know what ever happened.

Might explain my CSI jones.

2006-06-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

I was actually looking for the phone number of a salon to get my hair cut when I came across this. Though I am disappointed that there aren't any photos, I am sadly excited that Susan was born in Whitehead. I never knew.

2006-06-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

Look! Its Sammy!

2006-06-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

Is it wrong of me to like this blog?

2006-06-19T01:58:00.000-07:00

I suppose it should come as no surprise to anyone that I am already worrying about the Blessing's next one (its in October). Should I organise games? Should we do it at home? Get a bouncy castle? Invite all the girls in her class?

2006-06-19T01:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know I don't post much anymore. Thinking about what I want to do with blog. Until I make up my mind.... This is a story for Pansy. And a little Blessing blogging. I may have mentioned that she swallowed the pound coin. That there were x-rays (only because there were grandparents in the house!) Well, the pound coin has re-appeared. It took a little over a week. I won't give you details about the finding of it (though it was a lot more straightforward then you think. Biological matter managed to get flushed down the loo, heavier monies, managed to sit there looking big and black). The interesting thing about it is how it looks. Like it has been chemically blasted. If the digital camera was still working, I'd post a picture.

And she is my child (not my sister-inlaw's) as she now watches CSI with me. The H is not thrilled because it is leading to conversations about murder. How do guns kill people? How do knives? Who is the murderer? You know the stuff. I am kind of pleased she watches CSI with me but this could be bad parenting.

2006-06-07T02:40:00.000-07:00

I so wish this had happened while I was at school. Paper skeletons would have been so cool. And learning to fingerprint.

2006-05-25T05:15:00.000-07:00

The H's nightmare comes true!
We have got a kitten. I think I need to re-download picasso to put up photos of Jasper up. He is grey and fluffy with stripes starting to appear. He is pretty quiet, really likes people and is going through his so active I will chase my tail phase. The blessing and I are delighted.

The H isn't that fond of cats. Or animals. But he is living with Jasper, who likes to climb up the H's leg. However, what really upset the H was the Blessing saying in the pool Monday night that she was a Man U supporter. He thinks he has straightened her out. I am just hopeful that one trip to casulty later, she is going to stop putting money in her mouth because she might swallow it and then worried grandparents will insist on x-rays. (I figure people swallow ballons of heroin, surely little girls can survive swallowing pound coins?).

2006-05-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

My parents will be heading back to the states tomorrow. They have been over to look after the Blessing and well, my father has built me a gym. Today he may be painting me a wall. Anyway we are off to a local pub (which is going to be pulled down and replaced with holiday flats) and I think I will order some of this man's oysters.

2006-05-18T23:55:00.000-07:00

I had this roommate at University...
That isn't strictly true. I had a roommate at university (who I loved! Except for killing my plant she was perfect) and she had a boyfriend and he threw Gor Parties. No, I never attended any. But as I did seem to spend an inordinate amount of my adolescence in the local library which wasn't that big, I suppose it isn't a complete surprise to say I did read a bit of John Norman as a teenager. The whole Kur thing never seemed that believable of a plot device to me. And well the sex thing was never really adequately explained if you ask me.

2006-05-05T03:49:00.000-07:00

Reading about Elvis makes me feel slightly less shameful about being chased by a waitress into the parking lot for not leaving a big enough tip. We were starving and broke students. Who went for the martinis.

2006-05-04T02:59:00.000-07:00

So I am now 40. And though I don't feel 40, I am beginning to suspect that I am becoming middle-aged. Went to a tropical island for my birthday. Managed to get sunburn on my sunburn despite repeatedly applying sunblock and sitting in the shade. No, I did not stay out until 3 am merenguing or bacchating or whatever. Instead, I found myself wandering around and looking at the trees. This was my favorite tree. And yes, I smoked a cigar on my birthday. A vanilla flavoured one.

2006-05-04T02:54:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me this. I suppose on the plus side, the people I know may have placed but at least they didn't wear matching shirts!

2006-04-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think I shouldn't blog about the Blessing (who spent a lot of easter in her pink bathrobe, wearing a pink bunny mask, hopping and delivering chocolates in a basket. no I am not making this up. she also kept stealing rosebuds from the MalMaison in Belfast and tangoing) and think I should talk about the politics of the day! And no I don't mean that there are still no new trains on the larne line (except yesterday when the old trains got to take revellers to and from Portruch. There was an altercation in the station when I was leaving. It was exciting). But bigger politics! Like I want to boycott South Dakota or what about that stolen ferrari or this really creepy story. Check it out Pansy!

2006-04-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me.
I know it isn't for a good 23 days but my first birthday present to me has arrived. Its wonderful! I am particularly taken with the bloody mary charm, though I still don't drink things made with tomato juice.

2006-04-03T02:23:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it, I fell for this. But then I don't like Coldplay. And I have come to the conclusion that the Black Eyed Peas have no redeeming qualities.

2006-04-03T01:51:00.000-07:00

Film Club --April Addition

I know, I know, I am giving people no notice, but Film Club! Tomorrow night (its the first Tuesday of the month) and I am going to go and see Inside Man at Dublin Road at 10 past 6.

Why Inside Man?
Its a Spike Lee Joint (and I love Spike Lee, not quite my favorite film maker but definitely in the top five list).

It stars Jodie Foster and Denzel Washington (I've had a crush on both those actors at different points in my life).
And it has Clive Owen, who is my current actor crush.

Its a heist film. And though really and truly I prefer my heist films to come from David Mamet (though I have strong postive feelings about Kubrick's The Killing), I am more than willing to see what Lee can do with a caper film. And it should have the traditional Lee politics!

2006-03-28T07:41:00.000-08:00

I think I am having a second adolescence.

I don't know if it is because I turn 40 in a month but well, I think I am really trying too hard at being a teenager. Today for instance, if you were in Glasgow Airport, you would find me, sitting at Starbucks with my over-priced silly coffee (3 quid for a coffee! Jesus, Mary, Joseph, that little donkey and half a village but this civilisation needs to decline!), headphones on, music blaring, doing my maths homework. Yes, I appear to have woken up to the fact that I need to sit my gcse's in a couple months time and yes, I should do some revision. Oh and did I mention that I would much rather contemplate the concept of 18 year old boys then work on solving questions involving triangle numbers? I think it is a major case of trying to pretend I am not grown up.

At other moments these last few weeks, I thought I was coming to terms that I have become a sad adult. It all boils down to music. It started last week with The Cure's 'In Between Days' came on my player and in an instant I was back at LuValle commons, in the sun, waiting to meet Tone for lunch. Its lead to a frenzy of on-line music buying. Not that I have managed to fill the player up. I have a Rio. I got a 1GB sound card for Christmas and I still haven't filled the thing. I don't seem to find 'Trane could commuting music (though I do need to add more Billie to it).

So, I look at the state of my player and I can't tell if I am trying to pretend to be with it or if I am just trapped in my past. On the current trends, I do have my Muse, Magic Numbers, Arctic Monkeys, Killers and Strokes (I have an abiding fantasy about meeting up with Brandon Flowers in a parking lot in Vegas. But then I also have a fantasy about meeting Dave Grohl in the Coral Reef Lounge too). But on the whoel stuck in the 80's I have a great deal of fun with Camoe, Elvis 'The King' Costello, Joe Jackson, X, B-52's (my favorite band from Athens GA, as if Michael Stipe has ever produced such danceable music as 'Your Own Private Idaho). I am not sure where I stick Green Day or The Futureheads (particularly Hounds of Love), but at least I have a spring in my step though I do not believe I will be getting an A* in that exam.

And I screwed up The Guardian Soduku.

2006-03-22T05:53:00.000-08:00

Am I just completely self-indulgent?
I don’t buy the whole horoscope/zodiacal thing (I can just imagine the reaction of H the physicist if I did) but I do sometimes wonder if I am really, deep-down inside just a complete taurean (yes that means I have a birthday soon. Its for 40. I don’t know how I got so old). I mean my life just seems to be increasingly centred on pleasure. My everyday activities are changes to be more pleasurable. I seem to spend money on things like nicer bottles of wine, higher thread count sheets, tropical holidays.
For example, take the pens I use. I am picky about the pens. I only use certain pens. I figure writing should be a pleasurable activity and if that means I have to buy my own pens at work, so be it. And actually this is what happens. Surely if I was a rational person I would just write with a pen? Right?

2006-03-13T03:40:00.000-08:00

So people who could be curious can see what my commute in the morning takes is!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imageglenbourne/105842944/in/pool-northernireland/

I know if I was smart I would be able to just show the image but I can't. Anyway, that is the Whitehead train station. I don't cross thr bridge. Unless I was going to the yacht club for a drink. Not that I darken their door much since the boat I was learning to sail on capsized (turned turtle) and I worried about the cold water, the small life jacket, the jellyfish. Abandoned sailing lessons soon after that. Nice people though.

2006-03-02T03:45:00.000-08:00

I am not the only one who tortures the Blessing
It was film club this week. We saw Good Night and Good Luck. People liked it more than Munich but I am not sure I agree. There may have to be an emergency film club outing to Grizzly Man because I work with someone obsessed with bears. There was a good story in yesterday's LA Times about bears in Monrovia (hanging out in pools, eating avacados) but I am too lazy to link with it. Anyway, at the same time the H made pancakes with the Blessing. Who wouldn't eat them. But he also spoke to her about Lent and maybe she should give something up. He suggested tomato ketchup. Which upset her. She pointed out she loved ketchup and well couldn't she give up her scooter for 40 days. Yeah, he's a good presbyterian.

2006-03-02T02:54:00.000-08:00

Let's go poke the skeleton in the closet (or doing things that make my mother(s) shudder)
I don't know who my birth father is so I can't even have this experience. If anyone has any good advice on how to find out who a birth father is, when the birth mother says she can't remember the name and well that the name isn't on my birth certificate, not that I have seen my birth certificate, why would I need to see that. And I don't know if I need to know the person. But I do wonder if there are a bunch of me's out there in the world. But I don't know how to find out.

2006-02-21T03:09:00.000-08:00

I've always said that one of my regrets in life is that I never grew up to write an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Well, I suppose this means there is still an option of writing vampire fic. I am just not sure I could take the whole creature of the night as romantic hero seriously (and I can't write serious to save my life) and well, what if the fans turned on me?

2006-02-15T05:37:00.000-08:00

So I am thinking of changing my theme tune
You are probably thinking, 'what, kate has a theme tune? since when?" I've had a theme tune, Loca De Amour, since the late 1980's. I blame Mark Illsley who played it for me and said, "I think of you." 'Like a pizza in the rain, no one wants to take me home.' That is me. I was heavily into Demme until well, I started watching Sayles and all.
But I was happily listening to a little 'trane last night and thought, "you know what? I think I need a new song. I think I need "Lush Life". Its a great tune. I love 'trane. And well, who can resist a line about 'jazz and cocktails'.
So, no my listening pleasure isn't all about the Arctic Monkeys. Though "When the Sun Goes Down" is so good, I don't know what to say.

2006-02-13T04:05:00.000-08:00

More Effects of 'The Sims'
The Blessing wants to go camping. She wants to sit around a fire, toast marshmallows and sing songs. Yes, this is a direct result of playing that game. And its sad. There is no culture of camping here. In particular, there is no culture of sending small children off to the forest to make imitation leather wallets, eat horrible food and tell ghost stories. Which is sad, I think. I always like camp. Liked the songs. With the actions. "Little Rabbit in the Woods", "Little Rabit Frou Frou", and "Percy the Pale-faced Polar Bear".

2006-02-13T01:30:00.000-08:00

I suppose I've always thought of Dick Cheney as America's very own Peter Robinson and this does nothing to dispell that belief.

2006-02-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

I was going to update people on my cultural life
How Film Club was going. What I thought of Munich. Books I am reading (I was annoyed by the ending in The Time Traveller's Wife). But no, I figured I had a much more important issue to discuss. The morality of the town I live in.

Alright, town is a bit of an exageration. Its a Victorian/Edwardian seaside resort with a train line that currently has no trains (though the chief executive of translink has assured me that will change.) When I first came to this part of the world, I thought it was a town filled with the elderly. A kind of Florida version of Northern Ireland. Now, after moving there I hear tales of debauchery and such. I have learned to accept that it could very well be a hub of drug taking. I can envision the youth, eating those magic mushrooms and looking at the sea. I can kind of stretch my mind and think, yeah maybe a bit of acid.

I draw the line at wifeswapping. I simply refuse to believe that Whitehead is a awash with key parties. I don't care who is willing to lay money on it. It isn't happening.

2006-01-23T03:52:00.000-08:00

I confessed here that I am quite, quite frightened of those big underground aquariums where you watch the whales. Its still not a reason to move inland. They may have culture. And strippers but I know about those winters too.

2006-01-18T07:06:00.000-08:00

One of the few points that the H and I have argued over.
Of course I have parental guilt. And now something else to feel guilty over! I wanted the Blessing to go integrated. First, I was accused of not wanting her to mix with working class children. Then when we moved, that it would be too difficult and the local primary that the H went to is just down the street...Actually, my in-laws might have started divorce proceedings if I have sent the Blessing somewhere other than the local primary. Still, it may have been the wrong decision

2006-01-18T03:57:00.000-08:00

More on that summer vacation.
I saw the ‘gay cowboy movie’ at the weekend. And I kept thinking, what kind of self-respecting man in Wyoming herds sheep. I grew up with my father making quite violent threats about sheepherders. I can’t ever recall him mentioning homosexuals. I suppose I still can’t quite here him say, “You know where I come from, we hang homosexuals.” Which is pretty much what he said about people who associated with woollies. Lamb has never been inside his house.

Still, seeing the film did make me think about what I know and/or feel about the Midwest. Particularly as the last trip to the great plains really shook some of the beliefs I had held since childhood. Yesterday, someone I worked with asked if Valentine Nebraska was Hicksville in the back of nowhere and I had to admit how taken I was with the house the family reunion was held in.

It belongs to cousins of my father. The kitchen was like something you would fine in a Williams Sonoma catalogue. Huge island, complete with a second sink. There was a lovely garden room where they had a monkey puzzle tree that was over 30 years old and they kept with through all their moves. It also housed their citrus trees who moved indoors and out, depending on the season. Downstairs, in the basement, was a closet kitted out and stuffed full of serious red wine. And the little office had bookcases filled with the kind of books you see in the New York Times Book review, popular but also literary, all in hard back. I kept wandering around, thinking I could live here. I want this. Oh, how I want that. I didn’t think I would ever envy someone a life in the Midwest. Or that, I suppose, you could live such a life filled with my bourgeoisie niceties.

The night before the reunion we did go bar hopping in Valentine. I’ll admit it. I learned to drink in the Midwest. First time drunk, the summer a cousin got her older brother two purchase a couple bottles of boone’s farm for us. Indeed, one could argue my first experience with cocktails would be the summer of the ‘hop, skip and go nakeds’ (you can email me for the recipe) and unrequited crushes on blonde life guards. However, I have never been to a bar in Nebraska before. The H wanted to go. My female cousins (who I used to drink with, underage) wanted to go. Even my jenny jones male cousin (he of six children by six different women) wanted to go. So we went.

We were nervous. We found a bar. We looked in. The Jenny Jones cousin was like ‘I think this is a stripper bar’. And yes, there was a little tiny stage. We got a round of drinks. Cheapest round I have ever seen. We sat down. Halfway through them, a girl said, ‘drink up, it improves my act.’ Ten minutes later, she is up on this little tiny stage, naked, writhing. And then all but begging for money. Strangely enough we left after the first drink.

Next bar, down a side street. We go in. There are only two other people. We get drinks. Not as cheap as before. We start to play pool and pinball. My aunt and uncle join us eventually. After much pool, we leave to go to the bar with the karoke.

Out on the street, my uncle we had pointed out that we had been to one of the two ‘Indian’ bars in town. This would explain the artwork and the patrons,

So when end up in a place with karoke and dancing. And it was packed. So much that when somebody went back to get more pitchers of beer, all the pitchers were in use. The H did sing rugby songs on the way home.
The next morning we told our tales and asked, a bit incredulously, about the strippers. Did Valentine always have strippers? I believe my father muttered something about that bar being owned by so and so and he always brought in his girls from Lincoln and Omaha. I don’t know. I didn’t know that the Midwest survived on cheap beer and well naked women.

2006-01-18T03:46:00.000-08:00

I don't know how to express how disturbed I am by this.

2006-01-13T02:24:00.001-08:00

I had a brief moment this morning when I thought, 'I'd vote DUP if it meant getting new rolling stock on the line." And then I realised that no, I can be bought that cheap. But I would like trains running. And I would really like new trains running (they are faster! really, a lot faster!) ANd if translink tries to charge me more money while running 30 year old stock, well, I will think that is a declaration of war.

2006-01-13T02:24:00.000-08:00

I got my 1GB memory card for christmas (hurrah!) and let me tell you I am having a hard time filling up the player with stuff I haven't already put on a card. But I may have a new outlet. I am definitely going through an Artic Monkeys phase. Perhaps it will be more of a Killers phase than the Muse one I went through.

Can't stand James Blunt though. Don't know if I dislike him more than Liam Gallagher.

2006-01-05T04:20:00.000-08:00

Oh, Oh, Oh, a post about my child.
I believe I mentioned how the Blessing did not get a roboraptor for Xmas (though M&S were selling them at a much more reasonable price on Dec. 27th). But feel pitty for the poor child. She did get a planetarium, a book of sodoku puzzles, an awful lot of dinosaurs (who are currently not residing in her bed) and a kitchen chemisty set. She and the H are now looking for biological washing powder and a cooked egg white. I am a little concerned. Because of the space top trumps cards, I did catch the H explainig circumference and diamters of circles to her and then asking how many radiui there were in a diameter. The child hasn't a hope not to grow up a geek.

I am pleased to announce she is also becoming a pedant. At the afterschool club, a little boy announced he was friends with everybody, everyone in the world. The Blessing asked him if he was including all the children in Russia. I like to think those are my genes shining through. A dogged insistence on fact. And recalls an unfortunate memory of 6th grdae. We ran a small business and were thinking up advertising slogans. The teacher suggested "Save your damsel from distress, come to the sale at..." And my fellow sixthgraders asked the man what a damsel was and because he was a big proponent of peer learning, told them to ask me. I told them it was a fish. Because it is. The kind Finding Nemo is. Of course, it was also a woman and I did know that but I couldn't resist, even then, the opportunity to be difficult and pedantic all at the same time. Any wonder I was a social outcast during those teenage years?

2006-01-05T03:05:00.000-08:00

Things I have learned/decided so far in 2006.
The postman reads my mail! No, really, I thought the postman reading people's postcards was just an unfair stereotype. But I went to the door yesterday in the hopes of receiving my mother's Christmas parcel and there was the postman reading the back of a postcard of San Fransisco. He handed and over and added, "You get the most interesting postcards. There was one, of a golf course, seen from a hotel window. It was beautiful". There you go, Blessing's godmother, making my postman want to holiday at the Wynn.

New Year's resolutions--well, I do believe in them after the year I decided to like Guinness and wear lipstick (only one of the resolutions stuck) but I do try to find well, slightly quirky ones. I also resolved several years ago to read a classic every year (that would explain The Illiad in all its blood and glory) and I don't think I made it this year so I do have Conrad's Nostromo wandering around my bag and will finish it before the end of the month. Thinking about Proust as the classic for 2006. This year's resolution? I would like better posture. I slouch too much. I could also use a new pair of brown shoes but I don't think that really counts.

I am also of course, following all new year's traditions, on a diet. Day 4 to be specific. The eat lots of cereal but no real food diet. It appears to be working. I have a headache and am cranky. And I bought a new scary scale that weighs to the quarter pound. It is going down. My strategy is to just keep trying diets. Must keep at each diet at least 2 weeks. I am allowed a 24 hour free period before I must get up and try the next diet horse. Should be fun for all!

2006-01-05T02:41:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year.
I am pleased to see evidence that God does exist.

2005-12-22T02:12:00.000-08:00

First off, Happy Holidays everyone.
I may blog again before the end of the year. I may not. And I don't have a problem with wishing general happiness to all holidays. Just think, tomorrow is Festivus. And I also, living somewhere that still has a legacy or two from Mr. Cromwell, realise that the Christmas tree I got a post about earlier in the week (it isn't a holiday bush or a something or another things but a CHRISTmas tree) is a great big pagan symbol. I like pagan symbols. Could explain my fondness for leafy green men.

But the H wanted to get this for the Blessing for Christmas and I said no. Reading the article, I wonder if I made the wrong choice. But should one buy a daughter a toy that will scare them?

2005-12-21T07:02:00.000-08:00

I need to work on public persona
It is the season of giving and office parties and well, secret santas. I tried to get the office to move away from Secret Santas and improve the chances of people getting stuff they liked. But no, tradition prevailed and this might explain why I am now the proud owner of a furry purple alarm clock with feet and deely-boppers on its head. And if that isn't frightening enough (had to avoid the use of the pun 'alarming!'), when I show this thing to people they say, "Oh that's so you!". In what alternative universe?!? My alarm clock, I have several, is either,

a small portable one easy to stick in pocket when running for a plane.
one with a radio so that I can listen to the farm report at 6:45 and wonder what a hoggat is and whether the price is up or down
or a Michael Graves designed, art decoish, Target purchase.

All these, I would argue, are me. Purple fur, not so much.

2005-12-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

Its Sunday Night, so it must be paranoia time.
We are well into the christmas season by now (yes, I had all my shopping done before the 1st of december) and we have started the whole festive entertainment schedule. School pagents, work dos. The H wanted to have the neighbors over. Which didn't fill me with glee as I have had stress dreams in which the neighbors are all having a party and I am not invited. So, he planned, invited, cooked, etc. and I had stress dreams. 2 in the 24 hours before the party. And it all went well. The food was excellent. I made mulled wine--the first batch had cognac in it before I ran out of cognac. I discovered our damp problem is universal. The builders need to put more insulation around the garage and that everyone hates a lot of the children in the neighborhood. The blessing won't play with the local kids and after her last birthday party I am learning to trust her judgement when it comes to other children. But my big question/paranoia now? Well, having a party meant we had to get the tree up. So Thursday we went to the garden centre and picked up a douglas fir. Obviously dead, after last year's distasterous 'I want a tree I can plant in the yard' experience. I am in to work on Friday, getting the lift up with a co-wage slave muttering about getting my tree and she said, 'I suppose you get a real tree.' I nodded and she continued, 'I figured you were a real tree kind of person.' And its bugged me ever since. What is a real tree kind of person? how am I obviously it? I mean I do wander around singing let it snow and have a favorite christmas song (eartha kitt--santa baby) which brings me to another questions. Not just why am I a real tree person but does anyone know where I can get a copy of Miles Davis Blue Xmas, a very close second to my favorite christmas song. I used to have it on volume II of the Best Christmas Album inthe world. But that cd has been eaten in the depths of time. Most of the other stuff, I have on various crooner/easy listening christmas cds, but no Miles and I do love Blue Xmas. Don't get it confused with the Willie Nelson song. This is an entirely different kettle of fish. Christmas, bah humbug and bring on the kitsch!

2005-12-09T07:28:00.000-08:00

I got an email from an old friend out of the blue.
Asking me if he should take a job in London. And well, I didn't talk about bacon but I did try and explain how I felt about living in the UK.

Should you move to London? Well, that is a very big question. I suppose I need to ask is it a job you would like? Is it a permament move or would this be for several years? How does the rest of the family feel about this?

I quite like London. But I am not sure these days I could live there. Its a great big city. Very crowded and very cosmopolitan. But I love living in the UK. Why? Tony Blair is my prime minister and is likely to be replaced by Gordon Brown (who I also love). London is run by red Ken. I find myself following American news and getting more and more confused and alienated by what happens in the US. I don't think I could ever move back to the states (notwithstanding that I'd like to take a year out and go there so that the blessing can experience american schools and culture for a year).
What else is great about the UK? Can I talk about the NHS? I don't even think twice about health insurance. Sure, I may not have all the technology american money can buy. For day to day living, the NHS rocks. Cheap dentists too.
When I am too long out of the UK, I go into withdrawls from the Guardian. Serious lefty newspapers. Serious news. Can I just now talk about how much I love Channel 4 news (and not just for Jon Snow's ties?). I think American are willfully uninformed about their world. I don't watch endless updates about missing blondes. In fact, I love British TV. Less ads (none on the BBC's), great films, admittedly I see the American shows later but I like my tv. I find myself listening to BBC Radio 2 these days and that scares me, but oh well.
Can I mention that the Brits don't work as hard as yanks? I get 30 days a year holdiay time. The office will close down from Chistmas to New Year's (and no that doesn't count as my leave). I get an extra 5 days a year parental leave. I don't take that if the blessing is sick. If the blessing is sick, I take dependent care leave and that just exists. The H and I benefit by having the first £50 a week each costs of childcare untaxed and we don't pay national insurance. Its a good benefit and it just happened.
I'd say to anyone, move to the UK. Work under UK conditions.
London? Well, as I said, its big, its crowded. It ain't cheap. Now you might be okay. You might find London prices are like Bay area prices (I don't know). Or you may find yourself an hour out of London on a commuter line, spending time on the train in the hopes of having a bit of a garden. London is extremely multi-cultural. I think this is a good thing but it isn't the picture of Notting Hill. But London has buckets and buckets of culture. All types of culture. It is also easy to get from London to all sorts of places in Europe. You could drive to France every summer and spend two weeks in the sunshine eating great food and drinking ridiculously cheap wine. I like the English. I like their sense of humour. You will get a lot of stick for being a yank. And they drink more than Yanks do (not as much as the Irish) and well sport will be entirely different. And the Olympics are coming. I don't know anything about the schools. I think it is a bit like the states. You want a house in an area with good schools.
If the job was for less than two or three years, I'd say why ask. I think exposing people (particularly children) to different cultures is a great thing to do. If it is forever or for as long as you can imagine, I will tell you it can be hard being an ex-pat. The older I get, the more I miss my family. I don't have the friends here that I had in California. I like the freedom of being an exile but at the same time, culturally I can be all alone here (very excited that a canadian has started in the office and wow, it is just wonderful). It will be easy to get from London to either LA or the City (not like trying to go from Belfast to South Dakota--my parents hate me). And you will go stateside at least once a year if only to buy things (trust me). But I made the move (admittedly not to London) and I wouldn't go back (well, let's say it would take an awful lot of money to get me back into the states, an awful lot of money).
Hope this helps (though I suspect you know what you want to do either way),

2005-12-02T01:50:00.000-08:00

This never happened to me
I suppose everyone else is linking to this. But it is such a great story! Alas, my days at UCLA included nothing like this, despite my rather serious crush/obsession I had with my Marxism TA (he had the coolest shoes, was blond and did a lot of speed to pass his comprehensives, what wasn't there to be attracted to?). He also had less an office than a broom cupboard. Which was the same situation I had at W&M. How did they get into the office? That's what I want to know. And, hey, I thought that is what dorm rooms were for.

2005-12-01T05:49:00.000-08:00

I suppose it is an perfectly relevant rebuttal to yesterday's story.

2005-11-30T03:29:00.000-08:00

I am not quite sure why I am linking to this story.
I'm not. But I read it. And well it made me think about a couple of things and a couple of people and well, I think we will leave it at that, shall we?

2005-11-30T01:17:00.000-08:00

Please explain to me why everyone confesses
Tony Hawk was on last night's episode of CSI: Miami. How cool is that? I still hate David Carusa. And I always think that if I were a defense attorney I would have to hit these people who confess when confronted by, at best, circumstantial evidence and always even give away motive and/or pre-meditation. Who are these stupid criminals?

Have I mentioned this year how fab Crooked Timber is?!? Look Susanna Clarke is on it. Even cooler than Tony Hawk getting murdered in Miami.

Actually sent to me by somebody at work

2005-11-29T01:45:00.000-08:00

Actually sent to me by somebody at work
Just wanted to make that clear. In case anyone wanted to cast aspersions on me for making fun of my host country. I like what happens when you hit the 'arse' link.

Oh and thanksgiving went well. I got to use the two most dangerous kitchen tools. The mandolin of death (to make potato gratin) and the blow torch to carmelise my lemon creme brulees. I was quite the bourgeous American and all the recipes (except the spicy pumpkin soup which comes from epicurious) came from one of my favorite over-priced kitchen shops. Though I shouldn't say that, I got a great set of nesting bowls there years ago and it is still one of the best things I have ever bought for the kitchen. And now that you can buy white peach juice in my new opened and exciting tescos (have I mentioned my weakness for their incredibly cheap cashmere jumpers?), this year's holiday cocktail is the bellini.

I don't know if I am back

2005-11-18T04:08:00.000-08:00

I've lost my muse. No, seriously. This is where I have to admit sad, friendless, geek tendencies. I belong to an internet rolepaying game. No, I am not going to tell you which one. Or what bad sci-fi/fantasy novels it is based on. Nope. I am keeping my dignity (or a little bit of my dignity intact, thank you very much). And well, I havne't been writing there either. And I have commitments I am supposed to be making. So, I'm not writing there. I am not blogging here. Its all gone wrong. Even the new exciting computer at home doesn't make writing seem attractive.

And actually, a new problem has emerged. The Blessing has discovered The Sims. Notice it isn't even The Sims2. This morning, as I was getting dress, she appeared in the bedroom to ask if we could start up the game and buy some furniture. It is a bit too complicate to play all on her own. So if she is awake, I am supposed to be on the computer, building castles, letting her decorating tastes run wild. Its all a bit disturbing.

2005-10-11T04:39:00.000-07:00

I am not quite as technologically together as I like to pretend
Three months later, winter has set in and maybe I will tell some of my favorite moments of my summer holiday. Now, one of the highlights of going to South Dakota was the gift of a digital camera and one of the reasons to invest in the new computer (whose sound works and has a lovely flat screen, but alas my age of mythology won't play) was the idea that we could play with photographs. I had visions that I would post up a few photo. Maybe a picture of the chocolate fountains. Or the mammoth bones. Or the raccons viewed from the canoes as we wandered down the Niobrara. But well, if we wait for the the photos of the trees on fire, the tale will never be told.

And well, my father is insane. He has been insane more or less since he retired before he wanted to. I can hear you saying, no Kate, your father isn't insane. Listen, I went through that period where he went around with the hand strenghtener device, exercising his hands because he planned to climb up some frozen waterfall in the rockies. Mad as a hatter. Lately his madness has taken the form of defense of George W. I mean the man emailed me and asked me to vote Republican! What child did he think he was talking too? I mention this only because last month he sent me an email blaming some of the problems of New Orleans on people staying behind in their houses. I resisted the urge to remind him of my memories of this summer.

We went out for dinner. By we I mean my 'rents, the H, my aunt and uncle and no blessing. The blessing stayed behind to be looked after by 16 year old cousin. Before we left, my mother asked if it was okay for neice to babysit, mentioning niece's training in first aid, experience, etc. I did think that despite her habit of wearing black, neice could be more trained in looking after the blessing than me. So we go out to eat. Steaks. It was South Dakota. Lovely steaks. That night there was a bit of a thunderstorm. So we eat too much, drink some wine, have coffee. Then head back to the house. The 'rents live about six miles outside Rapid City. On the road we get passed by a fire truck. Then we get passed by another fire truck. Then we can see the smoke. And we talk about the fire being in my 'rents' development. And then my mother starts getting worried. "Tell the firemen to let us through. There are children in the house!!!" We get to the house. The niece is a bit freaked out. We can go out on the back deck and look at the fire in the trees. Actually, upon pulling up in the driveway, I wonder outloud if I should grab the camera, my insane father admits that's what he is doing. And I think, why should I bother, he will get better pictures. So he is out with his tripod when the sheriff comes by and asks us to evacuate. Will my father evacuate as asked? Don't be ridiculous. He is staying to defend his house. Watering down the deck. The H decides to stay too as part of some masculine solidarity. We grab the cat, the family bible, the children and my mother's locked box of papers and head into two. Two hours later, the fire is out and we return. A house did burn down. It was kind of exciting. And well in times of crisis, no one in my family has the least bit of sense.
Now if only I could upload the pictures.

2005-10-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

I am back. New computer at home. Trying to reconnect with my life. I see Ma broom is back but I need to update the link. Pansy just seems content to never blog again. And I don't see the blog this button on my google tool bar and I am not happy about that. But more later. All about Lost, which scares me and maybe I will finally tell my summer holiday forest fires and stripper stories.

2005-08-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

Snooker! In Belfast!
Who knew. That's all I am saying. But once I found out...
Yes, I took the afternoon off work, made my way to the Waterfront, plopped down seven quid and there I was. Watching Matthew Stevens and Ken Doherty, while Jimmy White was on the other table. My is Matthew just intent on making bad hair choices. And if he thought that attempt at a 147 break meant I was going to forgive him for breaking my heart and not winning the world championship this year, that boy has another coming to him. So, Matthew wins, despite the bad hair and the young lad dropping his snooker cue down the steps. Then it was why I had really come. To see John Higgins. John got thrashed. You think I woud be disappointed. But it was Mark Allen's second professional match. Now the boy needs to think long and hard about his safety game. When he misses a shot, he just isn't getting the cue safe. And he is fearless (though occasionally reckless) but could he pot!?!?! I know I will be watching him on tv for years to come. And well I saw him there, doing big things. Looking pretty. Wow.

I also Mark Williams (following in the Ronnie O'Sullivan hair style path) and Alex Higgins. Alex wasn't playing of course. Strangely enough, it appeared I was the only single woman in the place (no, I know I am not single. There is the H. But I was the only woman at the snooker on her own. There weren't a lot of women. Mind you. And the rest where with at least two males. And then there was me. Wanting to heckle Stevens for breaking my heart. Losing to an evangelical. Always a bridesmaid. Never a bride. My memory is long, Matthew. Long).

And well, exciting new fun with lego.

2005-08-17T02:36:00.000-07:00

So one of the workmates has returned from their long holidays. And they tell a fascinating story of a cable car in West Cork. The sheep and cows get prioritiy. There are prayers about death and dying in one of the corners. And yes, there is still a bottle of holy water. Just think, tonight I can watch the next episode of Lost. Do you think the plane will crash again?

2005-08-16T02:10:00.000-07:00

Can I just add a paean to bacon?
I mean I love American bacon in its own way but if I had to choose between a life of American bacon or a life of Irish bacon, well I suppose it isn't the reason I live in County Antrim but it is a reason I do love an Ulster Fry.

The H actually accused me of going so native that I might be ready to join the TOGS. I don't think so. I just no longer shudder in horror every time I hear Terry Wogan's voice. Ah, and the cricket. I find the cricket pleasing in so many ways. I can't really explain it.

2005-08-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

I Don't understand why their are polar bears on a tropical island.
And well it is making me rethink the whole what I want to do for my 40th birthday. I thought I'd like to go to a tropical island. What if the plane crashed? What if there are bears? What if there is a heroin addicted ex-hobbit?

Meanwhile, this story just reminds me too much of my last Delta flight from Atlanta to Dublin. Is it any wonder I don't like to fly?

So I need to talk about the travels. No, really, I should. I have lots to say about gender. And not all of it revolves around strippers. Of which on this trip, there might have been more strippers than praire dogs. And this surprised me. I wasn't planning on looking at naked bodies. In fact, I can say in one instance, I really didn't want to look at naked bodies. I actually wanted to watch free HBO. But well, tomorrow I might have more time to do these stories justice. Oh, and I must remember about the sheets!

2005-08-01T04:20:00.000-07:00

Some people have too much time on their hands.
I don't think I linked to the site that had recreatated the 'Thriller' video but it was amazing. And now comes this! Which reminds me, I need to check how my ebay bid for an Egyptian ballon set is going.

2005-07-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

What happens to expats? Do they drink themselves to death?
So yes, I spent three weeks in the bosum of my family. It was quite surreal, surprisingly enjoyable and has sparked a number of questions in my mind. First, a little background. I grew up on the coasts. First Virginia, then California, then Virginia and then California then there was a year in grad school in Virginia. However, my father grew up on a cattle ranch in the sand hills of Nebraska. As a child, I spent a few summers and christmases with cousins, amongst the windmills and the prairie dogs watching relatives exchange recipes for chokecherry jam and pickles. I learned to drink in Nebraska while trying to chase a local life guard (my cousin was successful, I got to date the amusing, more intelligent, receeding hair-line best friend. who wrote for a couple of years and gave me a blackhills gold necklace for christmas one year. I think the life guard was bit more fickle). I floated down rivers. I spent a lot of time at the library and in basements. But I can't say that I would ever consider moving to the midwest.

My parents though moved to South Dakota a couple of years ago, tired of the high tax rate in California, moaning about the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter (yes, and they chose to confront this by moving to SD). They went there because it was close to family. Rapid City was big enough to satisfy most of their needs and not a proper city. I have resisted visiting but could only hold out for two years.

So we the family (me, the H and the blessing) got on a bus. Went to Dublin. Got on a plane (2 hours delayed) and then ran to get from one end of Terminal 1 to the farthest gate in Terminal 4 at Heathrow. Another family on the Dublin flight were at the gate discovering that they didn't have individual passports for their children and would not be making the family trip to Denver. Anyway, there were more delays. Then there was a missing suitcase and then about 24 hours after we started, there was a bed. Have I mentioned I hate travelling? I get some interesting obsessive-compulsive stuff going on with documents and my insides tie themselves into knots and well this time I am still in pain from last summer's fall and don't like to sit for long periods of time. But all in all, the travelling wasn't too bad. The trip was good. I have agreed to go back.

But I have been away too long. The US is weird. It is a foreign culture. All the cars are huge. The news is crazy (I don't care about the missing teen in Aruba) and well, I was surrounded by right-wing family. You should have been there for the discussion on the deck about pedophiles and why weren't their photos on the internet. As I returned (more almost 24 hour travelling) I had three thoughts swirling around my head that seemed to crystalise the feeling of disconnect I had.

1. Why are American obsessed with cleanliness? What are they trying to protect?
This became apparent in Las Vegas as I was hanging around friends. One who never seems to use public restrooms and the other who always uses those paper toliet seat protectors. I just don't understand the point of it. You don't get the little paper guards in Europe. And you certainly don't get the push button operated electronic plastic rotating device that I found in Neiman Marcus. You had no option but to protect your tush. I was talking to one of my friend's about it and she remarked that I didn't use the little paper guards and that I must be brave. Then thought, perhaps I had experienced quite an adventure in toliets. I don't know that I have. Though I have fond memories of the H on a beach last summer followed by four little girls, only two clothed, to find a restroom. He found a public, enclosed, hole in the ground. They wouldn't have anything to do with them.

2. I don't get the music.
In particular I don't understand why The Killers had to create a new video for All the Things I've Done. What was wrong with the last video? Why the cowboy suits? Why the neon graeyard? I do not understand.

3. Whose bright idea was it to show The Day After Tomorrow on a plane? I mean, really. Particularly after a nice bumpy ride on a very little plane from Rapid to Denver. I did not need to watch that. And well I missed the end of Man of the House because the plane landed.

Later I promise to blog all about Las Vegas, strippers, and well men being manly!

2005-07-22T03:14:00.000-07:00

My dream house.
Really, I have been lusting after it for years and years. Even before I moved to Whitehead. I am not thrilled with the kitchen and I can't really afford it. Not unless the 'rents plan on pitching in some money so they can have a holiday apartment.

Yes, I am back from the states and I do plan on blogging about air travel, cultural differences, raccoons and strippers. Oh and men being manly. But not today. Today is jetlag day.

2005-06-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

Exciting night, last night, at my house.

Okay, I lie. No excitement here. I do laundry, perhaps think about cleaning, talk about plants, and then take a nap. I like naps. But anyway, last night, what excitement on TV! Season finale of 24. Now, I will admit to watching season 1 and 2. Then it switched over to SkyOne and I couldn't commit another 24 weeks so I missed season 3. And somehow got dragged into the whole thing for season 4. Which just pushed past all sorts of credibility. Why did that woman try to kill President Palmer in the first place? And that isn't the question that really bothers me. I thought the first time that they captured Marwan (at hour 19 or so before Audrey's husband dies on the table because Jack has succcessfully invaded the chinese embassy--what isn't too love?), Jack shot him in the leg. I thought he went right up to the boy and put a bullet into him beacuse a) Jack was angry b) he wanted Marwan to know he meant business and this was the beginning of the pain that could await him and c) to sort of keep him in place. Now, I'll admit I don't know how Marwan escaped but I am good with that. Need him to escape, still have hours to go, etc. etc. And besides Marwan is the Mummy and thus should have some special powers. But how does he get to be running around without a care in the world a scant few hours after the shooting I swear I saw. Then again, Jack shot him last night. In the ankle and well the guy wasn't going to get out of that. I suppose I am a little disappointed that there was no romance between Chloe and Edgar but then she could kick his ass and just about anyone else's at CTU. And the new president? What a weasel.

Also watched (just tiny bits of ) Pimp My Ride UK. And well, it is just like the Guardian said. Mechanics who have been attacked by hairdressing students and a lot of gel and the guy that have being half Xzbit and half the head guy at West Coast, oh, he could give me nightmares. Urban slang with a huge helping of east london. ooooh. spooky. I will watch it though. Much like I watch CSI:Miami. Because it makes me hurt.

2005-06-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

Do other people wonder that someday they will be arrested for murdering their spouses?

So the H gave us all a big scare last night. He, in an attempt to prove how buff he is, has taken up running in a big way lately. Last night he tried to run the Lisburn Half-marathon. He ran the first 9 miles last night very quickly (he describes his second mile as suicidially fast) but started running out of energy after that. He struggled on. At mile 13, he had nothing left. He could see the finish. He collapsed about 200 yards short of it. He was walking. He says he started walking backwards and then just collapsed back ala Paula Radcliffe. The ambulance people came and scooped him up. They were happy that he could talk but they still kept him there, put him on oxygen and worried about him. Someone else collapsed closer than he did. He says several diabetics collapsed and there were a couple of heart attacks. He thinks he didn't eat enough that day and ran out of energy. He thinks the combination of not enough food, muggy night, too fast running, and the hill that the course ended on, all conspired to rob him of his finish.

He was angry that he hadn't finished. That he had to walk. But I think he has now switched to the 'I know how far I can push my body so that it collapses! Aren't I tough/amazing/cool/whatever that I can ignore pain and sense and make my body collapse!'

Last night I got the 'you remember that hill Jacky told you about?' I work with Jacky. She is running the New York marathon this year. She did the Belfast one a few months back, I think she is running Dublin. I asked her if she was running Lisburn and she told me no. She hates the hills. Lots of hills. And then at the end, you have to go up a big hill. So, I am like'yes, I know the hill.' And the H says 'it looks innocuous.' And I am like, No. That isn't what Jacky said. It isn't innocuous. He doesn't think it is now either.

This morning it was 'if only I had eaten another banana, I could have finished the race.'

Some day I may have to kill him.

2005-06-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Bad me, bad, bad bad me.
So yeah, up to the ears in work so no posting. And it isn't like I haven't had the urge to rant about too much Oasis on VH2 or the fact that I read a great blog entry on how boring Coldplay is (the H likes them what can I say) or the fact that I did go and see the latest Star Wars. What a bad film maker that George Lucas is!
And for those of you who are vaguely interested in the train wreck that my family can be, Yes! The sister has shacked up again with the man who may or may not have laid hands upon her child but most definitely used the kind of language that I would never allow any man to use in my presence (because I am a boot-wearing feminist and I don't do that kind of stuff) to describe her daughters. Strangely enough this had lead to all sorts of depression in the people she is related to. And well, I haven't even had a conversation with the children to see what they might think about all this. Makes me happy I live on an island, separated by the sea from all the madness. No trips to Wales for a long time to come.

Oh and the slugs have been doing all sorts of horrible things to my plants. Eaten all my parsley leaves. I had just bought four new parsley plants, but them in and then desolation. The H has started revenge by leaving containers of beer lying about and the suckers are drowning all over the place. I just don't know if should plant more parsley or indeed what to do with the herb garden. Its divided into eights. And really only the oregano and the chives have taken off. The mint looks like it may be about to do surprising things. The sage struggled on but is just a few leaves on a lot of stalks and the thyme is a bit hit and miss but at least the slugs are leaving it alone. I stuck some lavender in a pot and it is growing all over the place. And I really would like to grow the thyme and the parsley and I am wondering should I abandon my clay like ground and retreat to containers or should I just buy more plants, stick them in the ground, in the hopes someday they will survive?
I hate gardening.

2005-05-26T02:35:00.000-07:00

Yeah, Liverpool won some cup. Yeah, those second three goals were something else. Not that I saw them. No, because the H and I are turning into our in-laws. He was in one room (the room with the bad tv) watching the football (lifelong Liverpool supporter, I am a kind of interested but only so I can contribute to the conversation Aston Villa supporter. Too many years of mid-table obscurity can suck the life out of you.), I was in the big room with my lovely big tv with sky interactive not watching mtv but instead the Chelsea Flower Show. It was so like my in-laws. And I am so young!!! Oh the humanity.

2005-05-25T02:21:00.000-07:00

So I'll admit it, like watching MTV. I do think it is intereting that you so rarely see videos on mtv anymore. It is all their reality shows. Ah, I do remember my youth and a resturant in Westwood that was downstairs and had tv screens showing mtv. And I would go and eat and watch. Back in the days when I would either stay up or tape Friday Night Videos on I think NBC. I know, I know, I am dating myself big time.

I now have Sky. Which means I have like 25 channels of video goodness. Though I am a bit saddened to see that channel Q has disappeared. And I find that when I have ten minutes to kill between the start of a programme I want to see (like CSI or 24), I will scroll on over to the endless music channels. Far too much Oasis on VH2 for me. The Gallaghers are not rock and roll geniuses. They aren't. Anyway, that explains how I came to be horrified, and I do mean horrified by a show on MTV sunday night. My Super Sweet 16. The girl spent half a million on a party and well to become the more popular in her school. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Of course, it also explains what I was doing wrong all those years ago in high school. My heart still belongs to Pimp My Ride. Yes ridiculous but you can still use that hot air popper even when your friends have moved onto some other car with even more dvd players. Ma Bear sends me news of how wide spread its influence has become.

2005-05-18T04:12:00.000-07:00

So the Girls' Brigade wants to ruin my life. The Blessing is in the Brigade. Has been since she was about three. I think it is entirely too young. I also don't like all this marching around and talk of god (being a supreme being person myself. think the term 'god' is just too gender specific. yes, i have been told than since i am denying the unmistakeable maleness of the supremem being that i am doomed to burn in the fires of hell. i am okay with that). But the H, loved being in Boys Brigade. Loved the drilling and uniform inspection and the bible quizes and what not. So he wants the Blessing to have that same opportunity for fun and well off she goes on Thursdays to play with the other little girls and march.

Anyway, several weeks ago it was the GB dispaly and all the girls did things (tricks! with tamborines! and skipping ropes!) and then they handed out the prizes. The Blessing left in tears because she didn't win any prizes. I tried to point out all the prizes she gets in schools, etc. etc. No dice. She wanted a cup. When she went to the golf club one night for dinner with the grandparents, upon leaving, she pased the trophy case and burst into tears. She thought about not getting cups at Girl's Brigade.

And why is the child not excelling at GB?I blame me. First, she doesn't get all of her Sunday School points because well, I have to be dragged kicking and screaming to church. So, any chance to miss and this is a family that takes it. Then she doesn't get all her uniform points. Her shoes aren't white enough. I didn't sew her badge on in the right place (last year, I got the wrong badge). In general, I don't think I know enough of GB to know the pitfalls and get what I need to do for her. And well, I think GB is like the presbyterian nazi youth actually and I don't want to take the time to get it right. Its the H's thing; he can deal with all the added bits. So, I let my child down. She's 5! She isn't going to excel at uniform and church without active parental involvement. I hate the GB. I hate it.

But I do love Pimp My Ride. Best car ever last night. It had hawaiin print and a hot air popper. Oh, how I want that car.

2005-05-06T04:33:00.000-07:00

I am sad. Sad, sad, sad. Lucky is no more. Yes, I know I am a bad cat owner. It just seems to cruel to keep cats locked up in a house. They want to wander about. I know its all my fault.
Lucky has always been pretty much a stay at home cat. He would go out occassionally but not for very long. In the last month or so, he has really begun to appreciate the great outdoors. He would either go out in the morning and be out all day or he would spend the day in the house and then at night, out he would go. Standing by the door and meowing. I think he had a little cat friend. He wasn't getting into fights. Was losing the occasional collar. He did return into the house on Saturday morning covered in mud. I don't know what he had gotten into but he was filthy. Which meant that yes, I gave him a bath with a little bit of shampoo and a whole lot claws.
Wednesday night he watched tv with the H and me (he sits on one person and sheds a lot and gets petted and purrs then when he gets bored of that he walks to the other side of the couch and does the same thing with the other person). I watched Desperate Housewives with Lucky and then he got up and meowed by the door, I opened it and told him to be good.
Thursday morning there was a lot of sunshine so I woke up before the alarm clock. I didn't here any meowing. Lucky is an early riser. When he sleeps in the house, he sleeps upstairs. As soon as he hears anyone up, he starts meowing outside the door because he's lonely damnit! Lately he has been developing his meowing technique. He knows if he meows outside our bedroom door, we ignore him until we are ready to face the day. The Blessing is an easier touch. He can meow and wake her up and she will then come and open our door and aha! cat victory! He can jump on the bed and meow into our faces. When he goes out at night, come the morning he is at the front door, full of noise and ready to come and inspect his food bowl.
I was a trifle disturbed by his absence that morning. But I thought maybe he was having too good a time. As the day went on, I thought more about it and was more worried. When he had disappeared before, it was because the Blessing had shut him up in the chest of drawers (missing 24 hours that time) and I knew because I had let Lucky out, the Blessing couldn't have trapped him anywhere. When I got home yesterday evening, he wasn't waiting at the front step or in the back and I really started thinking the worst.
The H arrived home and called me into the kitchen. The neighborhood kids had told him that the builders had found Lucky, most likely struck by a car, and they had buried him. I am catless.
He was a good cat. He was noisy but always gentle. He never scratched the Blessing even though she shut him in drawers and closets, put him in buggies and baby cots, dressed him and tried to get him to wear jewelry. He liked to sleep on the tv, he shed white fur everywhere, he didn't understand why he didn't get Ben and Jerry's ice cream, he was extremely affectionate, loved people and occasionally climbed up the chimney. He made me feel complete and I loved him.

Sad, sad, sad.

2005-05-03T01:20:00.000-07:00

Gutted.
I can't believe my lovely welsh-speaking boy was beaten by a cherubic god-fearing christian. Matthew, I fear is destined to always be a bridesmaid.

I think I may be watching too much CSI. I know this is what they have been saying in the office for months. But last night I had my first full-on CSI dream. And it was a CSI:NY dream. It followed on from last Saturday's episode in which it was all about the boy with the glasses and how he was involved with the Tanglewood Boys. I wish I could tell you the details, the plot twists, and the gory bodies, but I can't remember it now. I suppose I should just be happy that I haven't had any snooker dreams. I blame the BBC. not enough snooker coverage. And well, I am madly in love with Dennis Taylor. He has a lovely soothing voice. He'd be excellent at cricket coverage, I bet. Ronnie though appears to be losing his grasp on reality. Did you see his interview on why he shaved his head? And who is this Paxman guy, complaining that his coverage doesn't get precedence over the snooker? He needs to get a life.

Well, I am back to being bored senseless by the election. Don't care. Don't care. Don't care. Sammy Wilson came to my door thought. Freaked me out. I was playing my favorite computer game in which i am rampaging nordic hordes, invoking the power of Thor and running amock against greeks and egyptians. He didn't want to talk to me though. At first I thought it was because he could see how untidy my house was (the blessing's muddy, pink, wellies outside the door) and realised that if I was that untidy there was no way I could be a DUP voter. Then I calmed down and realised that the DUP surely know that as a former Alliance candidate, they don't have a hope in hell with my house. He did spend ages across the street admiring motorbikes. I do regret not using my chance to tell him that his election posters make him look like a bnp candidate. No, really. I don't get why he was shot from that angle.

2005-05-01T02:52:00.000-07:00

So much to say. I am going through one of those phases where I feel like I want to blog about all sorts of things. Like the Girl's Brigade. Northern Ireland elections. The opera on Friday night. But well, we have reached the final stages of the embassy world championship and I think I should blog about snooker before it is all over.

I really do think it is Matthew's year. I felt that when Mark Williams got knocked out by Sean Murphy (who is just too young to win). First, I think after the grand slam, its a good time to be Welsh. And second, Matthew has finally got rid of those ridiculous blonde highlights. I've been a fan of his, since he first arrived on the scene. Shallow that I am, I fell for him because of his shirts. He has lovely red dragons on his cuffs. And while I supported Williams because he was Welsh, I could never warm to him after learning he hates cats. He also likes fast cars and though he can pot like a demon, he took a few seasons to figure out tactically how to play.

So, I love snooker. I have for years. Though the early 90's is probably when I watched it the most. I love the BBC commentary. John Virgo has me in stitches, while Dennis Taylor is just so soothing. I suppose I find it intellectually challenging. Its all about angles. And physics. Knowing where the cue will end up and the shot not only needs to lead to a pot but lead to the next shot which should also have a pot. And then when you get shots developing colours, sever shots before they will be needed to be played! How can one deny the thinking that has to go into playing?!?

Which leads me to a fantasy. I always thought I should go on a gameshow, answer trivia questions, win prizes. Then I did the University Challenge thing and discovered that those bright lights freaked me out. No more dreams of cleaning up on Jeopardy (tried out for Jeopardy once. Met Alex Trebeck). But Gimme a Break would be different. The questions are really basic. You get paired with a snooker player who then has to make shots to get you prizes. I used to have my partner all picked out. It was going to be John Higgins who I loved in those early 90's. I know, I know, lots of people adored Ronnie. And he is an amazing player. I think he is snooker in its more raw and powerful incarnation. But I loved Higgins brain. He thought about his play and well, he looked like such a nice boy. Then Matthew arrived on the scene and I was stuck. Would I want John, who would be likely to pot lots of balls and win lots of prizes? Or did I want Matthew so I could ask for one of his shirts? Alas, they don't make the show anymore. But if they ever want to bring it back, I want to be a contestant!
Update: Yes, I now realise that the Gamewhow is not Gimme a Break, but actually Big Break. Yes, I hate Jim Davidson. I would still sell my right arm to go on it, play with Matthew and ask him for one of his shirts. How sad am I?