New Jobs

Aha! A toast to me. Raise my glass! I have two jobs now. I will be teaching in less than a month. It's what I've trained to do and what I want to do and I will be grateful to get back into the classroom. I applied for several full time positions teaching, but didn't get any, but I did manage to get some classes a a community college nearby. I'm trying to make ends meet by other means. I'm hoping that all the scrounging around for other jobs will actually lead in unforeseen exciting directions. Who knows, right?
I just got a part time gig writing content for a website today, which should be pretty exciting. I have to review various places in Nashville. I know this town really well, so it shouldn't be too incredibly difficult, once I put my mind to it, and you never know, it is a writing gig, so it could turn into something decent or lead to something I didn't even think about.
Still any way to make money doing something I love, however difficult it is, seems like a blessing right now. You have to pay your dues sometime.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Thursday, May 08, 2008 Free! Current mood: amused I was just trawling through the free stuff ads on Craigslist and I not only found a free house (for anyone willing to dismantle and move it) but also two free bags of dog hair. Wow. 12:35 AM - 3 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Friday, March 16, 2007 Where you're from My family used to host great parties. My dad worked mostly with English people, so although geographically, we had moved to America, my family still existed within an essentially English community. As I became an older teenager, the cultural differences of how the English and the Americans view teenage drinking and experimentation became more apparent. From about the age of fifteen or so, I was allowed to drink at home. Drink, I say, not get drunk. There is a difference. My parents believed that it was better I learn to drink responsibly and under their watch than go off to college with no knowledge of how to handle the substance, or, another likely scenario, sneak-drink behind their backs and off their property and risk getting in trouble, hurting myself or someone else. This euro-centric attitude was compounded by Orla, my best friend who lived down the street, and her family, from Ireland. Her family joined the already large group of people my parents' age constantly hanging out at our house. We had parties on virtually every St. Patrick's day. At the first one, although I was too young to drink, I was still old enough to dance and sing. I remember staying up until the wee hours, dancing to the Dubliners and the Pogues, wildly spinning around the room, locking hands with anyone who would join in. My mother and I sang Irish rebel songs, and Orla's dad, Len, I remember distinctly singing in Irish before I passed out with exhaustion. In later years, I invited my friends. The second legendary St. Patrick's day occurred when I was sixteen. All my friends came, a couple from high school, but at this point I was mostly hanging out with college people I worked with (I also worked with a couple of friends who were at school with me) at the bookstore. This night was probably the first time I got drunk - not enough for a hangover, but enough to get silly. It seems that somehow that era has passed. The English people my parents worked with have all moved away because the company transferred and my parents stayed behind. Orla and her parents moved to Caliifornia, and no one is left of the old crowd. New friends and acquaintances creep in and out of my life, but I remember my parents' happiness in those days - a young dazzling couple with lots of friends, and I think about how much life changes. 3:41 PM - 4 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, February 25, 2007 Who is a writer? As I sit here fruitlessly trying to work on my thesis, I am tempted to say "not me." I always find that I spend more time procrastinating and worrying about what will eventually make its way onto the page than actually putting things down. I know, from everything I've read, that I should just write,write, write my brains out and worry about the consequences later. Then I should go back, weed through all the crap I've written and then fashion something perfect and beautiful from that first horrible try. Sometimes it doesn't work that way for me. I'm trying now to revise the lit review chapter of my thesis, so I'm not even confronted by the horror of the blank page, like I usually am, yet I still am afraid to get stuck in and get started. I know, from years of experience, that once I do start, I will be fine. I will write and it won't come out half bad. What is so terrifying about the act of writing that it takes me so long to actually get up the nerve to do it? I think it's like diving in a lukewarm pool. You know that the best way is just to dive in, get your whole body wet at once, and you know that the worst way is the sit on the edge of the pool all dry in your swimming costume tepidly dipping your toes in the dreaded water, but yet that's what you do. I'm supposed to be writing for a living. I'm supposed to like it and be relatively decent at it, but I still experience this sense of stagefright every time I have to write (or even revise, it seems) something important. Am I afraid that the muse will desert me and I will lose all grasp of the English language? Am I afraid that I'll write something so terrible that people will tell jokes about it five-hundred years from now? What is my problem? If anyone has this figured out, I would love to know! 10:18 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, November 12, 2006 How can I not talk politics? Yeah, I voted against Amendment 1. I'm one of the 19 percent. I'm just going to come out and say it. I have a friend who centers his class around politics, but I don't like to bring them into the classroom, at least I don't like to impose my views on anyone else in that particular setting. However, it is difficult for me sometimes to keep my mouth shut. I have specific reasonings for voting the way I did. I studied the constitution in middle school (when I first moved here - it was all new and fascinating to me then) and then in more detail in AP U.S. World History, with Ms. Bayrd, a phenomenal history teacher. I know it, inside and out, even now, because I recently had to study for the citizenship test. There's this thing in it called separation of church and state. It is one of the pillars, one might even say the keystone of the entire constitution. Someone said to me recently that the constitution was based upon Christianity. As much as I loathe to get into a religious argument, I can safely say that is not true. Most of the "founding fathers" were actually Deists, children of the Age of Enlightenment, who believed in God, but a non-interfering God, one who set the clock running and let it tick, leaving humans to maintain it for better or for worse. The principles of the constitution are based upon humanism - a new concept spawned during the Age of Reason, that man himself is responsible for his actions towards other men. Hence, the quote about your rights stop at my nose. Many of them had been victims of some type of religious persecution (or their families had) and they were not about to perpetuate that in the new country they set up. I kept this in mind when I voted. One day I would like to get married. I wouldn't like anyone to stop me. I wouldn't want anyone telling me I couldn't express my love for another human being in any way I see fit. My right to get married does not give me the right to deny this to anyone else. Because someone else gets married, my right to do the same is not affected. I don't care if gay people get married. It doesn't affect me. It just makes them happy. What right do I have to determine another person's happiness and fulfillment. Are we not ALL guaranteed that by the constitution? Does not the Declaration of Independence, the document declaring war on my home country, clearly state this - that EVERYONE has the right to "life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness" Folks (yeah I'm borrowing BUSHRHETORIC), I hate to tell you, that doesn't mean that CERTAIN people have that right and others don't. That means everyone, whether you agree with their morals or not. Sorry. To argue from a different direction, amendments taking people's rights away historically don't do very well anyway. It used to be illegal in much of the South for a black person to marry a white person, and God forbid they should go to the same school or sit on the same seats on the bus. Oh, and as for toilets! When people try to fight progressivism, I go back to Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis and their pictures of child labour in the late 19th and early 20th century. Who would condone that (in this country at least) now, but in that era, the idea that it was cruel to children was radical and progressive. Change happens. Deal with it. I go back again to the separation of church and state. There is a reason this exists. People here of all political bents like to give examples of theocracies run by dictators as evil enemies of democracy. If we are championing Christian principles only and using them as our defense in law, even if Christians are a majority, are we not doing the same? Should we all be required to wear crucifixes the same way many middle-eastern women are required to wear burkhas? I would like to remind you that only two of the ten commandments are against the law in every state and federally - murder and robbery. But in fact, I know of no religion that sanctions either of these things. That's as far as the Christian link goes. Yes, we do all want to be good people, but we have law to govern these things. Law is for all of us, religion is a CHOICE. And I don't appreciate people trying to make my choices for me. I am an adult. I can make them for myself. I'm sure my views might piss a great number of people off, but they are my views and I have a right to them - it's that pesky constitution again with its right to free speech and all. 9:06 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Tuesday, September 26, 2006 Good Friends - thanks! Sometimes I go through life focusing on the bad things. I don't think about anything that's going right in my life. I'm like a doctor doing a physical, looking for anything that could turn up wrong. But when I think about it, I have many very tangible things to be grateful for now. Life, for the past few years has been stressful, very stressful. Up until recently, those stresses seemed unproductive at best, but even those stresses lately have paid off. I spent years trying to hold other people together through what seemed like the worst of times, and now, those people, because of my efforts, have told me what that meant and how they are able to do it on their own now. This has meant more to me and my sense of self-worth than I could have imagined. A more concrete example is my experience in graduate school. I went back to school with no expectations whatsoever. I just took undergraduate classes. I wasn't looking to make any friends. I just wanted to find some direction in my life. I bought a house, worked for my dad part-time, and went to school. I had no intention of taking that any further. I had a wonderful teacher for 20th Century Lit. who inspired me, the numb, cynical me I had become, to try and be something more. Her skill in the classroom, her knowledge of the subject matter, and her way of inspiring a conversation rather than dictating the subject from on high inspired me to be like her (I hope someday I will). The thought started rumbling around in the depths of my stomach - maybe I should do this. This started around February of 2004, but I quashed it. I dismissed it because I had already screwed around so much in school that the thought of going back for another two years seemed so far-fetched. I kept taking English classes and almost every experience was a good one. Even the one that wasn't (18th Century and Restoration Lit.) turned out to be good because the teacher I had, although he wasn't a great transmitter of the knowledge he possessed, I later found out, had only good words to say for me, in an ultimately influencial way. I decided, kind of last minute, to apply for graduate school. I didn't know what else to do with myself at that point. I was enjoying school so much, I didn't want to leave. It had been a saviour for me in so many ways. The dean of graduate studies I had had a class with, so I knew her, and could personally talk about my application with her. I took the GRE and apparently aced it, although I didn't really expect that either. I got into graduate school and started in January. I took a couple of classes that radically changed my interests and in a sense paved the way for what I'm studying now. I didn't have an assistantship that semester, so I took three classes. The jump from undergraduate to graduate didn't seem that huge. I applied that spring for an assistantship. I didn't think I would get one, but the secretary in the dean's office kept trying to persuade me. "You won't regret it," she said. I took her word for it and applied. I didn't get one right away. I was put on the waiting list and during that time, I interviewed for other positions in other departments, including one in Developmental Writing. The news came through in April that I had an assistantship in the English Department. It seems it's always the way that good news comes with bad. My life in other areas was going terribly, but I knew the monumental nature of this, somehow. I didn't realise how much it would change my vision of what I do, and my life. My work in the writing center and the classes I took that first semester of my assistantship shaped what I wanted to get out of my graduate degree, and what I wanted to put into it. I had gone into it thinking I wanted to study the interaction between art and literature of the Lost Generation, but I quickly got drafted into the Composition and Rhetoric camp. I had taken Computers and Writing that first semester and didn't realise until later that I would ultimately fall under this division of composition and do my thesis in this area. Sometimes you make unconscious choices that you're not aware of the import of until later. The point I wanted to make is that yes, school has changed my life, but it's not just an academic journey. I didn't expect to make friends. I live in Nashville and I drive to Murfreesboro every day. I thought I would have work/school there and friends here. I thought you had to look for friends. I was mistaken. They sought me out. I have become very, very, very good friends with one of the people I met in my film studies class. We started talking because she reads tarot cards and happened to mention this to me while we were working in the writing center and she did my cards then. Yes, really good, close friendships can happen over such things. She has been through many upheavals since then and so have I, but I am grateful to have met her so unexpectedly and to have become such close friends. I have also made friends with many other people at school, people who I am drawn to, and them to me, for sometimes initially academic reasons, but whom I have come to rely on to survive day to day. Their friendship has seen me through. A couple of girls sought me out during orientation that year. They made a special effort to become friends with me and to invite me out whenever they were doing something, to include me in their group, outside of school. All of these girls have become, amongst other things, trusted and valued mentors to me, and have helped me navigate the sometimes tortuous roads of graduate school. Not only that, I have had the opportunity to get to know all of their idiosyncratic and wonderful ways. I say all of this because it was such a surprise to me initially. I honestly didn't go to graduate school for the social opportunities. Last year, I thought about this all the time, but as I've settled in, it's become second nature to see and talk to people every day. But I think about it tonight and realise it's something extremely special. I don't want to be that person who goes around thinking this and doesn't say it. I'm lucky. I know I am. I am graced with wonderful people in my life who have been my friends, both professionally and personally, and I just wanted to say how much this means to me. So all of you out there who read this, you know who you are: thanks. 11:01 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, September 24, 2006 Girl in the Cafe I've had this movie sitting in my house for about two months. I ordered it from Netflix because my mother kept bugging me to watch it. It's easier to just order these things when she tells me about them because if I don't watch them, she'll keep telling me about them until I know the whole plot and her critical analysis of it and it's not worth me even watching them. So I ordered it and forbade her to say a word until I watched it. If you've seen Love Actually, the guy who plays the aging rocker plays the main part. He's a finance minister for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He's older, sad, and overworked. He meets a young, very attractive girl in a cafe on his lunch break. She's Dianne from Trainspotting - you remember ("too young for what?"). They start a very strange, undefined relationship and he asks her to accompany him to Iceland, where he's going to participate in a global summit. Up until this part, the movie has the potential of being very dryly funny (in that classically British way), but after the players arrive in Iceland, it begins to take on a different quality. You laugh and you cringe and you don't know what to think. I'm still not sure what agenda this movie had, if it had any, but I am still thinking about it tonight. It's quirky in the way many British movies are - kind of an enigma - and I always enjoy that, even if I'm annoyed that a movie is making me think too much. Currently watching : The Girl in the Cafe Release date: 06 September, 2005 10:15 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Radio Free Claire All week, during my many hours spent in the car on Interstate 24, I have been listening to what I have dubbed Radio Free Claire. My ipod has a shuffle songs feature, which for someone like me, with my listening habits, forces me to listen to new music. I tend to find something I like and listen it to near death. I get obsessed, hopelessly attached. I suppose I am a music romantic, or at least a serial monogomist. I have over 2000 songs on my ipod. Some of the albums I have uploaded, I have listened to maybe one or two songs and never really given the rest of the album a chance. I have a habit of buying many many cds at once, especially if I go to Ireland, so it sometimes happens that I buy an album and never really listen to it. However, I have found that if I upload these albums and set my ipod to "shuffle songs," I am often surprised by what I find. It's kind of like listening to a radio station, but one that has a good chance of playing stuff I actually like. (I promise, one day I'll write the radio rant - it's bubbling up inside me, waiting to come out, simmering in a horrible cauldren). I've made a few musical discoveries this week, thanks to Radio Free Claire's rotation. I've discovered I like The Shins, for one thing, and also The Vines. Radio Free Claire also sometimes plays marathons. Today for example, it was All South, All the Time Day. That was fabulous and just what I was in the mood for. How on earth did they know? It's like those DJs at Radio Free Claire are reading my mind! Currently listening : Adventures in the Underground Journey to the Stars By South Release date: 04 April, 2006 2:13 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, September 17, 2006 I Hope I'm Not Going to Die Current mood: cynical I ate spinach yesterday, with macaroni and cheese and barbeque sauce. It might sound like a weird combination, but don't knock it 'til you've tried it, especially if you buy the Bob Evans Macaroni & Cheese that's currently on sale at Kroger. Earlier in the year, I reread Fast Food Nation and it convinced me to stop eating meat for about 7 or 8 months. Recently, the grossed-out effect has worn off and I've been eating meat again. One of the things that really put me off was the breakouts of e-coli that happen and are often hushed up by the meat packers (who are so minimally regulated that it's scary, very scary). But it seems that even vegetarians aren't safe, especially those who try to get their iron from plant-based sources. Spinach is an excellent source of iron, but it is currently being recalled because of an outbreak of e-coli. If you want to know where the e-coli virus comes from, it's shit. That's right, feces. Now you could drive yourself nuts thinking about how and when your food gets to you in this industrialized and depersonalized society, and at some point you have to let it go, but really, hasn't it gone too far when even innocent spinach isn't safe? 9:26 PM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, September 10, 2006 Fried Chicken I have to agree with Hillary, screw "Chicken Soup for the (insert whatever kind here) Soul," sometimes, your soul is in need of some fried chicken. I've been a little down in the dumps this weekend. It's stress and a myriad of various other causes, but I haven't really been feeling myself. I decided that the cure for my malaise, the only viable band-aid, was fried chicken. As luck would have it, I called Stephanie and asked if she wanted to join in assuaging my very specific combo fried-chicken-and-mashed-potatoes-and-gravy craving. As luck would have it, and as Stephanie luckily knew, Cracker Barrel has a fried chicken breast dinner night on Sundays. Then I knew it was meant to be. I thought I'd eat this plate of heartstopping grease and feel guilty, "oh, I've ruined my healthy eating plans, blah blah blah," but no, I feel one million times better. It was absolutely delicious and just what I needed. Sometimes there's no other way - fried chicken. 7:00 PM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, September 09, 2006 Little Miss Sunshine I saw Little Miss Sunshine tonight and I laughed and laughed and laughed. It's kind of an almost dark comedy - medium grey on the comedy colour scale. It's not black enough to make you feel bad for laughing; it's too heartfelt for that, but it does have some great cringe for the characters moments. Basically, you take a child beauty pagent contestant, her wacky philosphy loving teenage brother, a father obsessed with his get-rich-quick self-help idea, a biker-drug ingesting grandad, a gay suicidal uncle, and her non-stick-shift driving mother, add a VW Bus, and take them on a roadtrip. And yes, the thing with the horn is true - it does happen, a veteran VW driver can attest to it. People in the theatre, including me, clapped when it was over. I highly recommend getting out and seeing it, even if, like me, it takes an act of God to get you to the cinema. Currently listening : Little Miss Sunshine By Various Artists Release date: 11 July, 2006

Friday, September 8th 2006

It's a Mystery Category: Parties and Nightlife I'll write this with a disclaimer: my brain is fried, deep fried in stress, and I'm forgetting things left and right. I got three text messages this week from Joe and Kat, who are apparently having a "totally rad 80's party" next friday somewhere in Bellemeade. I know the address and the time, but the problem is, I don't know who Joe or Kat are. I must have met them, because they have my phone number, but I've jogged my memory and come up empty. I'm thinking that Joe and Kat are friends of friends and someone else has invited me to their party. The phone number seems vaguely familiar, but I'm still coming up nothing. So, it's a mystery. If anyone can help me solve it, I'd be grateful. It sounds like fun and I love dressing up 80's style - it's so not me but that's what makes it fun. 5:12 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Wednesday, September 06, 2006 Who Am I? The itrip, the little gizmo that allows me to run my ipod through my car stereo, decided to stop working today on my way to Murfreesboro. This left me with two options: listen to one of the two tapes I keep in my car, or listen to the radio. You don't want to even get me started on my radio rant - that could be a whole separate blog, one which I have threatened to write in the past I think, so I'll concentrate on the tapes. The first tape, one I made a couple of years ago, before beneficent forces brought the ipod into my life, is called Wussy English Mix, but unfortunately today, instead of playing, made those ghoulish moaning noises that tapes make when they die. That left me with tape no. 2. I made it in high school, when I was seventeen. It has survived all these years, somehow, and has come to live in my present car, four cars on from the one I made it to listen to in. Here's the track listing so you get an idea: (From memory, so it's probably not all correct) Ode to My Family - The Cranberries Bang and Blame - REM The Man Who Sold the World - (Nirvana cover of the Bowie Song) Just Like Heaven - The Cure Standing Here - The Stone Roses Where Angels Play - " Ten Storey Love Song - " (what was I thinking - I hate that song now) Tears - " Bad - U2 A Warm Place - NIN The Song With No Name - The Pogues Don't Go Back to Rockville - REM Zombie - The Cranberries I wouldn't make this particular mix tape now, as a 28 year old woman, but I find it interesting that I can still enjoy it and I still really like most of the songs on it. The themes of my music have stayed the same and I kind of look at my seventeen year old self with a sort of wonder. I hadn't experienced much yet. I knew nothing about love - sure I'd had crushes and experiences, but I didn't know anything about love, real love, how hard it is and how it requires sacrifice (both romantic love and the other kinds). However, as I listen to these songs, I realise I must have anticipated that or intuitively known on some level what those experiences would be like and how they would make me feel. There are a couple of songs that still resonate deeply and I wonder if my seventeen year old self put them on there just for her future self. Did she know something I didn't? It's strange to have a musical snapshot of a person, who in my everyday life, seems so far away from the person I am now. I must have changed, right? I've had ten years, after all. Reassuringly, however, she doesn't seem so different to me. Sure, I'm a little less rough around the edges; I've accumulated some real cynicism through experience that my teenage self only tried to emulate, but essentially I can see in this tape the same structure that makes up the person I am today. And I'm relieved; I wanted to grow up, but not into a stranger. 9:38 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, September 02, 2006 Antisocial Usually I am energised by other people's company, but this weekend, I feel an overarching desire to be alone, to immerse myself in the things that interest me, to throw myself into work. I'm supposed to go out tonight, and I might, for a little while, but I don't really relish the thought. What I want to do is stay in and read, and read, and read. I've been blogging for the past hour or so for my composition class and I'm really enjoying reading what other people have posted and responding. I do it all the time on Myspace, but having a blog that is specific to one subject is different. It's easier to respond and relate when everyone is writing about the same thing. Back to being antisocial: I'm reading my Linguistic textbook with a great zeal. It's endlessly fascinating to learn the characteristics of language, not only my own, but others and how all the languages fit together and share similar traits, even if they sound nothing alike. I guess I just have my learning head on this weekend. I went out last night. I was in the mood for something different, so we tried on East Nashville. It was pretty quiet, which according to Red Door East's bartender, is pretty typical for a holiday weekend. I enjoyed Alleycat. People are friendly, down to earth and easy to talk to there. I didn't feel any pressure. I didn't feel hit-on, or the pressure to even think in that way. I just enjoyed easy conversation. I would like to go back when it's not such a quiet weekend. But overall, I feel drained by my lack of alone time. It's been a stressful week, busy and different, and I've had to try on new hats, which if not labour intense is mentally exhausting. I think I need some time alone to decompress. 3:35 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Monday, August 28, 2006 The start or the middle of something Summer of 1985. I was seven and it was perhaps the first time I had stayed up that late, the first time I'd been allowed. But it was a special occasion, a musical epoch: Live Aid. My grandparents had MTV Europe, very progressive for them, but it was really just so my grandad could obsessively watch Gaelic Football. My uncle and I watched the whole thing. I think we only left the room for tea, food and other necessities. My uncle John had his hair cut like Bono. As my Grandma said, "I think he wants to be that Bono." I remember watching U2's performance like it was yesterday. I remember the pure brilliance oozing through my seven year old skin, knowing how important this moment was in the history of popular music, knowing somehow what I was witnessing. I grew up in a family obsessed with football (soccer) and music, and in England, its surprising how frequently the two intersect. I heard tales from my mother of driving around listening to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars on 8-track. She explained that if you wanted to listen to a song again, you had to drive around until it came on again. Torture, I thought. This seemed so archaic when you had great modern technology like the cassette tape you only had to wait a matter of seconds to listen to that song, that temporary obsession, again. For my fifth birthday, my parents bought me a record player, and every Saturday my dad and I would go into town and buy vinyl singles. They were £1.49 each and came out of my pocket money. I had built up an impressive collection by the time we moved to America seven years later. Although many different artists shaped the music listener I am today, U2 always pervaded the background. It was always somehow the soundtrack. If I more actively listened to Dire Straits, Bruce Springsteen, and Queen, I more passively heard U2. It was always playing. My mother bought Joshua Tree the day it came out because Steve Wright, a DJ on Englands BBC Radio 1 played one track each day for eleven days before its release. She still thinks its their best album. I disagree. 11:09 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, August 27, 2006 It's probably a sin Shoelust. Shoelust is probably a sin, for which I should serve a hefty penance. Shoelust on a Sunday morning is probably even worse. I've been looking for shoes to wear with my suit on Tuesday, but I just couldn't find anything that was a little out of the ordinary. I swear that everything just looks like the same old shit. But then I let my fingers do a little walking - to explore what people who don't live in Nashville have access to. And oh my goodness, it's a whole different world. Here's an example: Seychelles .. Currently listening : Asleep in the Back [Bonus Track] By Elbow Release date: 22 January, 2002 11:55 AM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Annoyingness Current mood: annoyed My "currently listening to" is more a "currently would be listening to" unfortunately. I finally got around to buying Elbow's Cast of Thousands, brought it home, stuck it in my computer and my computer spat it back out. I tried again: same thing. Hmmmm. I put it in a normal CD player. It registered, did the thing where it flashes up the total minutes, but then didn't play. How annoying is that? Very, especially since I've been listening to a couple of the songs from it the past couple of days. I'm annoyed because I know I'll take it back, and Tower only had the one copy and I'll have to wait for them to get more. I haven't even seen it anywhere else, and I've been looking. That's just annoying. I was looking forward to putting it on my ipod and listening to it with headphones before I go to sleep. Oh, the minor annoyances. An addendum to this blog: Be wary of buying CDs from Tower. I took my defective CD back. The guy didn't believe me that it was defective and tried it himself, which didn't bother me. However, he complained about the number of finger prints on it, to which I said, "well it doesn't matter how many finger prints are on it now, it doesn't play anyway, which is why I'm back here trying to give it back to you." He then told me "I can't give you money back on defective merchandise because it's been opened." I said, "aahhhh, I see, I didn't find out it was defective until I opened it and it wouldn't play, hence displaying its defectiveness - sounds like a true retail catch 22 to me." the other guy behind the counter, not the supervisor actually laughed and the supervisor wanted to crack a smile but couldn't quite bring himself to do it. Maybe his face would've cracked. I now have to wait for them to ship me one from Opry Mills. Great service. Maybe I'm critical because I worked retail too long and that's not what I would have done to please me, but really I wasn't in the mood for a fight. I just let Tower do its crappy thing and I'll wait, patiently, like a good little customer. Currently listening : Cast of Thousands By Elbow Release date: 27 January, 2004 1:12 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Monday, August 21, 2006 Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam............ Current mood: amused I recently joined the cult known as the g-mail users. What attracted me to The G-mails was its mega capacity for storage, its chat (my friends are on it), its conversation based e-mail storage (this is really cool if you've never seen it), and its lack of advertising. The only advertisments it has are either a link above the inbox that is relevant to your e-mail or little sidebars that are also relevant. I was checking in my SPAM folder and saw this link above the list of messages I was about to delete: Spicy Spam Kebabs Intrigued, I clicked and found an actual food recipe. I don't know if it was a computer generated association of words or a clever play. Either way, We were amused. 9:29 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, August 20, 2006 Sundays are the business! Current mood: relaxed I said, as we drove around Hillsboro Village with the top down on my car, "We still smell like Grimeys. Its a potent combination of used records and incense." We went to an in-store show there. The band put on a spread of bagels and fruit, and best of all, bloody marys. It was fabulous to spend a Sunday afternoon listening to music in a crowded record store, standing amongst the racks of cds with fellow music junkies. Ive not really listened to Lambchop, but Ive heard songs here and there and always liked what I had heard. Once I get a bloody mary, it is inevitable that more will follow. We went to Boscos and Noshville, where I sampled one of each. I have to say that Noshville won. Then I came home and took a nap. What a good day! Currently listening : Damaged By Lambchop Release date: 22 August, 2006 11:02 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, August 19, 2006 The Many Joys Current mood: tired Today I experienced the many joys that comprise IKEA. We, my mother and I, drove down to Atlanta specifically to go there. I needed bookcases because the books are now both double shelved and stacked on top of the bookcases I have. I don't know where they all come from - I swear they breed while I'm sleeping. Kinky sods. We stayed the night in Chattanooga, a town that's changed drastically since I was last there. I barely remember when that was, but it now has a viable downtown area complete with lots of great restaurants. We ate late at a seafood place there. They had crab legs on the menu, so I was required to order them. They also had wine on the menu, so I felt obliged to order copious amounts of that too. I love crab legs, screw the alleged cholesterol. I don't buy it. They're not bad for me. Whatever. I never heard that. Lalalalalalalala (picture me with my fingers in my ears). I learnt a valuable lesson on this trip: never ever go on a road trip without a corkscrew. I had to beg, steal and borrow, only to discover that one of my bottles of wine had a screwtop. We made it to Ikea about 1 or so. I think we spent about four hours in there. Before we even got to the showroom, I had already picked out a new dining room table and chairs - it's very 50's Alfred Hitchcock movie. I love it. I bought new light fixtures, new bookcases, a new bin, and various other bits and bobs. It's a great shopping experience. We totally filled up the SUV with only $800 of stuff. We thought we had spent much much more. How often does that happen? We left IKEA around rush hour and toyed with the idea of going to Lenox Mall, but we had three big boxes tied to the top of the Land Rover so we couldn't really let it out of our sights. I had a bit of a scare on the way home. We stopped in Chattanooga again for dinner and I was driving down the interstate and something slowed down in front of me. I had a moment of instant reaction, forgot I was driving an automatic, and slammed on the brake with my left foot (I forgot I didn't have a clutch). The car came to a halt. I panicked, still in stick-shift mode and couldn't figure out how to get the car going again. Fortunately no one crashed into me, the boxes didn't fly off, and I finally sorted out how to get it into drive and pull over. I was shaking. I've done that before when driving an automatic. I just don't drive them very often. It was scary. We did get home safely, despite my moment of stupidity. Currently listening : Eyes Open By Snow Patrol Release date: 09 May, 2006 1:19 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Sunday, August 13, 2006 Try this - it's lovely Marinade for Fish (good with Seabass, but would probably work for most fish) Orange juice (about 1/2 cup or so) Soy Sauce (I used about ten or so sachets from the Chinese take-out, but adjust for taste) About 2 Tablespoons honey About 1/2 cup strong black tea Adjust the proportions 'til the marinade is salty but still pretty sweet. Marinate fish in it for about an hour or so. Then grill over hot charcoals. Yum.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Sunday, August 13, 2006 Cats and dogs and nights out. Current mood: surprised My cat is walking, pacing rather, around the house growling. I have no idea what is going on in Feline World to elicit such behaviour. Very strange. He's all puffed up and just generally in a huff. I've tried to pick him up and calm him down but he's having none of it. I guess he just wants to walk around and growl. There was a dog barking outside and he HATES dogs, but that doesn't usually do it. Ahhh, the weird and wonderful world of the cat. I went out tonight. It wasn't much different from most of the nights out we have. Except. I wore a dress. I was supposed to go out to dinner, but that fell through, so I took a nap instead, in the dress I meant to go out in. I got a phonecall about ten and decided, hell, it's not too late, why not. I wore this dress which my bestest friend randomly sent to me in the mail because she thought it would look good on me. I denied it and said, "no way, it'll show way too much flesh." She basically said this wasn't a bad thing and if I wasn't careful, one would show up on my doorstep, which it did, delivered by a not-bad-looking Fed Ex guy. I debuted the dress a couple of weeks ago. I wore it during the day to go and get a haircut, office supplies, and my tags renewed. It had an impact I didn't expect. Everywhere I went, I was suddenly very visible. I got asked at Staples if I needed help several times. I was like, "you already helped me once." To which I got the reply, "can I help you some more?" Weird. I'm just used to buying my printer cartridges and leaving. But everywhere I went that day was like that. And I just wore it with flip-flops.' Tonight, I decided to wear it again. Apparently it was a good choice. I am, it seems, completely oblivious to people noticing me. Completely. It just doesn't occur to me. But I went out with a friend and she was like "damn, the dress was such a good choice, when eight out of ten men in a room stare at you, then it can't be that bad." I said, "don't be silly, they're not." And she said, "oh yes, they are." She's not the type to say it if it's not true. It definitely makes a difference though. I think there's something to wearing a really girly dress or skirt or something sometimes. Anyone who says you don't get treated differently hasn't done it in a while. I'm not a believer that such things can make a difference, but apparently all you have to do is show some flesh. Who knew? 4:37 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, August 12, 2006 New Toy Current mood: tired I acquired a new toy today. I got a digital camera. It's this tiny Canon with 7.1 Megapixals. While my number one love is old Nikons, old manual Nikons, sometimes they just aren't practical for dragging around in one's purse to take pictures of friends and cats and random things you see. So I finally decided to go digital. I don't have a clue how to use the thing yet. I took some pictures tonight at a friend's house, but I discovered much better ways I could have while sitting out on my front porch tonight. I will keep you updated, but I love it so far. I usually would have much more enthusiasm, but I have had about 4 and a half hours sleep in the past two days. I don't function well without sleep (and that's an understatement). 2:24 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Monday, August 07, 2006 Still Sick Current mood: sick Today there is no silver lining. I woke up today still feeling rotten. I can't believe that whatever it is I have has lasted so long. I started feeling bad on Thursday. When I went to the doctor, she did tell me that it would last for five to seven days. Well, tomorrow will be five. As of right now, I don't think I can go into work tomorrow. I hate taking time off work. I always feel like people will think I'm just slacking off. Honestly, I don't want to feel like this and I don't want to give it to anyone either. It's nasty, nasty, nasty. It's kind of an undefined sick too. I feel generally rotten - really tired, no energy, my sinuses are stuffed up, I feel dizzy, I'm coughing a little, but not badly - it's not like flu or strep throat where you want to die, but it is enough that leaving the couch/bed is a major effort. The doctor said it was going around and it's just a really nasty strain of a cold virus, but it's so bad, it's forcing people to stay home. My roommate had almost three days off work with it last week. I hope I wake up tomorrow with it magically gone so my life can go back to normal. I hate hate hate being sick. 9:31 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, August 05, 2006 Silver Lining Current mood: sick Isn't it always the way that you get sick right at the time you don't need to? I'm trying to be busy with school stuff, but I just can't concentrate because I've been really sick for the past couple of days. I'm hoping it will clear up tomorrow and I can get on with what I need to do. There's always a bright side though, even to being sick. Last night, I had a conversation about milkshakes and I realised that I hadn't had a milkshake in about four years, amazingly enough. I was feeling rotten and had just woken up from a nap when my roommate came in. I told her how disgusting I felt and she said, "you need a milkshake." Hmmm, I thought, synchronicity, it's been four years, why not? So off we went to Bobbie's Dairy Dip where I procured a banana pineapple milkshake. It was everything I hoped it would be. They put loads of real pineapple and banana in it and it was worth all the millions of calories it, no doubt, contains. 10:05 PM - 2 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Friday, August 04, 2006 Out on the town Current mood: so So, I listened to my gut tonight. I went out, and I went to different places. I had a hankering to try new things because I was dissatisfied with my routine. I had heard a lot about Mafiosas, from various people, so I decided to check it out. Big disappointment. We went, had a crappy waitress, waited way too long for food that, although it was decent when it finally arrived, wasn't worth the anticipation. We ordered pizza at about 8 or so and got it about 9, 9:30 ish. And they tried to give us the wrong pizza, twice. Hmmm. So in my frustration, and hungriness, I tried to order another drink. The waitress got my friend's drink and dropped it off. No comment about mine. So, uncharacteristically, I asked her rather pointedly about the status of mine. "Oh we're out of that." Hmmm. When were you planning to tell me? Then, rather absentmindedly, almost as an afterthought, she asked, "would you like something else?" At this point I thought, mmm, well at this rate another drink will take, what, another hour or so. So I said "no, don't worry about it, why don't you just get us our check?" She did, and I have to admit, that although I have been through Food Service Bootcamp, this was one of the rare times I didn't leave a 20% tip. I left 10%, barely. She was cool when it wasn't busy, but when it got busy, she ignored us, although we had been nice the whole time. We gave her the whole staring down-we want something look and she looked, and ignored (which is one of my pet peeves - just tell me you'll come back for crying out loud) and walked away. I longed for my favourite bar where all my whims are catered to. I thought, why am I giving my money to people who don't give a shit? Maybe I'm too imbued with my "local" mentality, but really, sometimes you just want what you want. Tonight, although I got to hang out with friends, which is always good, was a disappointment. I went out looking for a new and different experience and all I found was shit. I went to Mafiosas, which was new to me, and I also went to On The Rocks, which I knew I hated, but was full of (and I hate to validate my opinions in this way) was full of shallow people trying to grind (and badly, I might add) on each other. I really just want to go to a dive bar, or my "local" and have fun. I'm really not into that whole scene where single people are trying to hook up for one night of pleasure, and yeah, while it is pleasurable in its own way, for that time, it's realy not my bag, baby. I kept thinking, when do I get to go home and hang out on my deck with Stephen (my grill) and my fairy lights and my cat and just chill the hell out. I've felt this way ever since I came back from Vegas. (I went there, by the way, a couple of weeks ago). I have been trying to make Nashville into what it isn't. It isn't that, and I know it, and I should be happy. My way to do that, I think, is to concentrate on my friends, my school, and be happy with what can be found within my own sphere. I seem to generate more from that. I was truly happy to see my friends tonight, but I coouldn't give a shit about the places we went. True, I love Dan McGuinness, but tonight it was dead and uninterersting. I think that's because I was looking for something that wasn't there - it's also the lull that happens before school starts. But I thought, maybe it's all here, inside me, and I don't need to search outside of that. Much money later, I don't feel any more complete. Yet somehow, cooking for friends on my deck does that. Accomplishing stuff at school does that. Maybe there's my lesson. It's hard to quantify general dissatisfaction, but when you pull into your driveway and think, thank God I'm home, that says something, and I plan to listen. 1:19 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Tuesday, August 01, 2006 Network TV Show I Actually Like Current mood: accomplished Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities There's a network TV show I actually like. I even got off the phone yesterday to watch it. Believe me, this surprises me as much as it surprises you. It's called "How I Met Your Mother" and it's on some network channel, maybe channel 5 or something at 7:30 or 8 or 8:30 or something like that on a Monday night. It's kind of like "Friends," but, you know, funny and you don't want to shoot the characters in the head. It's about a group of late twenty somethings who live in NY (yeah, I know - this sounds familiar), who are friends and have different kinds of relationships with each other that intertwine. If you've ever seen the British version of "Coupling" then this is about as close as I've seen on American television. The episode I was watching last night involved Ted (who is adorable and whom I have a great-big crush on) going over to his best friend's house (who is a girl, and hot, and who likes him and whom he likes too) to make "juice" at 2:30 in the morning. She called him to come over and make "juice" because she's lonely. All the way over there, in the cab, he hears his mother's voice saying "nothing good ever happens after 2am." He says, "the decisions you make after 2am are inevitably the wrong ones." I'm not going to go into detall, but I can say that I chuckled in the way that painful experience makes you chuckle. Of course, in true sitcom fashion, it turns out that Ted's head is indeed pretty fuzzy after 2am and he does make some pretty awful decisions. I still love him anyway, and if I can remember my date with the television next Monday, we'll still see each other again. 10:10 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, July 29, 2006 Just 'cause you like it You know, I think sometimes people like music because they think they are supposed to like it. And, the reverse. i think they resist certain music because they think they ought not to like it for some reason. And yeah, I've been guilty of that. But I think once you get past your mid-twenties, if you don't have something somewhat questionable in your music listings, then (and yeah, I'm going to say it) you're somewhat questionable. Your're trying to fall into the teenage "I'm so cool" thing rather than just being who you are. Everyone has that dark side, and it seeps out through everything we do, even music. I think people are a lot more forgiving of "questionable" taste in movies and books than they are in music, but you know, sometimes, you just have to let it go and be who you are. On my myspace profile, I don't claim to like Country or Rap, but there are a couple of songs from each that, if I'm honest, I can't be ashamed to like. Do I have early Rod Stewart listed as one of my likes? No. Why not? I love the early Faces stuff. Am I ashamed? No. Did I like the "every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back" song of Alannis's ? Yep, I did. Do I like the Killers? Yep, I do (and no, I haven't heard the new stuff, so I'm not commenting, I'm purely going on Hot Fuss). Anyway, you get the point. C Currently listening : Ogden's Nut Gone Flake By The Small Faces Release date: 30 May, 2006 1:58 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Thursday, July 06, 2006 Reading Current mood: booklusty I look longingly at the profiles of people who are not currently in graduate school and drool shamelessly over the lists of books they read for pleasure. I remember those days when I read for fun. Now I pour over endless tomes of composition theory. It's not that I don't love it - but it's not the same as just reading on your own time. 11:08 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Saturday, July 01, 2006 On Your Own Now, I know people in today's society scoff at the idea of a person drinking by herself. Bah, humbug I say to that. Sometimes there's nothing more soothing to the soul than spending a Friday night (or whichever night one should choose) listening to music and sipping a chosen alcoholic beverage. Sometimes only doing these things alone can allow you to reap the full benefits. Sometimes, just by being alone, your senses are heightened by the experience. I am, of course, listening to South and drinking wine. I think if I were doing that right now with someone else, it might cheapen the experience. I'm enjoying it so much myself that I don't see how it could be any better. Currently listening : From Here On In By South Release date: 19 February, 2002 12:54 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Wednesday, June 21, 2006 World Cup Fever Category: Sports I have spent my entire day watching World Cup matches. I am now officially a victim of World Cup fever. This morning, I watched a great game between Mexico and Portugal. There were three goals scored in the first thirty minutes. It was pretty intense. Then Mexico missed a penalty and couldn't draw with Portugal. Then one of their men dived in the box and got sent off for arguing with the referee. Good stuff! The stakes weren't too high in that game because it was pretty much ensured that both teams were already going through to what the commentators keep annoyingly calling "The Round of Sixteen." Why do sports commentators latch onto a phrase and keep saying it over and over? I'm currently watching Argentina and the Netherlands. I just want the Netherlands to beat Argentina. I love to watch people trash Argentina - dirty rotten cheats that they are. They're not being too nasty in this game, but they don't even really have to win it, so they're not bothering to be their usual nasty-horrible selves. I haven't yet managed to catch either an England match or a U.S. match. I would like to see both as those are the teams I'm technically supporting. Sometimes I'm a adamant reverse fan though, as in the case of Argentina and I will watch matches just based on who I want to lose. Anyway, I now have the fever. Don't think you'll hear anything non-soccer related from me in the next week and a half.