Seeing Elephants

(Un)memory

2008-11-14T05:27:00.001-06:00

One of the things about having an appallingly bad memory is that you are constantly ambushed by your past selves.

Sometimes it takes you by surprise, as they jump out at you from behind some innocuous-looking object. Sometimes you know you’ve brought it upon yourself by wandering down memory alley after dark.

What with one thing and another – joining facebook, trying to introduce some order to my memento-stuffed bedroom at home, looking through old photos – this has been happening rather a lot.

My child selves mostly induce in me a tender pity; they do not feel quite like myselves. But, I salt away the odd things I treasured then.

My adolescent selves make me wince. I am mostly quite glad to forget.

With my most recent selves, well, the relationship is more complex. I feel regret that I did not spend my student days better, that I wasn’t happier and bolder and more alive and less afraid, that I didn’t do more things. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that I hold that regret for each day I’ve ever passed.

So these selves make me sad. But there is happiness too, and fondness. There is a smile on my lips as I remember the day when we did that. And a longing for those days that will never come again (and oh they never do).

And oh I wish I didn’t forget so easily.

It is a very peculiar thing to look at old photos. To do so is to remember that I am not simply the sum of my most recent experience, of the last couple of years or so. That I run much deeper than that, that there is more to me. It is to discover a vast, forgotten hinterland.

It is to open a forgotten door in your house somewhere (and don’t we all have one of those, that hovers on the elusive edge of unsettling dreams?) and to find a whole room that has somehow dropped out of your consciousness, though now you find it you know you’ve always known it was there. The furniture, the pictures, the way the mirrors reflect the lampshades, the view from the window – they are all perfectly familiar. And yet they are another country.

More than that it is to open a door – and now you see it you know it’s always been there – and to find a whole house on the other side, and to realise that you’ve been living in one room all along. And to know that next time you wake you’ll have forgotten again.

Oddly enough, it is the photographs I took of my room in college that first affect me most. I look at my posters and pictures and plants and books in that year’s particular arrangement and remember the person who lived in that habitat. I firmly believe that we live in our surroundings, not just in the obvious way, but that we bleed into the shape of our forks and the colour of our favourite throw and the way the light slants across the wall.

And so I look at the photographs and I remember the things I did and the things I knew and the things I thought about, and how I felt about things, and what I hoped and dreamed and wanted. I remember that I was quite different, perhaps better.

And then I look at the photographs of my friends, and I remember forgotten punting trips, parties, days out… balls even. Some of them are still close friends, some I know are slipping away, some are no more than a name I used to know. I remember camaraderie, silliness, brilliant conversation, shared emotions, shared time. And I miss them.

And although it’s a destructive emotion that I try not to have, I regret what is lost. And I wonder who I am, and who I want to be.

Witches and whales

2008-11-12T16:03:00.004-06:00

What filthy, monstrous, perverted faith can drive a human being to drive a three-inch nail into a little girl's head? To set their own child on fire? Bury them alive, chain them up, starve them, beat them until their bones break?

I just watched the Channel 4 Dispatches programme Saving Africa's Witch Children, and it has to be one of the most distressing things I've ever watched. In short, certain extreme pentecostal churches in Nigeria have people convinced that millions of their own children are possessed by Satan and responsible for any misfortunes that befall, and as a result these "witches" and "wizards" are ostracised, tortured, and killed.

It is disturbing how a powerful blend of traditional beliefs and Christianity has people completely convinced - such that it's an embedded, unquestioned certainty - that the bad things that happen to you are never just down to chance. Deaths, illness, crop failures, accidents, miscarriages and all such stones upon life's road must have a cause, which is where the witch children come in.

What their parents and other adults do to them is horrifying, but based on a sincere belief that is able to flourish in an environment of ignorance, fear, and profound poverty. The people in this film who I truly wish could burn in the hell that they believe in and I do not are the pastors. With a few easy words they condemn children by the dozen, perhaps to physical torture and death, or the lucky ones who they "cure" to the lifelong mental torture of being feared and stigmatised. The children who are cared for in the shelter featured in the programme, having been abandoned or rescued, seem like the lucky ones, but they have to be helped through beleiving that they are witches and knowing they have been rejected by their families and communities.

Meanwhile, these pastors grow obscenely rich on the profits of torturing children to extract confessions and "exorcising" them - which a family will have to sell all it has to afford. So even if a child is successfully exorcised, it will be living in a family that has been pushed even more deeply into grinding, deadly poverty - something the programme didn't really explore so much, but every bit as pernicious as the other effects of these pastors' actions, I think. Oh yes, and at the top of the heap these operations are hardly unsophisticated - including making blockbuster gorefest films depicting exactly how possessed children eat human flesh and so on. Perhaps these pastors too are acting out of sincerely-held beliefs, but seeing them on the screen wealthy, complacent, and wilfully, happily ignorant or unmindful of the suffering of the children... At the very best they're guilty of failing to scrutinise their beliefs and the consequences of their actions, at the worst, well, there are no words strong enough.

It's distressing to see the terrible scars left on these children, worse to see their absolute, abject sadness. I swear it would melt a heart of stone to see Mary, five years old, cowering inside herself as an angry crowd beat on the metal walls of the shack she was sitting in with her eventual rescuers. They asked her name and what had happened, and then they asked if she thought she was a witch, and all she could bring herself to do was nod, once, slowly. They told her they didn't think she was a witch but a fine, beautiful girl, and they asked her what she wanted them to do to help her. It was a long time before she could find any words, and then she said she wanted to go to school.

There are many brave and good Nigerians trying to change the situation and care for these poor damaged children. There is a rescue centre and school, CRARN, where the children seem happy and full of life, able to smile again. There is also an English bloke called Gary, who went to Nigeria to do research on something else entirely and ended up founding a UK charity, Stepping Stones Nigeria, to support the centre. I have the sense of an ordinary person struggling with the chaos and horror of it all, maybe not getting everything right, but with immense courage and selflessness actually using his life to do something extraordinary.

At the end of the programme he took all 150 or so of the rescue children to the local state capital to protest directly to the governor that the state had not put the national children's rights act into law. At first it seemed like it was going to be a fiasco, but eventually he came out and the children sang to him and he spoke to them and seemed genuinely surprised that none of them lived with their families and had all been abandoned (and they are the tip of the iceburg), and he promised to enact the law, and visit them and see how he could help them. And so he did (at least on the legal side, they didn't say about the second). It's only a small step against the enormous problem of changing attitudes and culture, but it does at least mean that there is a valid legal means to prosecute abusers, and I don't think I've ever seen a more moving or a more effective example of the power of face-to-face protest.

I don't watch a lot of TV - I think this is the first time I've done more that flick through the channels since I got back from Mexico (yep, I do go for some upbeat viewing...). I was a bit startled by all the adverts that came up during the breaks for Chrismas foods and gifts and other crappy cut-price luxuries. The Stepping Stones website was down last time I tried, which I hope is because they're being overwhelmed by a deluge of donations. There are a thousand equally worthy causes, there always are, but as soon as it's up and running again I'll be donating the price of a few special seasonal gifts from WHSmith. If you happen to be wondering what to do with a few quid (and I'm sure you are, what with the economy being so outrageously healthy n'all), I think these people will make it go a long way. The Dispatches website has more information and more links, and you can watch some clips from the programme.

If you need cheering up after all that, I also caught some of BBC2's Oceans programme about the sea of Cortez. I found the programme itself incredibly smug and irritating and lacking in actual content (for the love of all that is holy, since when do wildlife programme's have a "cast"? Of people I mean, not animals), but the footage of a group of sperm whales socialising, taking time just to make physical contact, (an erect penis is involved, admittedly but only later when a male comes along to court them), is breathtakingly beautiful. You apparently have 42 days to watch it here (and if you're as easily annoyed as me you might want to skip to somewhere near the end).

Woohooooooo!

2008-11-05T09:10:00.001-06:00

Entre pairos y derivas

2008-10-06T11:40:00.006-05:00

So here I am and here are some words. I have more to say about various things, but I need to begin somewhere. And I also have stupid youtube videos to post so I can close the tabs before my poor creaky computer explodes.

So where to begin...?

I've been back in the UK for, I think, almost four weeks, although I can't quite believe that. Leaving Mexico was, as I knew it would be, one of the hardest things I have ever done. Perhaps other things have hurt more, and there could and will be worse things I know, but it was breathtakingly, enormously painful. In the days before I left, the tears and sense of grief overwhelmed me often and without warning. Sometimes, watching a street go past a car window, or something equally ordinary, I would find myself suddenly unable to breathe with something like panic, knowing that soon I wouldn't be seeing this or or being here at all any more. Ridiculous, perhaps, in this house of horrors of a world, but there it is.

At the end of July I came back to the UK on a last-minute and entirely crazy trip - I was on UK soil for less than a week - for an interview for a dream job (which I didn't get, of course) - they insisted on a face-to-face interview and I hoped the gamble might be worth it. The whole thing was exhausting and emotional. I couldn't countenance losing those few days from my time in Mexico, so I ended up pushing back my flight by more than two weeks.

But, in the end, all my time slipped through my fingers like sand anyway. My work went on and on and on, particularly one hellish project that made my life a misery for a long time and that I tried very, very hard to finish and still had to hand over incomplete - after I ended up, by then desperate to quit work and do other things, trying not to sob while I blurted out to my boss that I felt trapped, like I would never escape. But there were still lots of things to finish off, of course, and I also massively underestimated quite how long it would take to pack up my apartment (and sort it all out, and throw stuff away, and recycle stuff, and ship stuff, and give stuff away, and sell stuff, and send my borrowed furniture back whence it came, and so on). Because it really does take a bloody long time. Add to that a little bit of sickness, innumerable errands, some misjudged social commitments, and some good times seeing friends, and sprinklings of tiredness and sadness and godawful weather, and my hoped-for four weeks exploring my beloved Mexico and researching for my book dwindled to three, then two, then one, and finally nothing. A stolen hour or so taking pictures of my town in between chores.

The whole thing was a terribly depressing process, constantly and unremittingly having to give things up. Realising one by one each thing I wouldn't be able to do or finish, each person I wouldn't have time to see again, each anticipated attraction I wouldn't get chance to see, each familiar place I wouldn't be able to go back to, each beloved possession I realised I'd have to leave behind, each fun thing I wouldn't do again. A process of letting go by force as each thing was tugged from my grip.

What a terrible feeling it is to know that time is running out, that there isn't enough time, that there is no more time left. The uneasiness that is the knowledge of our own mortality, magnified.

As the day, the hour of my flight approached I felt like I was being ripped from my life, torn away from my fabric of people and things and places and activities, from so many things undone and plans unfulfilled. And I felt it bitterly - weepingly, shudderingly, chokingly. And intensely physically painfully. I wasn't ready to go, not one bit.

I thought I might just fall apart altogether on the plane, but I didn't. The practicalities of travel required attention. I sat at the departure gate listening to two or three songs over and over with a strange calm. I slept on one plane. I fretted through US immigration and nearly missed another plane. I sat next to the sort of person who makes me turn my emotions inside to keep them safe coming anywhere near them. I struggled home from the airport on a journey of absurd hellishness. And by the time I got there I don't think I felt anything at all. I was perfectly frozen.

In retrospect, of course, I was protecting myself. For a week or two I barely thought about Mexico at all, except for the odd, quick, wincing moment. I didn't do much at all except sleep.

It is, predictably, not terribly good for me to be back in my family home. It is a step backward, away from adulthood and independence and being myself and being alive. A sort of hopelessness and lassitude steals over me. I'm a lot worse even than usual at getting things done. I have been spending a lot of time trying to sort out a lifetime's worth of crap - at the moment my room is so full, and so chaotic - that I don't even have space to unpack. This isn't good either, as I am constantly taken back to being 15 or being 20, and trying to make impossible decisions about where to put things when there's nowhere to put anything, and trying not to be driven to despair by years of unsorted photos and papers. This is not entirely a hopeless task - I am finally learning to get rid of stuff and to let things go, not before time - but it often feels like one.

Not thinking about Mexico scared me. I was afraid that I might just let it pass painlessly and quietly out of my memory. So I began to let myself think about it a little bit, even though it hurts. I listen to songs in Spanish although they rub raw nerves. I glance quickly at photos. I think about places I knew. I miss Mexico. I am afraid that what I really want is to be there, to live there for good - a big, frightening thing to have to consider.

I have been in a bubble. A bubble of not feeling and not engaging. A bubble of not blogging, and not phoning or emailing or seeing anyone. A bubble of sleeping at the wrong times, stuck on Mexico time and tired from trying to fix it. A bubble of not really being. But bubbles, of course, can't last. I have been looking for jobs and I hope that once I find one I can start another proper real life of seeing people and doing things. In the meantime, it's time to get off my arse and stop wasting my precious time, to take back control of my life. To hoist the sails and take the wheel. To embrace where I've been and work out where next.

So, fingers crossed, I skipped a night's sleep and now I'm more or less back on track. I'm thinking about how to develop my professional skills. I'm trying to be effective sorting and organising my stuff, and not overwhelmed. I'm slowly getting back in touch, shamefacedly tackling all those unanswered emails, writing these words. Sorry I've been gone, but I'm back.

The silver lining

2008-08-20T14:51:00.003-05:00

I have lost my favouritest jumper-type-thing-only-much-nicer by leaving a taxi.

I have destroyed my making-phone-calls-using-the-magic-of-the-internet headset by grinding its tender wires beneath my ~~heel~~ chairleg.

I have discovered a large hole in my favouritest shoes. Well, one of them, the left one.

On the other hand, it all means fewer things to pack.

A musical interlude

2008-08-19T23:19:00.002-05:00

Have you ever heard the song "Short Dick Man" by 20 fingers, featuring Gillette?

Well I hadn't, until it came on on my way home on a crowded bus.

The lyrics go like this:

Don't want no short dick man (x4)
What in the world is that fucking thing?
Do you need some fucking tweezers to put that little thing away?
That has got to be the smallest dick I have ever seen in my whole life
Get the fuck outta here
Eeny weeny teeny weeny shrivelled little short dick man (x2)
Don’t want no short dick man (x8)
Eeny weeny teeny weeny shrivelled little short dick man (x4)
Isnt that cute, an extra belly button
You need to put you pants back on honey
Don’t want no short dick man
Eeny weeny teeny weeny shrivelled little short dick man
Do you need some fucking tweezers to put that little thing away?
That has got to be the smallest dick I have ever seen in my whole life
Get the fuck outta here
Don't want no short dick man (x4)
plus mocking laughter throughout

This is a cruel song. It doesn't necessarily bother me that it's vulgar and crude, but it does bother me that it is cruel.

But, there is also something of the hilarious about it. Especially at maximum volume, when you are on a bus crammed to overflowing with Mexicans, half of whom are teenaged schoolchildren and none of whom probably have any idea of what the words mean, including the slightly creepy driver who is singing along enthusiastically without really making any of the words.

I kept being overwhelmed by giggles and then trying to control myself, partly because I didn't want to be the mad laughing foreigner, and partly just in case anyone DID know what was so funny.

!@*%#

2008-08-19T17:58:00.000-05:00

Isn't it odd, given the relative amounts of current and historical disapproval of the two acts, that bugger is considered so much less offensive a swear word than fuck?

A sudden fear of injury

2008-08-19T17:45:00.003-05:00

Bugger.

I just realised that I don't think I have any health insurance right now, since my contract has technically finished. Which, you know, is probably fine. I'll just have to try very hard not to get airlifted from anywhere.

All hail

2008-08-19T15:48:00.004-05:00

It is raining torrentially. No, scratch that, hailing torrentially. And bloody hell do I mean torrentially!

And I will be home just in time for a British winter. I think I'm doing this wrong.

Sporting

2008-08-19T11:34:00.004-05:00

"I don't know who I'm going to play ping pong with when you go"

said my friend sadly yesterday lunchtime, while we were playing. It was a melancholy moment, but I was glad too to know in this oblique way that I will be missed. I'll miss it too. I've played with him for a few minutes, not every lunchtime, but most lunchtimes, for perhaps a year and a half, perhaps longer.

It's been rather pleasing to see myself getting better, making fast shots and difficult shots, making him work harder to beat me. It's been a pleasure, a few moments of pure enjoyment stolen from the day. And it's been one of those little rituals of shared time that cements a relationship, ensuring that we are friends rather than people who share the odd casual chat.

When you think about it, a daily game or two really is a luxury -I can't imagine ever being able to afford a house big enough for a table tennis table. In the public sphere, I associate table tennis with drafty youth clubs and the back of the school hall and the college basement, but I suppose one can play it in sports centers. Once a week maybe, if I'm lucky enough to find someone to play with. Sigh.

Yesterday we also played volleyball for the first time in months. At first, when it didn't look like anyone was going to show up, I was angrily disappointed and embarrassed by my overenthusiasm, conscious of all the people there watching the semi-final of the football tournament and in my absurd imagination thinking me ridiculous. But then we had three or four, enough to begin warming up, and before long we had trickled up to two full teams of six.

I really, really love volleyball. I'll get frustrated sometimes when people get overcompetitive and start stealing my balls, but mostly I love it. I'm not all that good but I've got better, and every time I make a decent shot I'm pleased with myself. I love the grace of it sometimes, and the energy, and the precision. I love being outside. I love playing as part of a team. I love playing with my colleagues and people I'm fond of. I love the friendliness of it, the way we yell at people passing by to come and join in. I love the supportiveness of it, the gracious Mexicans who've watched me grow and will say well done even if I stuff it up, or congratulate me if I make a point even if I'm on the opposite team. I love that the taunts are always good-natured and the way we all laugh when someone makes a terrible shot or makes themselves look daft - with them, not at them - and how we don't bother to count points except perhaps to bring the session to a close.

Volleyball makes me happy and I really want to play in the future. The thing is, that's not how volleyball works in the real world, outside of a campus like this. It's not the sort of sport people play casually after work, not in the UK anyway. You have to join a club, play on a team. Like I said, I'm not all that good and I'm far from athletic, but I suppose I could join at the beginner level.

The thing is, even then your supposed to aspire to 'proper' volleyball. Offensive and defensive play. Sets and spikes. Rules and points. Not being pleased when you just get it over the net and not cracking up when you do something stupid and not making faces at your friends on the other side of the net. It doesn't sound like very much fun at all. Perhaps it's stupid, but I hate all the tactical stuff. I suppose it's worth it to be able to play, if only I can not be too terrified to do such a thing as join a club, but my heart will be here, on uneven grass with the chalk lines washed away and a broken net.

I love the feeling of winning a game, but I don't really get the kind of excessive competitiveness that drives the fun out of things. So many people get bizarre competitive attitudes on them about all kinds of things - sports obviously, but also things like dancing, or gardening. Pchah. When I think about it I actually find the Olympics pretty distressing (and not just because of how much they cost). So much effort, so much hope, and for so many it's all just broken dreams. Still, I read an interview with British gymnast Beth Tweddle where she said that the uneven bars felt like flying. Maybe that makes it worth it?

new game

2008-08-19T02:56:00.002-05:00

It is called where in the name of sweet baby Moses on stilts did I put my external hard drive when I went away, and why isn't it in any of the hiding places it ought to be in? Sometimes I wish I could get things done at times that were not 3am, or that I didn't have to get up in the mornings. Or that I didn't need 8 hours sleep. Whatever.

The truth about cats and dogs

2008-08-16T15:40:00.004-05:00

My neighbour's son has a new(ish) schnauzer puppy. Both son and pup are visiting at the moment, hence I met it today for the first time, and oh my gosh it is one of the cutest things I have ever seen. Friendly, full of beans, soft-coated and eminently pettable. Once again, my wish to have a dog is awakened.

See, I'm beginning to suspect that this hoary old divide between cat people and dog people is really just a load of cobblers. I like cats - we had a cat when I was a child - and I've always thought of myself as a cat person: fiercely independent - the cat who walks by herself - choosy with my affections, never fawning, a creature of integrity. But the thing is one's own personal characteristics aren't necessarily what one would want in a pet. I, for example, would make a terrible pet. And it is also true that as I get older I increasingly value "dog" characteristics, and, I think, grow into those aspects of myself - loyalty, warmth, demonstrativeness, friendliness, generosity of spirit.

In short, I got it into my head a few weeks ago that I want a long-haired chihuahua. Everyone thinks chihuahuas are silly, but they have a long history stretching back many centuries to prehispanic Mexico, which is pretty cool. And I like small dogs. They are cute, pick-up-and-cuddleable. They are practical - I like the idea of being able to take my pet with me places, and unless you have a lot of space or a lot of time to dedicate to long walks I think it's pretty unkind to keep a big dog. And almost most of all, small dogs don't know they are small: they are fearless and bold, little warriors with hearts just as big as any. I like that.

I dismissed the idea pretty quickly. I do not have the kind of lifestyle that would be fair on a dog. In the immediate future I envisage the kind of employment where I have to be out at work all day. Furthermore, I am a person of irregular, some might say chaotic, habits and irregular hours. I like being able to stay out all evening and not get back until late. When I am settled in the UK again, I hope I'll be going to lots of classes and things, or at least some, which will mean being busy and time not spent at home.

Something that worries me more is that perhaps I am not the sort of person who should have a pet at all. I like the idea of pets - companionship, affection, general adorableness - but the reality is I don't really want to put any effort into them. I resent the responsibility of them. I resent their dumbness - their comfort is hollow. Whatever people say, pets don't really understand you, don't really love you.

Worse, I worry that I might feel that way about people: maybe I like the idea of human companionship in theory but actually I'm too selfish, too turned in upon myself to actually care about or for other people in a real way. Certainly I am afraid that I will have children because it seems like a good idea - I like and one day want children, I feel like I would love them - but actually in reality resent and hate being so tied down, and all the endless effort you have to put into them, which they can never - and nor should they have to - repay. After a few minutes with a pre-speech child, amusing them with the same game over and over again - lifting them up in the air, pretending you can't see them, making silly noises - my smile is fixed, my cooing doesn't falter, but I feel like I'm losing my mind and I just want to get rid of said child. The thought of doing it day in, day out makes me feel ill. And playing is supposed to be the fun part...

Awesome, I am a sociopath! Maybe I worry too much, but they seem like doubts too big to dismiss and blithely take on either a puppy or a child anyway.

Back to cats and dogs... obviously gender stereotypes are not cool however you slice 'em, but why is it that men are seen as doglike/dogs are seen as masculine, and women are seen as catlike/cats are seen as feminine? I mean I get it (dogs = big and dumb and noble, cats = pretty and capricious) but actually most of the most self-contained, self-controlled, emotionally unavailable (i.e. arguably catlike) people I have known have been men, whereas if dogs are needy, emotionally transparent, demonstrative and helplessly hungry for affection, well, that sounds more like a female stereotype than a male one.

I feel like a mixture of both (of course, for who amongst us in his own mind is reducible?) but perhaps more of the latter and less of the former than I think. The boy is most definitely a cat - for though he is generous, a good friend, fun to be with, he is also self-contained, undemonstrative, inscrutible, neither needing nor wishing to be needed. In fact, henceforth I think I shall refer to him as el gato (the cat) - it's silly to call him a boy anyway, since he is several years older than me, wreathed about with the mystery of adulthood. He is not my boy, or even the boy - there are lots of boys in this world after all - but he is my friend. My cat friend. And it sort of sounds like a cool gangster name, no?, so I don't suppose he'd mind.

Blowing my sister's trumpet

2008-08-14T16:19:00.002-05:00

My baby sister got her A-level results today: straight As. I am so proud of her.

She always thinks she's the less-smart one, and that my parents aren't proud of her. She is less intellectually aggressive than my brother and I, and more of a balanced person, so it might seem this way. But not only is my sister lovely, brave, kind-hearted, caring, funny and beautiful (she thinks I have rosy spectacles, but I don't - she's not perfect, she's just pretty damn awesome), she is also proper intelligent and today I hope she's proved that to herself beyond doubt. And she works damn hard: she has a reading problem that's only been identified in the last year or so, so it takes her longer to do the same work. And she's done all this whilst actually having friends and a social life. In short, ROCK ON LITTLE SISTER!

Because it's basically all about me, I have been thinking about youthful brilliance, specifically mine. I wouldn't go through it all again, not for worlds - the intense stress of endless exams upon which your future hangs - but I do miss being sure of my own exceptionalness. I wish I knew what best to do to make use of my mind - it's a pretty good one, or it used to be - to use it well, and to be happy.

My sister's going to university to study psychology. I'm sort of jealous - it's something I half wish I'd done - and all of that glorious, privileged, terrible, shining time ahead of her to explore who she is and learn abstruse things and make friends to last her through the darkest days of her life and be ridiculous in her youthful excesses and be unreserved and be wonderful, before she has to start worrying about jobs and what the hell she's doing with her life and - God preserve us! - the fact that she hasn't got a pension. I'll be cheering her on, all the way.

Dildos, disappointment, and dancing

2008-08-12T23:35:00.014-05:00

I've had a hell of a couple of weeks. I do plan to write it all down, if only as a kind of exorcism, but for now some thoughts about today, which has been a rum old mix...

Lunch was farewell pizza from my English students. I took on the class - mostly middle-aged female secretaries whose names I still haven't quite got straightened out, because I was too shy to ask - because there was no-one else to do it, and it's taken much, much more time and effort than its two lunchtime hours a week. They gave me a card and a gift and I felt like even more of a fraud than usual, partly because I haven't really left work yet but largely because I never had any idea what I was doing.

I've never really managed proper teacherly assertiveness and today I was reluctant even to ask them to speak in English. If I'm honest I secretly like to have the chance to show that I can speak Spanish too. It's interesting though that the ones who I think of as quiet and timid and less able than the rest aren't necessarily the same at all in their own language.

After that it was an over-expensive taxi to one of the universities on the other side of town where my one non-work friend is a student. He had asked me to come and speak to his English class; apparently they always want guest native speakers. I didn't really want to - the idea of being up in front of 30 or so people gave me the horrors - but I couldn't say no. He'd stressed that I had to be on time, and all the way there I was balancing the passing minutes against the passing landmarks. In the end it would have been fine, only the campus is huge and I went the wrong way.

A fraught phone call - although my almost-inaudible speaker makes most calls pretty fraught - and we establish that I am lost. Out of a chained-up gate in a chainlink fence. In through a high-tech turnstile that seems in a weird no-man's land, but hurrah the building I'm looking for is in sight. My friend isn't. Another phone call and he arrives out of breath - he's been looking for me by the main entrance. I'm red-faced and flustered - maybe only 10 or 15 minutes late, but hardly the best beginning. The classroom door eases open upon a terrifying circle of attentive students. The teacher commands my attention: we're introduced in low voices, and she explains that, since I said I would be late (I didn't exactly, but still) there's been a slight change of plan - they're having some kind of information session now but it will be done soon.

It takes a little while for me to calm down and process my surroundings. A boy student is wearing a kind of folding sandwich-board display, mostly of condoms, in shiny packets in a multitude of colours and designs. A girl student is gesticulating with a realistically-moulded pink plastic dildo, which I extrapolate that she has just been putting a condom on; now she's demonstrating a female condom.

"How do you say that in English?" whispers my friend. I am nonplussed, wondering which of many thats he might be referring to.

A poster is pinned to the whiteboard, with a slogan along the lines of "don't be a dick, use a condom" - more literally, and more amusingly "don't be a penis".

I listen to them explaining the different methods of birth control, matter-of-factly but with humour and I have nothing but admiration for them. What they are doing is incredibly valuable and important, and I think it takes guts and strength of character. But, I am struggling not to giggle. Not so much at the subject matter but at the bizarreness of it all. Sometimes my life seems possessed of perfect comedy, and now is one of those times.

They round up by giving out condoms and talking about them again; I am distracted by the teacher murmering in my ear. When I look back they are pulling a condom off the dildo in a kind of tug-of-war: it is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g. I am not sure if this is a deliberate humourous demonstration of how not to do it, or an accidental one.

I talk about myself ad lib for a couple of minutes but can't think what to say and sound like an idiot. Then they get to ask me questions - and the teacher's marking them all for "participation". They're things like what I do in my spare time, what I think about Mexico, the differences between Mexico and the UK and so on. I wonder if this has any educational benefit. I'm hardly at my most eloquent, fumbling for answers, and my audience seems a bit glazed-over - I'm not sure if they're not really following or just find the whole exercise terribly dull, though they're sweet enough. Two questions have me blushing and not knowing what to say: what do I think about my friend, and do I have a boyfriend. I'm sure this gives the wrong impression.

In my office, preparing to take some shots, I read a bit online about how to take good portraits. I realise how I could have been taking some much better pictures and the irritation with myself sticks in me almost like anxiety, although I know I should simply learn it and get better.

At the end of the afternoon I brave a group of visiting American students in order to snare two or three to interview. In the bearpit of announcements made over the gathering of papers someone mentions that they want a volleyball, and I offer mine. We'll meet by the net. When the interviews are done I skip out of the office with joyful heart, even though I ought to stay and do more work. By a miracle, it isn't raining this afternoon, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and I am going to play volleyball for the first time in ages.

No-one is there. It transpires that the boys have gone to play basketball, and the girls have gone to Zumba in the gym. I really need to learn that other people are not like me, and do not see saying they'll do something as a binding promise. I know that I set myself up for disappointment.

But I hate these fucking students. And their cheerful vapid confidence. And their stupid accents.

I take a picture of long-dead wings on the path, looking as if their body has just gone somehow:

On the plus side, no volleyball did mean that I had time to go and get my hair cut. Suddenly it had turned itself into hateful rats tails and I couldn't stand it any more. I sat and waited and read about Mexican politics and economics in the 70s and 80s. I tried to make cause and effect add up in my head, but I wonder how much logic there is to history, and what are the real causes of how things turn out and what is just happenstance. It's frustrating not to be able to pin it down.

My hairdresser was Julieta, but I felt like it ought to be Violeta because she had purple bits in her hair (and blonde bits too). Unlike the previous one I had she didn't feel slightly creepy and inappropriate, like she was chatting me up, and neither did she blowdry my hair to make me look like a refugee from the 90s in the mould of early Scully, which was good. On the other hand she used a squirty bottle rather than washing it, so I was ashamed whenever she touched my unwashed locks, i.e. all the time. She did decide to give me my first and quite possibly last ever zigzag parting and put wax in it, which is the last thing it needs, but she got the length right, which is the important thing. I was thinking how flattering the lighting was, and how canny it is of salons to have such lighting, but then I realised I looked nice because I didn't have my glasses on and was thus a smooth blur.

When I stepped outside it was the kind of sunset to blast away discontent. A sky like this and I can't help but be lifted.

When I get home I go straight up to the roof and the sky is watercolour blue over the rooftops and the lights on the distant hills are like stars. I don't think I've mentioned the roof but it is like a secret because no-one else seems to go up there, and it is wonderful.

As I'm turning to go, I notice that one of the volcanoes, my familiar faraway volcanoes - Popo or Izta, Popo I think - is standing out deep blue and snowcapped and perfectly clear.

In the evening I get distracted from what I told myself I'd do by youtube videos from the US TV program "So You Think You Can Dance". I am cross with myself, but it does make me think about how much I really love good dance. There are lots of things that I could never really list as my interests, even though I enjoy them - films for example, or theatre. But in the future I want to make efforts to go and see dance.

I am also pleased that I seem to be able to discriminate, and when the dancing's not so hot I don't enjoy it as much, even though I can appreciate bits of great choreography.

The clip that got me hooked was this, Mark and Chelsie's hip hop routine:

It's here with better sound quality, though with the intro clip and judging bits from the TV show. I also really like their contemporary routine. I love Mark's outlandish clownishness - like an intelligent, French, mime-artist sort of clown but with huge physical energy, and strangely reminiscent of my friend Nathan's crazy dancefloor antics - and Chelsie is tremendously lovable and they both seem to embody a character when they dance.

My other favourite couple is Katee and Joshua, also both very likable, especially their hip hop and samba routines. And this from Jamie and Rayven is hugely endearing, her chutzpah and the way she couldn't suppress her big ballerina smile.

Of course I'd kill to have a quarter of any of their dancing abilities (or gorgeousness), but all the same I am inspired to dance around my house like a daft thing.

Could I just say...

2008-07-23T12:10:00.003-05:00

... I fucking hate answerphones.

I got an email today, having given up hope, saying they would like to interview me for my dream job.

Also, could I call back as soon as possible.

So I called, and got an answerphone, it being after working hours in the UK. And so I left a message, in which I fell over my words because I was so nervous, forgot what I was going to say, and generally made a complete tit of myself.

wOOt.

Afterwards the trembling, then the tears. The first time I saw this job I couldn't sleep for thinking about it. Every time I read the advert again it set my mind racing. I sweated blood into the application. It is a complete one-off and it would be completely perfect for me. In short, I have never been so excited about a job opportunity. When I thought I hadn't been shortlisted I was pretty sad about it, but now that I know have a chance I am utterly terrified.

I never know what my answer would be to the question what's your biggest fear? but i think I've just realised: fucking up.

I shall now be spending the next few days telling myself how completely awesome I am. This does not come naturally.

Religious transport

2008-07-20T22:32:00.003-05:00

No matter how terribly gloomy my mood, it may be improved by seeing a combi* full of nuns pass by.

*converted VW camper used as a bus

Stars

2008-07-19T00:22:00.003-05:00

I discovered the band Stars yesterday and yet some of their songs already feel like a part of me, like I've known them a long time. I shan't try to say technical things, just that their sound is gorgeous.

These are my favourites:
Personal
Your Ex Lover Is Dead
Sleep Tonight

Close

2008-07-18T23:08:00.003-05:00

Emotions too close to the surface when music playing in the street transports me for a moment onto the film set of my own life, just walking along but this moment is part of the story, and the song is my soundtrack unrolling how I feel. (Thank You by Dido. Laugh if you will.)

Emotions far, far too close to the surface when I pass an open church and for a moment the idea is in my mind that I might slip inside and there find solace.

(I am and always wish to be an unshakable atheist. I like exploring churches, for their peace and beauty and interest. But to hear a little cry for solace is slightly terrifying.)

bug-juice

2008-07-18T17:37:00.003-05:00

Nosey colleague: So, do you have a boyfriend in Mexico?
Me: Um, no.
NC: You don't like Mexican men?
Me: No I do like Mexicans! They just don't like me...
NC: (Thoughtfully) If I worked in the United Kingdom, I would like to have a girlfriend from there.
Me: Well, I guess it just depends what happens...

This conversation for the win! Except not. Wound, meet salt.

Luckily, as I waited interminably for the cashier to be free, along came another colleague, originally from Zimbabwe. We are on friendly terms but I wish I had got to know him more, as he is about one of the loveliest people to talk to I have ever met. We chatted easily and pleasantly about things - my plans, how much he liked living in Colombia, buying a guitar for his small son who desperately wants to learn. His enthusiasm for whatever he's talking about is infectious - he is clearly a man glad to be alive - but he's interested in you too. You walk away in a good mood and with a smile on your face, thinking what a wonderful chat you've had. I wish I was more like that - it's both inspiring and chastening.

Also luckily, I retain the ability to laugh out loud at dictionary entries:
Christhood n. the condition of being a Christ
Obviously, it's not actually that funny, but it was. I don't suppose it's a condition many of us have to worry about.

My favourite new word of the day, however, is:
bug-juice n. Slang 1. an alcoholic beverage, esp. of an inferior quality. 2. an unusual or concocted drink.
This word is perfect for me, since alcohol-wise the only things I like are sweet and fruity (some might say sickly) cocktails. From now I shall only ever be drinking bug-juice. Go on, ask me what I'd like to drink...

A quiz

2008-07-18T00:31:00.003-05:00

I need to be told in words. I can’t believe in a friendship, a love, an affection unless I hear it. Unless I can ask and be told yes. It’s not necessarily better or worse than being any other way, but it means that if I care about someone but they can’t or won’t reciprocate in words I am eaten away by doubt and misery.

So why, given this, do I tend to place great chunks of my battered heart in the hands of men who just do not communicate this way? Who don’t believe in trying to verbalise elusive emotions, or are afraid of direct questions, or don’t like talking about how they feel, or don’t know how, or believe in expressing it in actions, or whatever?

a) You are subconsciously attracted to that which will destroy you. Moth, meet flame.
b) You are subconsciously afraid of being happy, or don’t think you deserve it or something.
c) You’ve been unlucky. Your sample size is small.
d) Your expectations are too high. You are a bottomless pit for affection and will never be satisfied.
e) They are all like that. Give up now.
f) I do not care. Stop whinging.
g) All of the above.

The Boy is my best friend in Mexico. He is my confidante, the one I really trust. We talk, we laugh, we enjoy each other’s company. What I want – what I should want – is friendship, a real friendship that will last after I leave here. He is supremely undemonstrative and private, and I am trying very hard to deal with my doubts and demons and believe in our friendship. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that we’re more than just friends of circumstance, that I matter enough for something to survive the ravages of time and distance.

That’s what I want. But finding out he has a girlfriend hurts like a knife through the heart.

Glad mine's not

2008-07-17T15:58:00.004-05:00

I happened to be having a bit of a read of a fairly recent New Scientist the other day. For those who are not aficionados, it has a section on the back page called The Last Word, where people send in questions about the whys and hows of everyday puzzles. This particular edition had a picture of a strange pattern that someone had found on their windowsill.

The patterns have been produced by snails grazing on algae. The snail scrapes off the algae with its radula - a sort of tongue with teeth. Hence the Cornish proverb Tavas medall ew howlsethas an bullhorn, which in English becomes "A smooth tongue is a snail's undoing".
- David Ridge

Possibly my favourite proverb EVER. Perfectly bizarre, but not at all nonsensical. Nicely lyrical, but biologically accurate.

I thought it was too good to be true and this bloke might be taking the piss and seeing if he could invent a proverb and pass it off as real. Howlsethas? Bullhorn? But I did some googling for Cornish dictionaries online and it turns out that "tavas" IS actually cornish for tongue (I couldn't find any of the other words). Hurray - I'd like it anyway, but being real makes it even more awesome!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to use it in casual conversation... I would quite like to use it to enigmatically put down some silver-tongued charmer - refusing to explain, of course. But actually I think maybe it means that sometimes what seems to be a negative trait is actually a good thing. Any ideas?

Difficult question

2008-07-16T10:19:00.002-05:00

I have been looking at a lot of job adverts recently - more than I would, in an ideal world, choose - generally for jobs in communications and allied trades with NGOs. This is, as you might imagine, mind-numbing. However, there is one going the rounds at the moment, and which I have seen several times, that is clearly trying to stand out from the crowd. It opens:

"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

At first blush, this seems like quite a brilliant approach: attention-grabbing, inspirational, and so on.

But the thing is, I apply for jobs if they sound interesting and I am more or less qualified to do them (and there are precious few of those). The motivational qualities of the advert don't really make any difference.

The effect it DOES have goes like this...

"Oh GOD, I don't KNOW! What AM I going to DO with my life? Oh GOD, I don't KNOW!..." etc, until I am in full blown existential panic, wondering what I really want, what (if anything) I am really good at, what (if anything) will really make me happy, and so on.

Works every time. I think I prefer mind-numbing.

Feria

2008-07-16T01:37:00.006-05:00

It is good to have plans, constructive plans, like sorting out your finances and getting a good night's sleep. And sometimes it is good to tear up those plans altogether.

Like tonight, when I noticed stalls selling special, sweet breads in the next block to mine.

These are a sure sign of some kind of fair - usually the neighbourhood celebration of their church's saints day.

And so it proved. Tomorrow is the day of the Virgen del Carmen, and the street is closed to traffic for its little fair. People were wandering along visiting the stalls, but all was very tranquil - tomorrow will be the busy day.

And so I wandered, and took pictures. It is for this I really fucking love Mexico - this embarrassment of riches - its endless gifts of the fascinating, the delightful, the odd - its boundless aliveness. Give me any street in Mexico to walk along or to watch through the window and I'll never be bored.

I was fascinated by this ride, a wheel for turning you upside-down lots of times. Simple, old-fashioned, gorgeous in its bold paint, and, I suspect, pretty effective:

I took lots of pictures like these two:

A smell to make your mouth water - meat for tacos al pastor:

I ate one of these, because they are so pretty:

And just as I was heading home I got into conversation with Jymy, at the all-important stall selling sweets and nuts and little treats of all kinds.

I took a few pictures of him (at his instigation - for that I love people who play the clown and show off to their friends!) and we had a good chat. As a foreign woman there is an instinct to be wary of strange men, not so much out of fear of anything sinister, but because they will talk to you, and sometimes try it on, not because they actually like you or are interested in talking to you, but because you are some kind of a game or a trophy or a novelty.

But who cares? Sod caution. It stops you from taking interesting chances. We swapped numbers and if I like I can go with them to other fairs. It's an opportunity to get to know different people, potentially to take good pictures and get good interviews. And I love fairs.

I wish I had been this bold months ago, but - as every time I do more than scuttle away timidly - I am proud of myself for not being shy.

It's all in the definition

2008-07-15T18:02:00.001-05:00

When I am editing a particularly frustrating, badly-written, badly-argued document, my comments can get quite short-tempered, or alternatively bitchy and passive-aggressive (NB employer-types: only under extreme duress, and I am never actually rude. I am a terribly good and constructive editor, really I am). The MOST frustrating thing is when authors don't actually respond to my comments in any meaningful way, or fail to recognise any need for clarification (this is my JOB, damnit, I MIGHT know what I'm talking about). I either have to leave the issue unresolved within the document and feel that that reflects badly on me as an editor, or I have to send it back again in a game of editing ping pong, finding some way to spell out the same question without coming across as either patronising or ignorant.

Mostly I do a lot of swearing, but sometimes these exchanges make me laugh:

- I don’t think this paragraph belongs in the “X” section.
- ITS OK IF WE ADOPT A BROAD DEFINITION OF X.

The spider of doom

2008-07-15T16:37:00.003-05:00

I am not particularly afraid of the dark. I do not suffer from night terrors. Nor do I watch a lot of late-night TV (I don't even have one at the moment) or scary movies. So I think I must be losing my mind... or be even more tired than I thought.

Lying in bed last night, trying to fall asleep and maybe a third of the way there - note, not yet dreaming - I heard a small noise. I looked up towards the ceiling and saw some kind of unknown or alien creature, like an enormous spider (a foot or so across) but with many more than eight, very spindly, legs. I froze in terror and mentally prepared myself to slide the quilt very slowly over my head (I am aware this doesn't sound like a very proactive response, but my priority was to stop it from being able to touch me). I believe I may have begun to deliberate between fight and flight, and whether and how I could kill it.* There may even have been some speculation as to whether it was some kind of giant arthropod (probable), or whether it might be made of metal and wires and things and thus more sinister and less susceptible to squashing.

Then an instant later the logical part of my brain caught up and I squinted up - without my glasses - to see only shadows. So all well and good, except I was suddenly NOT SLEEPY AT ALL.

I sometimes think I should start using the tag function for the entries I write. If I ever do get round to it, this one will be tagged "warning signs".

*For future reference, I think the piñata stick (basically a big hefty baseball bat decorated with spongebob squarepants paper and blue foil - Mexicans take smashing their piñatas seriously) would probably do it.

Lullabies

2008-07-14T23:26:00.005-05:00

My next door neighbours seem to be having a little get-together - just a few blokes. With guitars and singing. And beers, judging by the occasional splutters of laughter.

The low rumbles of traffic passing by. The quiet of the evening. Something on the edge of hearing that might be crickets or an electric buzz. Soulful, out-of-tune voices. Mournful love songs I understand even though the words wash over me.

I don't mind my neighbours being noisy, not one bit.

Murder must advertise

2008-07-14T15:28:00.004-05:00

I probably shouldn't find this article hilarious:

Mexico probes online 'hitmen ads'
"Mexican police are investigating a number of classified ads on the internet which purport to be from hitmen offering their services."

One can't help wondering what kind of hitman advertises his or her services publically. Quite an incompetent one, surely? Or similarly, what kind of person advertises for an assassin in the Wanted section...? (Except perhaps one with an over-developed sense of irony*.)

But actually, it does make a lot of sense. There must be many of us who would like to get the odd person bumped off, but don't have the necessary murky underworld contacts to get in touch with a hitman in the normal fashion. How else to tap into this market? And in Mexico, the police and legal system being what they are, much can be done with impunity.

In that light, it shouldn't be so funny. But it sort of is.

Human activity doesn't fit on any kind of simple spectrums, but if it did, I'm pretty sure this story would be at the other end:

Suburban comfort for massive ram
"A huge ram has made himself at home in his rescuer's house after resisting all attempts to return him to farm life."

Another of those stories that fills me with fondness for my native land; I love everything about this article.

Possibly my favourite sentence:
Even though he now has his own bungalow in the garden with carpet and windows, he still likes to watch TV in the family living room, and take car trips.

To elaborate:
Mr Palmer said he had tried leaving Nick with farmers on two occasions, but the animal had refused to go near other sheep and would not settle.

Nick has become a hit with the neighbours in the Rhiwbina area, and Mr Palmer said the sheep knew which gardens he was allowed into.

"He's more intelligent than your average sheep that's stuck in a field. He's in the house and in the car and meeting people over the park and around the village.

"He's part of the family. He comes in every evening, head-butts the cushions off the settee and watches TV.

"If the biscuit barrel is out he'll butt it on the floor because he knows the lid will come off. Come 11pm he'll have a swede or an apple and then he's out for the night.

"It probably smells in here, but I'm used to it."

Sometimes it's the little things, as much that a family might have a biscuit barrel as that they might have an enormous pet sheep called Nick.

*Goes away, reads about irony to make sure isn't using it wrong, ends up even more confused.

Days I can count

2008-07-13T23:57:00.003-05:00

Just now, preparing to leave my office after a spectacularly unproductive few hours, I realised how much I have to do before I leave work - and leave Mexico. Now, helpfully, midnight approaches and I am rigid with panic and wideawake terror and torturous self-reproach.

So, here are my lists.

Before I leave Mexico, I will:

1) Somehow, do a mountain of work things. Thinking about this makes me want to cry.
2) Stop being a baby and sit down and sort out my finances. Pretty damn soon, so I can make sure I get all the money I'm supposed to.
3) Get my useless arse in gear and send pictures and thankyous to all the people I have interviewed and photographed so far. Write a few emails to try to set up a few trips, meetings and things (sorry, that's horribly vague, but it's either that or horribly convoluted).
4) Go some interesting places and do some research for my 'book'.
5) Take lots of pictures of the ordinary details of the place where I live.
6) Go dancing.
7) Figure out how to ship my stuff home for less than my entire overdraft limit. Not all of it, obviously. Not tins of beans, sheets, my cheese grater, clothes with holes in, my mattress. But books, clothes without holes in, beloved blankets, my cardboard skeleton Zorro, my favourite saucepan with the flowers on, more books.
8) Look for jobs. Spend hours applying for jobs. Try not to lose the will to live when they don't even get back to me.
9) Beat my friend Jose Juan to 15 points at table tennis when he is neither ill nor letting me win. Just once.
10) Sort out a fraction of the crap that I need to sort out. Papers, thoughts, plans, photographs, unwritten emails, unsent post... you name it. Be judicious in not having random panics and spending hours trying to sort out the things that don't absolutely need sorting out before I go.
11) Finish painting a tree of life that I happen to be painting, on a someone's wall.
12) Figure out my friendship with the Boy, somehow make it something I am happy about, something that won't fade away, and not fuck it up.
13) Keep on functioning: buying food, washing up, cleaning my house (well, at least once), going to the laundry, going back to the laundry when they deign to be open, please please being in just sometimes when the binmen pass, not falling completely to pieces.

I will not:

1) Piss about on the internet wasting my fucking life.
2) Stay up ridiculously late and sleep the day away. Or have to get up and work, and waste the day feeling like death on a stick.
3) Stay at home doing nothing and feeling fuzzy and absent.
4) Let whole working days slip by without achieving anything.
5) Listen to detective stories or comedy or anything else on BBC7, no matter how comforting it is. I have heard them all BEFORE, for fucksake.
6) Accept invitations to do social things out of a feeling that I ought to be sociable, especially if they are in the middle of the day and will therefore eat the whole thing, or if they will go on very late - see (2). Unless I really want to.
7) Read anything not relevant to my 'book', especially fiction. I have a self-control problem with fiction: if I start, I can't stop until I finish. No matter the quality of the book or the hour of the morning - see (2).
8) In summary - waste any more of my precious time.

It is too late to:
1) Keep a diary.
2) Be a good blogger and write more about Mexico - both the little things that make me smile and all the dirty-faced glory of this mad, marvellous place.
As a result of (1) and (2), I've forgotten so much almost instantly, and there's more I'll forget - odd things I've seen, people I've passed in the street, the particular way things happen to be that seem ordinary now. Moulded jellies sold from little class cases on wheels. Painted shop-fronts. The goths selling waxed roses in every colour you could wish for, especially black. The jingle on the radio for the talent spot, with the man who can tell how many letters in any sentence. The midget in the metro station in cowboy hat and cream suit, who is apparently a TV star.
3) Make Mexican friends outside work. (I have one.)
4) Be bohemian and meet all kinds of interesting and intellectual and extraordinary Mexicans, and hang out and learn things and have adventures unimagined.
5) Read some of my bookshelful of books about Mexico, and be less ignorant while I actually live here.
6) Make more of an effort with my Spanish and get better than it is.
7) Go at all to all kinds of fascinating and beautiful and beautifully ordinary places.
8) Go back to lots of other fascinating and beautiful and beautifully ordinary places.

For some of these I console myself by telling myself that I will be back. For some there is no consolation.

Utterly awesome Wikipedia article of the day

2008-07-10T16:36:00.004-05:00

I am all the more amused by this because I am rather fond of writing in green ink, and green biros cheer me up...

Green ink
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In journalism, Green Ink is (humorously) supposedly the major identifying characteristic of written correspondence from self-aggrandising pedants, cranks, charlatans and eccentrics.

Although no psychiatric equivalence with the preceding terms should be inferred, it is also used to refer to unusable correspondence originating with readers who are mentally ill.

Regardless of the colour of ink used, it is common to refer to correspondence of any kind (including email and webpages) as being in "green ink", so long as it broadly fits the following identifying characteristics:
- Stridency
- Impertinence
- Unreasonableness
- Unrealism
- Fancifulness
- Obsessiveness

Common comorbid characteristics include IRRELEVANT CAPITALISATION, overuse of exclamation marks!!!!!!!! and veiled threats or warnings directed at the recipient

Religious mania is a frequent characteristic of green ink communication.

Writers and correspondents who fit this general profile are referred to as Green Inkers or as members of the Green Ink Brigade (GIB). The term Green Biro Brigade is also used occasionally along with Green Biro referring to a popular source of green ink.

Reported encounters with the GIB
“THE "green ink brigade" is well-known to editors. It consists of people who send in copies of the paper, covered in scribblings and rantings. Every mistake, every contentious point, is ringed or underlined, more often than not in green ink.

Their letters go on for page after page in a tidal wave of green bile.

I once had a letter from a green ink regular, signed Paul the Apostle, telling me I was "the spawn of the horned devil and a wicked whore from hell".

I am, in fact, the spawn of an electrician and a postlady from Middlesbrough and I've thus far kept Paul the Apostle's letter from them for fear of causing a domestic incident.

Don't ask me why these people choose green ink. They just do.”

—Unnamed columnist, The Northern Echo, 2006

“Anyone who makes a living from broadcasting will get more than his share of GIB letters. Anyone who dares to write a book about the English language had better change his address if he’s not prepared to be swamped. Yes, it can be profoundly irritating. A Green Inker will always spot the mistake. So will many other readers but the GI will write to tell you about it. And if any GIs are reading, I know that the first edition of my last book awarded a distinguished academic the Noble Prize. What I don’t know is how it slipped past me, my editor, the proof reader and on into infinity. But it did. Thank you for pointing it out — but please, no more letters.”

—John Humphrys, 2006

Possible origins
"Green Inkers" are (in popular imagination) frequently obsessed with supposed conspiracies and plots, so it may be no coincidence that Sir Mansfield Cumming, the first chief of MI6, would only write memoranda and communcations in green ink - a tradition that has been continued by all subsequent placeholders.

There is a tradition the Royal Navy that Admirals use green ink.

In harmony with the frequent megalomania exhibited by green inkers, green ink was also the way in which the guardian of an underage Roman Emperor would sign his charge's correspondences.

See also
Color psychology
Crackpot
Crank (person)
Rant

That's Miss Bitch to you

2008-07-09T01:04:00.003-05:00

So I just - finally - sent off my application for the unimaginably awesome dream job that I will never get. It seems to have taken days and days and a ridiculous amount of my life force. It's the best application I've ever written, so far, and it's painfully awful at the same time.

Oddly, for me, I am also at the moment a little involved with the other side of the process. We are currently advertising for an intern to do my old job, and the applications are trickling in. My boss on holiday and my email address is in his away message, so a few of the queries and applications are coming to me.

And I am terrifyingly judgemental about them - terrifying because I imagine unknown others taking a similar line with my applications. But, I feel quite justified in mentally spiking people who just don't cut the mustard. And it is, in a way, comforting: my applications might not be perfect, but I put time into them bother to send each employer what they're asking for, and in general, I hope, don't come across as an idiot from the word go.

It is sorely tempting to send these poor lost souls some advice...

Your fancy CV design is poncy and unreadable. Random jargon does not endear you to me. But I could overlook all this if you had not sent me a completely generic cover letter, dated three months ago, banging on about your experience in a completely unrelated sector (honestly, imagine the least relevant thing to agriculture and you're probably there). You obviously don't want the job so I doubt you're bothered by my automatically shuffling you onto my mental reject pile. But you might want to reconsider that scattergun approach. It just wastes everyone's time, since the overwhelming majority of people won't even think about employing you if you don't show some rudimentary interest in the actual job they're offering. You are an idiot.
You seem quite sweet, but if you send me an email saying you're interested in the job as advertised on our website and look forward to hearing from me, without making any attempt to actually apply for it (i.e. not so much as hinting at the covering letter, CV and writing samples we asked for)... well, I'll send you a nice email back suggesting that you do so. And I'll think you're an idiot.
If you send me a bald, less-than-one-line email, not expressing your interest in the job but just asking how much you'll get paid... well, it's a fair question and you're not on the spike yet, but I already dislike you. You're kind of an idiot.

Come to think of it, I love these people. Being a bitch, the perfect way to feel better about yourself... w00t! Let's hope I get more tomorrow...

[Alternative entry: "Karma, please come and bite me on the arse, I need a few more things for which to reproach myself".]

dispirited

2008-07-03T22:45:00.002-05:00

dis·pir·it·ed (dĭ-spĭr'ĭ-tĭd)

adj. working on an application for a job you really, really want, knowing you've almost no chance of actually getting it

secret plans

2008-07-03T21:24:00.004-05:00

This a softer world (hover your pointer over it for the kick) perfectly captures how I feel about my plans. The less secret they are, the less real they feel.

Also, not that I am a creepy stalker-type or anything (just a very curious follower of links... does it come to the same thing?), I was reading Joey-the-writer's girlfriend's livejournal and on their anniversary she wrote:

"It has been 4 years of matching tattoos and knives, backing each other up in fights, shoving each other into snowbanks and this terrible, immodest, stupid love."

The world too often seems dull and difficult, full of complications and compromises to be lived with, borne, settled for, dealt with. And so it is, but if I ever forget that that isn't all there is, please remind me that there is terrible, immodest, stupid love.

Rainy afternoons

2008-07-02T14:59:00.003-05:00

Being with the Boy makes me happy, whether it's minutes or hours. Something that is closed the rest of the time is opened. And at the same time I am starving to death on the crumbs of his affection. It is not his fault at all; it is just the way he is and things are.

And every time I walk away my heart breaks again, even though I know how ridiculous it is.

The endless rain falls.

Nausea comes and goes - the doctor says it is gastritis but I don't believe him, so there's not really anything more to be done.

There is a pretty siamese kitten in the petshop, and I can't help going in for a look. In the wire cages there are chickens with patches of bald pink flesh with the feathers pecked out. There are kittens with rumpled fur, climbing over each other to stare at me with wide eyes. There is a sickly little black one looking bowed and hopeless, gummy eyes oozing.

Suddenly it all seems unbearably sad.

Boom

2008-06-30T00:51:00.002-05:00

I feel like I am in a warzone. I am trying to finish a job application, and about once every second or so - but irregularly - there is another deafening explosion that echoes off the surrounding buildings and hills. I can smell gunpowder. It is nearly 1 a.m. and someone is letting off fireworks. Not the pretty oooh kind, just the incredibly loud and obnoxious kind.

It is reminiscent of 7.30 this morning, when I shouted myself awake, dreaming of a sick child convulsing in my arms and panic robbing me of breath, making one giant effort to cry out. The random explosions every few minutes didn't help me get my head together.

Today has not been a restful day.

This is my Mexico

2008-06-26T23:15:00.011-05:00

Or at least, this is my Mexico today. I took them in a few quietish streets this evening, on a ten or fifteen minute walk home that I did in an hour. There were a couple of things I'd planned to photograph, but in the end didn't really. Usually I'm too inhibited to stand in the street taking pictures, but today I didn't care. I felt exhilarated to be behind the camera, truly myself and not thinking about anything else. I shall do this more often.

So this is my Mexico, today, on a grey-blue evening after the rain; my attempts to capture some the shapes and colours and textures of my ugly-beautiful town.

They're not great pictures, but they feel like a beginning. I was actively thinking about them and learning from them, seeing how to improve.

There is just one picture I'm really proud of, and it's this one, a picture of a car-park attendant named Margarito:

It's not a work of brilliance (I seem to have some kind of congenital inability to get a horizon straight, though I'm pleased that I had the sense to nudge the exposure up a little). What I'm proud of is that I was brave enough to ask if I could take it.

I grinned at him sheepishly when I got beeped at by a car on its way out, standing stupidly in the way to take a different picture, and he grinned back. He seemed friendly, and he had an infectious smile. I went on my way and straight away started kicking myself for not having asked to take his picture, but I felt too stupid to turn round and go back.

But, my book idea involves me being brave enough to talk to strangers and ask to take their pictures. Every time I pass up an opportunity I think I will learn my lesson and be quick-witted and brave enough next time. That was what I was telling myself today as I walked away, but then I thought that I could console myself with next time forever, and that I had to just screw up my courage and do it. So I did.

And it was just fine. He didn't look at me like I was a freak and in fact was unfazed by my asking. He let me take a few shots and we had a little chat afterwards. The Earth didn't swallow me. My skin didn't all fall off. I didn't shrivel up and fall down dead. It's not the first picture I've taken of someone new to me, but the first one of a random stranger who I had no particular reason to talk to, and so I am eternally grateful to Margarito for being nice and giving me the confidence to try it again.

I wanted to photograph his fantastic smile, but like many Mexicans he went all Victorian-solemn in front of the camera, and even making stupid little jokes I couldn't get him to smile naturally. I was happy once I had what I thought was a good smiling shots, but actually it wasn't the best, and this is the one that has something of his expression.

Biscuit-bearers of the revolution

2008-06-26T17:23:00.002-05:00

Another thing that, today, filled me with affection for my homeland. I am rather proud of our tradition of idomitable, difficult old people, and, from her wellies to her china teacup, I cannot imagine anything more British than 91-year-old Topsy of Pickering:

The picture is from the BBC's "Day in Pictures" for yesterday, and the caption read:

"Topsy Clinch, 91, a resident of Pickering in North Yorkshire, UK, recreates her "living room" in a river to depict scenes faced in the devastating floods of last year."

God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties

2008-06-25T22:39:00.004-05:00

I just heard to the Kate Rusby version of the song "The Village Green Preservation Society" and I LOVE it, I cannot tell you how much. If you don't know it hunt it down, because it is wonderful. (It is on youtube here, although the video is very odd.) I've been meaning to get the relevant Kinks album for years, and I've had Kate Rusby's lovely Awkward Annie album for months but I guess I've never properly listened all the way to the end... and so it took me by surprise and stabbed me through the heart with love and longing for home. I'm almost glad when things do that these days, because it makes it seem less terrible to be going back.

Also today my thoughts lingered lustfully on cream teas.

Kites and equations

2008-06-25T16:43:00.002-05:00

So if there was a rule book of blogging, I'm sure it would say DO NOT WRITE ABOUT YOUR DREAMS in big red letters, but I do not myself think dreams are boring and I'm not particularly predisposed to following most kinds of rules. So the thing I am pondering right now is: are dreams more interesting when you can figure out an explanation, or when your subconscious seems to have been taking some kind of weird drugs while you weren't looking?

Last night I dreamed I was at home and we were flying kites. I let my sister have a go with a particularly awesome kite, and she let it go and it blew away. I was ridiculously, weepingly devastated and viciously angry. This is pretty obviously a dream about the impending sense of loss and misery of leaving Mexico. Secondarily, my subconscious is probably blaming my sister for this, since the main date determiner is needing (and wanting) to spend some time with her (and my brother) before she goes to university in autumn. Also, I miss flying kites. Simple.

On the other hand, in yesterday's dream I was back in more-or-less a school chemistry lab, complete with my old teacher, who always seemed faintly amused and on the edge of a nervous breakdown. We were doing a really basic practical to illustrate the principles of making up a solution, with one of those photocopied worksheets and everything. The sheet said we were allowed to make up a solution of whatever (known) strength we liked, but then my teacher told me I should have done the strength it gave as an example (and that was so me as a teenager, perversely doing the odd or awkward or difficult thing). So, I had to change my solution to the right strength by adding more water. So my dreaming brain starts figuring out how much I should add to get the right ratio, with an equation of the form a/b = x/y. It is difficult to do this without paper, but after the numbers slipped through my fingers a few times I got what seemed to be the right answer. And then I woke up.

But that was not the end of the story, oh no. I spent my first few half-sleeping minutes (turn on water heater, go to loo, stand in bedroom staring vacantly about, have shower) slowly and painfully working it all out again to check I had the right answer, realising I'd got my sums right but made a mistake in the initial ratio, and working out the new equation, before being properly awake and realising that it actually didn't matter at all. I do quite like algebra, but it was something of a headachey way to start the day.

So what the hell brain? Sleep algebra? For why?! I haven't done more than add up my change for ages. I haven't thought about school, chemistry, or maths. Where do you get these things from?

I have always liked the weird, inexplicable dreams best, but maybe I should find the explicable ones more interesting - at least they represent some kind of insight?

In which I save the world (or at least ramble on about education n'stuff)

2008-06-23T17:40:00.005-05:00

How depressing: according to this article, "Britain has the unenviable reputation for having the worst social mobility of any industrialised nation. What is more, the chances of a British youngster climbing out of hardship are said to be lower today than they were fifty years ago."

Depressing, but not surprising. A bit less than fifty years ago my parents, both from very ordinary working families, were starting at grammar school, from which they went on to Cambridge and professional careers in public service. Many people I know of my parents' generation also went the grammar school route. On the other hand, most (though not all) of my friends from Cambridge went to private schools (though not public schools, in the British sense - their alumni and I tend to quietly loathe each other), and most (though not all) of those who went to state schools went to nice schools in nice areas and came from firmly middle-class families who valued education. I'm not sure how I feel about the grammar school system - I can see that it's not ideal to determine children's fates at age 11, and make most of them feel like failures - but the thing about grammar schools was that they gave poor kids a chance. They created an environment where learning was valued and encouraged, rather than where being clever made you an outcast or a bullying victim.

The "solution" announced by the prime minister, of giving £200 to poor parents whose children take part in health and development programmes doesn't seem to be much of an answer, but I suppose it can't do any harm, especially if the programmes are actually worthwhile. But to me it seems like a sticking plaster for a deeply sick education system and wider culture.

One factor of course is the way Labour have sold out our education system. My parents received full grants to go to university. They simply didn't have to figure debt into their decision about what was best for them.

More importantly, we have a culture in which learning, knowledge and working hard are seen as deeply uncool. Giving a shit is for losers. Being interested is for losers. We want the moon on a stick but we don't want to have to work for it. Meanwhile the school system fails to ignite our sparks of interest in the world around us; most of the time it grinds them out. We finish our educations lazy and uninterested. I don't exclude myself from this assessment: I am by most standards an educational success story, but I'm profoundly lazy and my education failed to create in me any real love of learning. I feel like I was robbed of my own intellectual potential, my own internal resources, and most people are robbed much worse than I was.

So it really, really pisses me off - and saddens me - when Mark Easton, the BBC's home editor, writes: "In researching this issue for the BBC News At Ten tonight I was sent some fascinating graphs (how sad am I?) which show how household income distribution has changed in the UK since 1961."

For crying out loud, you are an adult! You are a top journalist! If you find something beyond football or telly or shopping fascinating, then just say so. You really shouldn't need a smugly self-deprecating little caveat about how uncool you are.

Many of us do this: we are apologetic about any display of intelligence or passion or interest. We reassure our audience that we don't really think knowledge or understanding is worthy of respect. But really, we shouldn't.

I was asking a Mexican friend of mine if they have the same problem in schools here: of lack of discipline, lack of respect for anything, working hard being uncool. He didn't get what I meant at first - probably not then - but once explained what I meant he told me that these things are not really a problem here. He had friends who worked hard at school and friends who didn't, and there were never any problems between them: they respected each other. My own experience with young people here is that they are generally much more pleasant and less sulky. They are relaxed in the company of adults and have more functional relationships with them. When they mention something at school they don't automatically feel the need to roll their eyes or make a comment to show how stupid they think it is. They can be enthusiastic and serious about it. The first time I realised this it was a bit of a shock: I asked about a school event, I did the face-pull-little-joke thing in response to the answer, then realised she was looking at me like I was an idiot. And I really was.

The truth is that hardship is a reality in Mexico. There are no guarantees of keeping your head above water. So you use all the opportunities and talents at your disposal, you work hard, and you're glad to. People understand that the no-one owes them a living, and they have to work for it. The way my Mexican friends enjoy getting down to their work, don't complain, and are grateful for it makes me wondering and ashamed. I will never understand the American stereotype of Mexicans as lazy: whilst I've rarely met a workaholic Mexican - they tend to have a healthy understanding of the work-life balance - I don't think I've ever met a lazy one. So can we recreate this attitude as a society without the spectres of poverty, hunger and misery?

I realise that I sound like some kind of middle-aged reactionary, but I'm not. I don't believe in Draconian discipline, but I do think schools need order and structure so that some work can actually get done, and pupils also need to learn self-discipline - that I have none is one of my biggest regrets. I don't believe anyone should be taught mindless respect or obedience, but children do need to learn a basic respect for each other, their teachers, and for learning, knowledge, and hard work.

Incidentally, I don't think being middle class and well off is better than being anything else, or any kind of reliable route to happiness. The dream of a nice house in the suburbs and a big car and a flatscreen TV does not excite me. Once I thought my education and cleverness at passing exams made me better than other people, but fortunately I'm a bit wiser than that now. But, I think everyone should have access to the education or careers that are right for them.

And I think school should be interesting. It should make you think that the world is an awesome place. It should give you the intellectual resources to use and enjoy your own brain, in your work but also in your pastimes and in your own thoughts. To think and notice and read and joke and play, to be more than a passive consumer of TV - equally if you're a dinnerlady or a neuroscientist. It should develop your talents and put you on the road to a fulfulling and happy life. I don't know how, but let's dream big.

On a related note, a Labour MP endeared himself to me a little the other day, for the first time in some considerable while. How? He called the British "bloody miserable".

In his blog, Tom Harris asked:
"We live longer, eat healthier (if we choose), have better access to forms of entertainment never imagined a generation ago (satellite TV, DVD, computer games), the majority of us have fast access to the worldwide web, which we use to enable even more spending and for entertainment. Crime is down.
"So why is everyone so bloody miserable?"

When forced to defend his comments (and I like that he defended them rather than simply spinelessly apologising for any offence), he said:
"I'm not belittling the genuine problems people are facing. I do think there is a more deep-seated cultural, even possibly spiritual problem that we have in this country where, is it about consumerism, is it about the instant gratification society, are we finding that buying stuff just doesn't make us as happy as we thought?"

Well quite.

Near death experience

2008-06-21T01:27:00.005-05:00

I'd like to say that after today I will never get in the car with a drunk friend again, but I'm not sure if it's completely true. In Mexico it is completely normal - though illegal of course - to drink and drive. Some people will 'only' drink a few beers if they know they're going to drive, others will knock back the tequilas and drive when they can barely walk. As a result I've come to take it in my stride, and I'll accept a ride from someone who I know has been or will have been drinking if the alternative involves hassle or taxis or having to go home early or not go at all.

However, after today I will be a lot more careful about the cars I get in, and I don't think I can think of my drunk friend as my friend anymore. A devil-may-care attitude to my own mortality doesn't any longer seem funny.

Up until we got in the car, I was having an exceptionally nice evening. We had gone into Mexico City for a farewell party for an American colleague. I am rather sad I didn't get to know her properly earlier, and have the chance to get spend time with her and her friends, but it was profoundly pleasant. I got to catch up with an ex-colleague and build that relationship a little; chat to some superfun Mexicans; meet some pleasant Americans and one Italian (and a rather terrifying American girl who works at the embassy). I got to have a dance with her boyfriend, who may be the best salsa dancer I have danced with in Mexico. I enjoyed myself even though the Boy wasn't there. I was brave and chatted to strangers.

And then we left. We were four, colleagues and friends: the driver, his girlfriend, my officemate and me. The others were boisterous and amped-up and I - stone-cold sober - was trepidatious from the moment we got in the car, but I just stayed quiet and said nothing. Driver started messing about, driving too fast, and, perhaps not surprisingly, generally acting like a drunken prick behind the wheel. It comes to a head when he does a big, terrifying, dangerous swerve around another car.

"Driver, that's not even fucking funny" I yell, though not loudly.

This turns out to be the wrong thing to say.

Far from prompting him to start not driving like he wants to kill us all, he starts swerving all over the three-lane road, deliberately throwing us from side to side, at top speed.

We are all shouting, loudly this time, and screaming in fear. I think I am saying things along the lines of "for fuck's sake Driver, fucking stop it, you're going to fucking kill us, fucking stop the car right now". My officemate is saying similar things, only with less fuck and more please.

He doesn't stop. I think I might die in this car.

"Every time you say fuck Eloise I'm going to crash the car, I swear," he says. His voice is menacing. He is angry with me, punishing me. All my friends know that the word fuck is practically punctuation with me, but it seems that he has taken offence at me trying to reign him in, tell him what to do.

He stops, though his driving is still terrifying.

I sit in absolute silence and disappear into myself. I am trembling with rage and fright. I am also feeling miserable with guilt, because I feel like it's my fault, even though it isn't. Girlfriend is apologising for what she has said or shouted - I didn't hear it. "I'm sorry, but...", she says. Driver is driving like a madman.

He starts the crazy swerving again, I don't know why.

This time I let myself break into terrified tears. I know that, though there is a certain kind of nasty machismo that would get a kick out of having power over three screaming, frightened, begging girls, there are very few men who won't feel ashamed of making a girl cry. I am right, and he calms down. But the tears are real and they won't stop. I am sobbing and sobbing and there is music playing and no-one says a word.

I draw even further into myself, looking away out of the window. Sometimes the tears come back and I try to fight them off. Sometimes my whole body seems to go stiff, other times I shudder and shake. My officemate reaches out to comfort me. We write each other text messages and show each other our phone screens. Are you OK? Do you want to get out? Will he let us? We hold hands. Driver is still going too fast, too aggressive, too close to other cars, stopping just in time.

We do get out. My officemate is conciliatory - I love you, but you're scaring me. I am too frightened and too angry to speak. Just four words: "Girlfriend, are you OK?"

Yes, she says, so I leave her to her fate.

It's after midnight, dark, a busy road somewhere in Mexico City with cars streaming past but no-one about, a few distant figures seeming threatening rather than comforting. I am crying uncontrollably again and half-shouting, barely coherent with rage.

We flag down a taxi, itself a dangerous enough decision in this city. I can't afford what it will cost, but it doesn't matter. All the way home I can't stop crying, I can't stop shivering. I can feel my heart racing, I can feel my limbs trembling with the adrenalin. Every little bump or swerve frightens me.

The saddest thing about it all is that in the back of Driver's car, when I was hopelessly afraid, all I wanted was to call the Boy and ask him to come and make it alright, to hug me better and drive me home. I would have called him - and I know he would have come and rescued us - except that he lost his phone and doesn't have a new one yet. He would have come, because he is generous and chivalrous and he is my friend, but I wanted to be the one he wanted to come for, I wanted him to want to hold me, I wanted there to be someone to want those things. My tears of fear became too tears of loneliness - and there's nothing like impending death to make you feel alone - and tears of want of love.

I am home now, safe. The fright has almost worn off, with sugary foods and time, but I will not forgive tonight easily. It isn't that he drove drunk that makes me angry. That's culturally normal for him (he is Latin American, though not Mexican), and it would be unreasonable of me since I was willing to get in the car knowing he'd been drinking. But I don't believe that drunkenness is an exuse for any and all behaviour. Mooning yes, terrorising your friends no. Alcohol isn't some kind of magic potion that gets forced down your throat by evil wizards. You don't get to abrogate responsibility for whatever you do. It doesn't make you a whole different person, just loosens the straps on whatver you normally keep strapped in.

I am angry because he put us in danger by deliberately driving dangerously and too fast. I am angry because it was all about his fucking ego. I am angry because he deliberately terrified us. I am angry because he didn't stop, even when we were screaming. Someone who would - who could - do that, drunk or sober, isn't someone I can be friends with. Maybe it's not such a big deal. Maybe I'm a bitch. Maybe I'm unforgiving. But I don't feel I can forgive. If he apologises I'll be polite - for the sake of the group - but trust? friendship? affection? No.

Even at the time I was thinking about how the limits of friendship are revealed in extremis. I have felt like a bad person for having some reserve in my feelings about Driver, not really trusting or feeling completely comfortable with him. Yet another lesson in trusting my instincts. The contrast with the Boy was sharp and immediate. He plays the fool sometimes, making race-car noises or pretending we're taking off on the long straight road to the campus gates, but no matter how drunk he was (and he doesn't drink much - by Mexican standards - when he's driving) he would never, ever do something like that. I trust him absolutely.

I am not, I think, a fearful person - sometimes not fearful enough. It's easy to make me jump but not generally easy to really scare me. But when I do get really scared - which fortunately is not often - I am miserably, overwhelmingly terrified. Everything frightens me. When I got home I hurried for safety and looked over my shoulder. A loud doorbell noise coming from somewhere on the stairs made me jump. I phoned my officemate to make sure it wasn't her, because I was too scared too open the outer door. The sounds of people walking past in the street sent shivers down my spine. A truth was suddenly clear to me: I hate people who make me afraid.

Monday morning drama

2008-06-16T16:07:00.002-05:00

After too much turning over and ignoring the clock, I force myself out of bed. I have woken from a dream where I am living, and I think working, in an old people's home. The old people are being abused and one is murdered, and I am sneaking around trying to find out what's happening and why and bring the murderers to justice. It is sort of exciting but also gut-twistingly frightening. I have NO IDEA why I dreamed this.

I am in the bathroom, washing my hands, when out of the corner of my eye I see a bird flying around in my living room. I look again, squinting without my glasses. There is a bird flying around my house. I close doors and open windows. It is a very lovely little bird, a sparrow or something very like one, but I do not think my house is the best habitat for it. I pursue it with my camera. It flies away.

I am in the shower. I remember with a spasm of horror that applications for a job I really want to apply for close today at 4pm - 10am Mexican time. I switch on my computer, wondering if I can complete a job application in 45 minutes (note: of course not). I see that the closing date is in fact the 30th, and another job which does close today doesn't have a time specified. My insides untie themselves.

I am walking down the stairs, and I see the handyman (who otherwise I hardly ever see). We have a little chat, during which it emerges that, whilst I am otherwise happy in my apartment, the rain is leaking through my ceiling again. He tells me he will fix it if I show him where. I seize the opportunity, even though the lateness of the hour is tying my insides up again.

On my way to work at last I watch my town going past in all its everyday, ugly, scruffy, glorious beauty. A boy is buying tortillas at a tortilleria, just tall enough to see over the counter. All at once it doesn't seem to matter how late I am for work.

The happiness of secrets

2008-06-12T16:34:00.002-05:00

Today I read this article, and I wanted very much to think it was inexpressibly amazing. It is about the apartment of a New York family, whose designer-architect, unbeknown to them, embedded in it a kind of mystery-puzzle-treasure hunt, all codes and secret compartments and hidden roles for everyday things. Being more than a little fascinated by secrets and mysteries, I kind of think that that that's about the coolest thing ever, and I would surely burst with joy if someone did such a thing for me. All mysteries are exciting, but a surprise mystery is, well, enough to restore your faith in magic.

But.

The apartment to me, despite all the money to lavish on making it beautiful, is in places rather ugly. It speaks of more money than taste, on the part of both the occupants and the designer. It should be stunning in both its mystery and its everydayness, and it seems to just fall a little bit short. Which is sort of sad for such a perfect idea.

And they are such a ridiculously wealthy, privileged family - the apartment itself cost $8.5 million. I'm sure that after being featured in the New York times, the designer is set. But he "absorbed much of the cost in terms of his own billable hours, and relied on the generosity of more than 40 friends and artisans who became captivated by the project. He said he 'begged, borrowed and stole' from them "in the collaborative process".

If I was going to be a fairy godmother, if I was going to do something utterly amazing, incredible, and life-changing for one family, and beg a whole load of other people to do it to, for free, I just don't think I would pick them.

Worst of all, I don't think they deserve it. What kind of a child (or adult) spends months seeing a load of scambled letters every day his bedroom and never once thinks it might be a code, until a friend points it out?

But maybe I'm just jealous.

What has it got in its pocketses?

2008-06-10T22:07:00.003-05:00

It is tempting, and harmless fun for all the family, to draw conclusions about people's character based on their everyday bits and pieces. In detective stories, lists of what the dead man had in his pockets are utterly compelling.

So apparently I am the kind of person who, when putting on her serious waterproof for the first time in several months and putting her hands in her pockets, finds sheep's wool and several lengths of blue and green ribbon. I have no idea why.

Pictures I like. I think.

2008-06-06T22:18:00.007-05:00

I am hopelessly confused about the best way to organise my photos. I cannot find my copy of photoshop even though I have seen it recently and losing things makes me feel like I am LOSING MY MIND.

But, even though every bad photo makes me want to stab myself in the eyes, I really do like some of them. I find myself in a paralysis of indecision about which are good and which not, but these are three of the ones I decided to send to my Dad - not necessarily the best, but ones I like:

Perpetual light

The littlest dancer

The littlest graffiti artist

Guilt

2008-06-06T20:24:00.003-05:00

I need to start sorting out the photos I have taken on my digital SLR (ie big fancy camera, if you are a non-photographer). Currently all the raw files are sitting on my external hard drive in a folder called "slr unsorted", which they very much are. One of the things I need to do with them is convert them into jpegs, so I can email/send print copies to various people I have interviewed and photographed.

To do this I need the software that came with the camera. The camera used to be my dad's before he got one with even more bells and whistles, and he installed the software for me when he let me "borrow" the camera at Christmas. This, of course, disappeared when my computer went to its inglorious death. I thought I had the CD for reinstalling it, but now that I have looked everwhere and am feeling frustrated and sulky, I have decided that I never had the CD and am trying to download the software from Nikon. However, there are 23 different things I could be downloading, and I can't for the life of me remember which are the right two programmes I need.

I was just looking through emails from my dad to see if he had at any point told me this. For some reason yahoo sorted them out of date order, so I had to read them all. And I realised that pretty much all I ever email my dad about is computer- or camera- related questions, or favours he's doing for me at the time. At this moment I am feeling like the world's most maggoty daughter.

In my defence, we do talk on the phone, but still, I feel ungiving and ungrateful. I am resolved to get my arse in gear and send him some of the best of my photos - he is a camera nerd and would love to see them.

I was going to say that that means figuring out which of these programmes I need, which would bring me back to square one - I am too embarrassed to ask my dad, because I should have been less lazy and apathetic and downloaded them months ago, which I also feel guilty about - but actually I could send the crappy low-resolution files that the camera makes at the same time as the raw file. However, I think it is time to finally get on the ball, and maybe kill two guilt-birds with one stone...

Funnies

2008-06-05T13:39:00.003-05:00

On the subject of webcomics, my latest discovery is Married to the Sea.

I don't like all of them, but some of them make me giggle uncontrollably - and some are nicely acid. Hurray for funnies!

These are some of my favourites so far:

Incidentally,

2008-06-03T20:06:00.004-05:00

Friday's xkcd references Narnia! (It does, just hover your cursor over the comic.) I think I may be in love with Randall Munroe.

Also, someone translates xkcd into Spanish. That, my friends, is remarkably cool.

Look! Breasts!

2008-06-03T15:15:00.004-05:00

The internet is great! You can look at pictures of breasts!

Specifically this website, the Normal Breasts Gallery. The idea is that lots of women share pictures of their breasts, allowing us all to see that we're not hideous freaks for not having breasts like the ones in porn and in the movies.

They are a bit militant about breasts being fetishised in modern western culture as sexual objects and their primary purpose being for nurturing babies. I don't quite agree: it is true, and a bad thing, that breast feeding is seen as indecent or even disgusting by a lot of Americans especially, and breasts need to be seen as not only for sex (and sex not as disgusting), but breasts ARE for sexual pleasure, no? And wonderful things they are too.

But it is hard to enjoy them to the full if you are worrying about how ugly and abnormal they are, and for that reason I think this site is brilliant.

Destiny

2008-05-27T09:54:00.004-05:00

It is time to explain how I took control of my destiny. (I have not been being deliberately mysterious about this, not since I got it sorted out anyway – I am just useless at finding time to gather my thoughts and write posts. This one has been sitting around half-written for a little while.)

SO, I realised (and yes, it’s all obvious in hindsight) that what I really want to be is a writer. It’s the one thing I really have some genuine talent at, and really do actually enjoy doing. The editing part of my job can be painfully tedious at times, but the writing part – once I get over my fearful paralysis and actually start writing – is exhilarating, challenging, satisfying. Moreover, your destiny does not simply waltz up to you and present itself: if I am to be a writer, I have to make it happen. Moreover, I have a unique opportunity to do that right now, without losing too much if I fail completely. I am in Mexico, I speak Spanish, more or less, I know the country, more or less, and I’m able to dedicate some time to trying to write about it before I have to move on to a(nother) proper job.

SO, I screwed up my courage and asked my boss if he would like me to stay on for a bit longer. The result was a new four-month contract, under which I would work three weeks out of every four, with the fourth being free for me to do my own research trips.

This is an exciting and wonderful thing. I am very glad that I have finally figured out one of the things I would really like to do with my life (there are a couple of others, but they are EVEN MORE impractical, hard to believe though that is). It is also completely terrifying.

One of the results was me moving off campus, as I would have had to pay a quarter of the rent if I’d stayed, whereas if I moved I would get paid money instead, in the form of a housing allowance. I was initially quite excited about this – a new stage of my life, a new challenge living in town, maybe meeting and spending time with different people, being all cool and hanging out (I wish my imagination wasn’t so optimistic) – and I do like my house a lot. It is peaceful, secure, and had lovely big windows and arched brick ceilings. On the other hand, the hassle, expense and incredible time-consumingness of all the packing, unpacking, cleaning, and furnishing – plus the rain coming in through my beautiful ceiling – has taken the shine off a little. And it is a wee bit lonely. I don’t like to admit it, but I think it was not having the internet, not not having company, that made it more lonely.

The writing plan, as first conceived, was to try my hand at some quirky travel/culture articles, but I realised pretty quickly that I wanted to write a book. A couple of vague book ideas have become a definite idea, and a plan is fleshing itself out all the time. I am a bit coy about it, partly because I have an irrational paranoia that someone will steal my idea, but mostly because I am afraid that people will people will think it is stupid and my confidence is yet a teetering house of cards. But I do think it is a good idea, a viable one, and each time I have to tell someone about it it is a bit less terrible.

Of course I can’t really write a whole book based on a few odd weeks’ research. The plan is to gather enough material for a few chapters, then try to get an agent, then a publisher and an advance when I got home. This is all very well in theory, but terrifyingly difficult (and random) in practice. As my first research trip approached, three weeks or so ago, and I explained this plan to a friend, I felt like I was being completely ridiculous even to dream that it might work out for me. Millions of people want to be writers, and how many of them manage it with any reasonable degree of success? What makes me think I’m so special? I felt like a spoilt and stupid child. I felt like the living embodiment of hubris.

My trip was in part great and in part disastrous. On the whole I have more hope and more faith in my book now than I did before I began, but the magnitude of the task is also a lot clearer to me. This intimidates me but it won't stop me.

Meanwhile, the exquisite tortures of the Boy who doesn't want me being my best friend in Mexico, the person who listens to me, the person who makes me laugh and makes me calm and makes me happy. But also the person who teases me and torments me and is so undemonstrative and private that I find it hard to believe even in our friendship. Of wondering about the questions he doesn’t answer or I daren’t ask and having no right to answers, and then the answers being just as bad. Of being able to think and - mostly - act rationally, but completely unable to feel rationally about it. With my friendship with the Boy shaken and uncertain, I feel friendless and shaken in myself. I often do not feel brave enough even to carry on being here, fighting loneliness all the time, let alone to push myself to go to strange places and talk to strange people. And yet the idea of leaving Mexico is so painful I can’t let myself think about it.

Lightness

2008-05-26T20:52:00.002-05:00

Lightness

It was your lightness that drew me,
the lightness of your talk and your laughter,
the lightness of your cheek in my hands,
your sweet gentle modest lightness:
and it is the lightness of your kiss
that is starving my mouth,
and the lightness of your embrace
that will let me go adrift.

Meg Bateman
her translation from the original Gaelic

This is one of those poems that has stayed in my mind since I first read it, in Staying Alive, edited by Neil Astley, which is not quite perfect but is the best anthology of modern poetry I have ever come across. Leafing through it, now familiar, over the weekend, this was the one that stuck with me.

[By a miracle I have remembered my mother's birthday two whole days in advance. Her passion and obsession is Gaelic music, like the poet discovered in her youth. I am almost glad that Lightness, the book that this is from, seems to be out of print, because it would feel too personal, even if only I knew it. But, thanks to the internet, Bateman's second book, with poems both in Gaelic and in English, will be arriving at my house even before she does, back from another trip to the Outer Hebrides.]

O tempora, o mosquitos

2008-05-26T15:58:00.004-05:00

Mosquito season is upon us, following the coming of the rain with grim inevitability. This was called to my attention on Friday night, when I got bitten ALL OVER and spent the hours of repose tossing, turning, and scratching.

Saturday night: I lie in bed. And ominous whining fills my ears. I get up, put the light on, and kill two mosquitoes, including the biggest, ugliest one I have ever seen, which squishes in a truly revolting way. I retire with tranquil mind.

Sunday night: It is 1.30 am and I haven't had proper restful sleep all weekend. I turn out the light and lay me down to sleep. I think, I toss, I turn. Finally I am still. The room is still. The room is not still, there is a fucking mosquito in it. I get up. I put the light on. I stagger back to bed. I poke myself in the eye with my glasses. I spend a lot of time looking for an apparently invisible mosquito. I find lots of bits of fluff and small marks on the wall. I reflect that hunt the mosquito is a bit like hunt the thimble, only considerably less enjoyable. I find the mosquito, sitting on the wall. I hesitate - partly because splatting it while resting seems less sporting than splatting it in mid flight, partly out of disgust at splatting it on my wall, and partly because I am so goddamn tired. She who hesitates is lost. The mosquito flies away. I continue looking for it, this time without thought of mercy, until I am too tired to remain vertical.

Monday lunchtime: War has been declared. I vengefully splat a mosquito against the wall of the stairs on my way back to work after some lunchtime ping-pong. I walk back to the office with bits of mosquito and someone else's blood making my hand crawl.

I do not like mosquito season.

It is also the season of birds, which I do like. In Britain the limiting factor on new life bursting forth, including insects with which to feed chicks, is temperature, whereas here I suppose it is largely water, but Spring seems to be at about the same time. Which means the world is suddenly full of little birds, showing off and squabbling and singing and collecting nesting materials. Just a week or so ago began to appear fragile halves of tiny, translucent eggs (which as a child I would have joyfully horded in cotton wool and margerine tubs), and now are appearing the naked corpses of the newly-hatched, with their babies' beaks designed for gaping and their closed, bulbous eyes. They are sad, these little ones, but to me beautiful. Everywhere I am - in my house, in my office - I can hear the chirping of their living siblings.

It is not the season of dogs - I do not think dogs have seasons - but on the theme of fauna, yesterday I saw a puppy that I wanted terribly much to rescue. It was dusty and downtrodden-looking, sweet and black and soulful, and yelping pitifully at being kicked by a little girl to get it away from her mother or grandmother's flower stall. Well, not so much stall as a couple of buckets set down on the dirt. It is disconcerting to see a little girl kick a puppy instead of petting it. I am still toying with the idea of going back to look for it, but common sense asserts that I am not allowed dogs in my apartment, that getting it home would be near-impossible, that I have neither the time or the money to invest in a dog, and so on. I always thought I was a cat person, independent and reserved (ie unfriendly) as I am, but of course one's own characteristics don't necessarily make for the best pets. So a friendly, faithful dog it is for me, one day, at least until I can get my elephant.

Gaaagh, or, a brief rant about the sheer fucking awfulness of Windows Vista

2008-05-24T21:19:00.008-05:00

I really, really, really, really hate Windows Vista. I hate it with a smouldering fiery passion and consistent irkedness. My replacement computer, which was the only affordable way for me to get any computer at all, came with it, otherwise you can be sure I would have avoided it with my natural suspicion of any new version of Windows. I'm sure that proper geeks could tell me exactly why I should hate Windows Vista (and yes, yes, I know, but I am not rich enough for a Mac or computer-minded/brave enough to switch to Linux, which I wouldn't know how to fix if it didn't work). I personally hate Vista because it is even more plasticy, patronising and generally awful than XP (I know, who would have believed it possible?). There are many small but shitty careless crapnesses about it, such as the fact that the taskbar is not blue but an ugly dark grey, and cannot be changed (trust me, I spent some time reading forums full of posts by other frustrated users).

However, the thing which fills me with homicidal rage is the lack of control over the sound. In previous versions of Windows you had individual control over the elements of sound going in and out. In Vista there is just a single volume control for the speakers and for the "microphone", which I assume is an irritating, patronising way of saying line in, because I don't have a sodding microphone. There is absolutely no way to access or use wave out, which is the audio feed you need to record streamed (ie real-time) sound from your computer. It is simply NOT THERE. I believe that this is so it cannot be used for illegal purposes, but really if I want to get hold of music without paying for it there are much easier ways. What I want it for is to record BBC radio off the internet via the seven-day listen again service, to talk to me and cheer me up and console me. Currently I want to record an unabridged reading of The Day of the Triffids, for I am deeply fond of Wyndham's "cosy catastrophes", which (I checked) has never been released for sale. And I bloody well CAN'T.

...

Fortunately, it seems that Microsoft hasn't actually disabled this option, only hidden it. I have been saved from an early death from sheer fury by the wonders of the internet, which knows everything. A wonderful person here has the answer:

1. Select sound from the control panel.
2. Select the recording tab.
3. Right click on the background of the tab and choose "show disabled devices".
4. Right click on Wave Out Mix and click enable.
5. Now it should work the same way as Wave Out Mix in Windows XP, allowing you to record any sound your computer makes.

But really it makes me cross that Vista should decide to hide things from me like some kind of smug and hateful nanny. If I didn't know that it ought to exist I wouldn't have known to look for it. Hate hate hate...

[It does sometimes strike me that I should try to let go of my rage, but I wouldn't know where to begin.

Ooh, and I saw this hat recently. I can think of a number of people it would suit, definitely including the ones responsible for Vista.]

wOOt

2008-05-21T16:29:00.003-05:00

I have INTERNET! At HOME! It is AMAZING!

Sex, unhelpfully advertised

2008-05-16T15:31:00.003-05:00

I saw a (young, cool-looking) guy in street the other day wearing a T-shirt daying "sexual vanilla". It was with some self control that I stopped myself sniggering out loud until he'd walked past.

And yesterday I saw a large sign, presumably above the establishment in question, reading:
"Sex shop: no te sorprendas!"
Or,
"Sex shop: don't surprise yourself!"

Huh? Don't surprise yourself by wandering off the straight and narrow into a sex shop? Don't surprise yourself with an exciting new toy? This seems like extremely unhelpful advertising.

The dictionary gives the alternative "to wonder, marvel" for sorprender, but that doesn't get us much further. Or, "to catch unawares" so I suppose, although I am quite dubious about the grammar, it could mean "Sex shop: don't get caught unawares". Well, I suppose getting caught out without an enormous rubber dildo IS a risk...

Snigger.

Memetastic

2008-05-16T11:08:00.005-05:00

The blogosphere is abuzz with the most fantastic meme ever. I first saw it on Katy's blog and really wanted to do it, but felt too self-conscious to do it without being tagged. And, because I am a recent lurker over there, I didn't want to leap out shouting "me too, me too!", because it is not a very couth way to say hello. Yes, I am ridiculous and I should get over myself, I know. But then Anna did it and she tagged anyone who wants to have a go, including Laura, so yay, my first meme! Let's all play!

So what you do is you search for "[your name] likes to" in google, and copy and paste the results. And I am happy to say that mine had me giggling like a loon, even though there were only 27.

So,

Eloise likes to use "S" words to describe what she does: skibbles up and down the stairs; skidders two sticks along the walls; slomps her feet against the woodwork...
The top result and it couldn't please me more. And I DO like to use "S" words to describe what I do. Others include sniggering, sarcastic remarks, salsa dancing, sliding down banisters, skipping with glee, spouting off, sillyness and swearing like a sailor.

Eloise likes to have adventures, and she often pretends to be other people. Sometimes she is a princess or a dinosaur...
I DO, I DO! This is all about me!

According to the maitre’ d, “Eloise likes to hide under the tables and steal scones.” She is usually “bouncing all over the place,” added our waiter.
I have been known to bounce all over the place when in one of my hyper moods. I have not yet tried hiding under tables and stealing scones. This shall be a Project for the future.

Eloise likes to pronounce rather as 'rawther'.
Um not really. Though I do like my British accent much more than all these North American accents I am surrounded by... but being surrounded by them I am going all transatlantic. It is sad.

All the above are about the Eloise series of books by Kay Thompson, but I don't mind because I am very fond of her Eloise. But, with result number five we break new ground:

Eloise likes to mix colors, such as red and white to paint fish, and red and blue to paint monkeys. Her friend Rainbow Joe tells Eloise he can mix colors...
Purple monkeys are my absolute favourite.

Eloise likes to eat...string cheese, goat cheese, plain whole fat yogurt, cow milk, cheerios, veggie sausage, other "fake meats"...
Bleh, there's something intrinsically repulsive about this list, but actually I would do terrible things for goat's cheese right now. And yoghurt and milk and veggie sausages are good too.

Eloise likes to eat my pikelets when they're still warm.
Now that is more like it. Pikelets are the food of the gods. Mmmmm, pikelets... I would do TRULY terrible things for pikelets. Do you think you could send pikelets in the post?

Eloise likes to be tickled and eat chocolate.
Who doesn't, man? Though both at the same time could be messy...

Hmm, lots more things about Eloises who are small children or pets. Come on Eloises, do more exciting things, you have a name to maintain!

Eloise likes to help daddy out when he is working out
Just pass me that dumbbell, would you?

What Eloise likes to do when we go to the beach is to hang around at the top of the beach making vague attempts at making sand castles.
Nooooo no no no no.... when we go to the beach, Eloise makes the best sandcastles you have ever seen. Or sometimes sand mermaids. Just so the record is straight, OK? Although if the wind is right she flies kites instead.

Eloise likes to tackle henry and bite him. She likes human food more than dog food and likes to wear cute little outfits. ...
Henry totally deserves it.

Eloise likes to play at being an orphan so guests will take pity and give her a "piece of melon or something." She wears toe shoes on her ears at lunch...
That orphan thing, it always works.

Eloise likes to sit at the edge of the shrubbery-lined walk, still as a statue, till a passerby steps too close.
This may be my favourite. I imagine Edward Goreyish scenes of rain-wet rhododendrons, concealment, surprise, and ghastly secrets. I DO NOT CARE if it is actually about a dog. Be quiet.

And I was going to say how surprising that there aren't any rude ones, but no, we end with
Eloise likes to touch her -
Actually, let's just end it there.

Some newses

2008-05-14T12:56:00.005-05:00

I am in the middle of a loooong explanificatory post, but in the meantime here are some newsy things I have been thinking about, chortling at, and/or sighing over. Partly just to put them somewhere that isn't loads of open windows, and partly in case you want to read them too.

The global crisis in food prices and availability, while it has been brewing for a long time, has finally sidled into the media spotlight and hence into general consciousness. Working as I do at an agricultural research institute, where these issues are perpetually on our minds, I think this is a very good thing. Whilst not all the efforts people make end up making things better, and there are lots of challenges and no easy solutions, I hope that people - decisionmakers especially, but all of the rest of us too - are realising how crucial agriculture is to our existance, and beginning to place it accordingly at the centre of their consciousnesses and agendas. A fundamental reassessment of our relationship with the land and our environment, and what human life is really for, and what it means for outcomes to be good and worthwhile... this would be nice too, but I'm not putting money on it.

So, the BBC has a pretty good introduction to the food crisis here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7340214.stm
And one among many distressing warnings of the results:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7398750.stm
It is horrifying that almost half of Indian children are already malnourished, and the mechanisms for the long-term magnification of suffering - people forced to drop a daily meal, take girls out of school - are stark.

On the other hand, a positive agricultural story from India. I am naturally a sceptical beast, but it seems that market and other information by text message can really help small farmers:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7385542.stm
(Though of course the poorest farmers can't afford food, let alone phones.)

Talking of cynicism, using construction rubble to make parkland seemed like a really smart idea, until the comments on this story led me to consider that it could be either good or bad for biodiversity:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7310211.stm
This particular project certainly looks pretty manicured. Sad to think that just because it's green and pleasant doesn't mean it's got soul.

Another interesting story out of India - recycling as a small-scale enterprise rather than an industrial process - another paradigm for how things can work?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7354977.stm

The latest in Mexico's ongoing saga of drug-related murders:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7393443.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7399795.stm
These events have really got me thinking about the impact of drugs in Mexico. I am absolutely positive that without illegal drug smuggling Mexico would have much, much less murder, kidnapping, police corruption, political corruption, and crime and violence in general. It might be able to turn the corner on the road out of its appalling mess of corrupt, theiving, unaccountable institutions and build the country it should be, with all its natural and cultural and human wealth. Yet another reason to just say no, kids. Or radically rethink legalisation.

On a serious note, chocolate teacakes are QUITE CLEARLY biscuits and not cakes, though from the table it seems like it's more important what kind of biscuit/cake you are:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7340101.stm
Mmm, what I'd do for a Tunnock's teacake...

Or, three-headed coconut palm anyone?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7358713.stm
I love that people don't just work on the most important staple crops, but somewhere in the world everything has its research centre - and there is something intrinsically endearing about coconuts.

And apparently the world contains colossal squid. Not just giant, colossal. Awesome!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7374297.stm

This story, about the man in Venice who got arrested for photographing women's bottoms made me laugh (my officemate thought I was weird):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7397426.stm
Obviously he's a creep, but at least he's a hilarious creep...

This sweet little old man, what he managed to do to two porsches, and how nice the garage staff were about it make me smile inside:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7347339.stm
The best of us odd island folk I think.

And finally, "Vatican says aliens could exist". Possibly the best headline ever.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7399661.stm

I do not recommend...

2008-05-07T21:54:00.003-05:00

...blithely spending all your cash on books when your bank card doesn't work, in a city far from home, leaving yourself without even enough for your return bus ticket, let alone the next few days.

After a stressful hour wandering about looking for a long-distance calling place that I had enough cash to call my bank from, contemplating having to call my parents and wake them in the middle of the night, hungry but not daring to buy food, I have discovered that my bank has finally noticed (after a couple of years) that I should no longer have a student overdraft. I made a lot of phone calls at one stage - I even took the drastic step of actually going into the branch - trying to draw this fact to their attention and organise having a proper grown-up account, but eventually I gave up. And, moving into a new apartment, paying some rents in advance, and forgetting that I'm now getting half my salary in cash and therefore to pick it up have finally pushed me over the edge.

On the plus side, I spoke to a nice lady who sounded just like Victoria Wood and only cried a bit, and I now have an overdraft. And so I can go and get some dinner...

(This post has no point. I was just scared and sad for a while, and needed to share.)

What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?

2008-04-28T17:43:00.002-05:00

I find this news story, about the nasty little fuckers who kicked and stamped a goth girl to death when she begged them to stop attacking her boyfriend, immeasurably depressing. A similar thing happened to a couple I know, who wear black and have strange hair and lots of piercings and are also immensely sweet, gentle people, and who were badly beaten in broad daylight in a shopping street in front of their small children by a gang of worthless cowardly scum.

My heart is with the weird kids and always will be, so it makes me glad that the judge was able to look beyond the piercings, and described the goth community as "perfectly peaceful law-abiding people who pose no threat to anybody". Like he said, "this was a hate crime against these completely harmless people targeted because their appearance was different to yours".

With this in mind I suppose I should not judge the five teenagers in this story on their photographs but rather on their crimes, but seriously - click on the link - I have never seen such a load of terrifyingly dead-eyed, identikit, unprepossessing chavs. Honestly, I feel safer in Mexico City than I would anywhere with people like that around.

These are the people who make me ashamed to be British. When people find out where I'm from, many of them say "ah, hooligans!" - this seems to be one word of English everyone knows, w00t. But, there is also an abiding image of the British (particularly in places not many of them go) as polite, chivalrous, honourable, fair, well-educated, perhaps rather serious-minded. I am hardly Victorian in my values, but these seem like good things - a damn sight better than ignorance, violence, sociopathy, mindless hatred, and not giving a shit. Where did they go?

At the weekend I was having a conversation with my brother - who is sixteen and suddenly hugely funny and interesting and politically misguided - in which we reflected that as a small, overpopulated island Britain's only real resource is human capital. Which makes these cultural and educational failings all the more frightening, no?

Whilst a story like this does make me ashamed of Britain, of course pointless violence happens everywhere. I was fascinated to read about emos being attacked by other urban tribes in Mexico, including punks, goths, and so on. Whatever happened to the weird kids sticking together? I have a strong impression that kids in Mexico are less likely to run feral and brutish than in Britain, because they are brought up in a culture which places a much higher value on both family and community - but, like everywhere, traditional values are breaking down.

Meanwhile, Mexicans face much greater problems of poverty, lawlessness and lack of access to justice, lack of opportunities, powerlessness, and drugs n guns. I am currently reading "True Tales From Another Mexico" by Sam Quinones - which very much portrays one particular side of Mexico, but is nonetheless fascinating - and have just finished the section on lynchings. His example case is traumatic - he gives one detail (I won't repeat it) which I think is permanently engraved on my brain and makes me flinch every time I think about it - but it is clear that these things happen because people are poor, ignorant, powerless, and have no faith in chronically corrupt criminal justice systems.

Its seems to me that there is a line between the quick act of violence - the blow, the kick - that I think we are all quite capable of when angry - and keeping on kicking, beating or torturing someone to death. I know that group violence can become self-fuelling, but I don't understand how each individual is not stayed by shame or pity or horror.

I just finished reading "The Painter of Battles" by Arturo Pérez Reverte*, which I found compelling even though the characters were ultimately not entirely satisfying. It is full of fascinating reflections and horrifying anecdotes about war. One of the worst was a mention, in the context of the former Yugoslavia I think, of forcing two brothers to torture each other so that one might be allowed to live. The psychological cruelty of that stays with me.

The protagonist of this book believes that such cruelty and violence are the natural behaviour, the natural state of human beings. And the author has seen a lot of wars... But... we are such an impossibly exceptional mixture of flesh and blood and instincts and hormones and emotions and ideas and ideals and ethics. Though people machete each other to death every day, gang-rape and murder mothers in front of their children, all of that... human civilisations, both "primitive" and "civilised" consistently create themselves as something more complicated and more extraordinary than the lowest state that human beings may "naturally" descend to.

Once again, I'm with the judge: "your behaviour on that night degrades humanity itself".

* I googled the title of this book in order to check the author, and I came up with this review in the Times. The act described in this anecdote, trivial though it may be in the scheme of things, is one of the most wantonly cruel and wicked things I have ever heard - and motivated by being too slipshod and lazy to take some genuine photographs:
"DURING THE WAR IN Yugoslavia I was working with a celebrated press photographer, covering refugees arriving by ferry. As mothers with fraught, lined faces carried toddlers down the gangplank, he performed an act of kind-hearted humanity: he shoved bags of sweeties into their tiny hands.
"Then he snatched them away again. As the children opened their mouths to bawl in disappointed misery, he began snapping. Let me give you the photographer's logic: these children had their lives already ruined — it had just momentarily slipped their minds. He was restoring the image of reality, not distorting it."

Onboard entertainment

2008-04-28T14:06:00.002-05:00

My journey to work this morning by taxi (shuttup... I was running late and unshowered due to not knowing about pumping water into the tank when there isn't any water and it's bloody Monday) reached new levels of horrifyingness when I noticed that the driver had a small TV (not a DVD player, an actual TV, with an aerial wire going up to the roof) mounted in the space in front of the gearstick. And we were driving along the highway. And it was on.

I can handle seeing bus and taxi drivers with a little TV for when they're not going anywhere. I can handle - mostly I enjoy - them blasting out loud music. But high-octane breakfast TV while driving... even though I love how relaxed Mexico is, that makes me shudder. It IS quite hilarious though.

...and so,

2008-04-26T19:36:00.002-05:00

ladies and gentlemen, as the lone piper of time appears at the gates of dawn, and Dawn throws open the window and tells him where to stick his bagpipes...

it's time to mourn Humphrey Lyttleton.

I like to think that the innuendo with which the BBC video tribute ended was a deliberate tribute: "Humphrey Lyttelton possessed great talent, from his hornblowing to being a champion of silliness".

She packed her trunk, oh yes she did

2008-04-25T12:45:00.005-05:00

I think this is the most fabulous news story ever, stumbled upon while looking for something else on the internet. A perfect illustration of why behind the scenes is infinitely more fascinating than front of house. I have always wanted a pet elephant, and now I am happy to know she will be able to travel in comfort.

I reproduce the piece below, from Yahoo news, for your delectation, and because I have known their links to die in the past.

FRANKFURT (AFP) - Complete with a chill-out area for exhausted elephant keepers and a resuscitation room for distressed tropical fish, Frankfurt Airport's new Animal Lounge opened its doors on Friday.

The new 3,750-square-metre (40,000-square-feet) hangar has 42 stalls for large animals like the huge number of polo ponies and racehorses that pass through continental Europe's biggest hub every year, or even for the odd rhino or elephant.

There are also 39 smaller boxes, special aviaries and 12 individual, temperature-adjustable climatic chambers providing space for a variety of species, said the firm behind the facility, Lufthansa Cargo.

Every year 14,000 dogs and cats pass through Frankfurt Airport, as well as 1,500 polo ponies and racehorses and 3,000 tonnes of tropical fish. There is even the odd tiger or penguin.

To prevent any bruised trunks, the new facility is fitted with non-slip asphalt floors hich are "more pleasant and comfortable for animals than traditional concrete," the firm said.

Not only that, but built-in partitions ensure no unwanted contact between guests, and if any jet-lagged orangutan does not want to hear the hyenas in stall 17, further sound-proof subdivisions are possible.

The facility even caters for mothers and babies -- or rather mares with foals for example -- and surveillance cameras ensure no prize chihuahua or pricey koi carp is stolen.

The new facility replaces two older hangars and will have 25 vets and 60 carers on hand.

I like toilets

2008-04-18T10:28:00.003-05:00

For all the obvious reasons of comfort and hygiene, obviously. They are fine things and we are lucky to have them. But I also like toilets because they are simple, but elegant. If you take off the lid and look inside the cistern, with a bit of thought you can work out what everything does, which is pleasing.

I fixed our toilet this morning, by looking inside and figuring out that the plug that keeps the water from draining out except when you flush it was not in its proper place. Hah, I don't need a man! And it is a very satisfying feeling to have solved a problem from first principles. I bet your basic toilet design hasn't changed in decades, a nice change from incomprehensible technology that you have no way of fixing yourself.

So I do like toilets. But possibly not as much as the people who built a house shaped like a toilet. It is called Haewoojae, or “a place of sanctuary where one can solve one’s worries”. I think I shall put that on my bathroom door.

Hell hath no fury...

2008-04-17T14:18:00.004-05:00

...like a woman who has her currency fucked with.

There is nothing like rage to take you out of yourself.

And I am quite speechless with rage at the abysmal fucking hideousness of the new designs for Britain's coins.

I love British coins with all the passion of a sentimentalist. I love all the different designs on them and their symbolisms, which I remember my Dad teaching me when I was very little. I've barely used British currency for a year and a half, but I remember them like friends: the portcullis on the penny, the ostrich feather fleur-de-lys on the two pence piece for the Prince of Wales, the Scottish thistle on the five, the English lion on the ten, the tudor rose on the twenty pence piece (my favourite), Britannia on the fifty. I love that we have coppers and silvers and fat golden pounds. I love that we have heptagons. I love all the different pound coins - roses and oaks for England, dragons and leeks for Wales, and so on.

I short, I have always - and I acknowledge some bias here - thought British money was some of the most beautiful in all the world, in an understated, classical, very British sort of way.

Whereas the new designs are frankly aesthetically offensive - agh they are so horrible! - and symbolically impoverished, sharing as they do only one design between them. The words "contemporary treatment" are by themselves doing quite dangerous things to my levels of rage, which are volcanic. Actually they're just tacky... oh look, if you lay them out in this remarkably unpleasing way you get a picture... gosh, how astoundingly juvenile and unoriginal.

Silly, stubborn child that I am, I actually find it quite deeply painful that I will have to use these monstrosities when I return, and that little ones will grow up thinking that this is what naturally goes on the back of the Queen's head. Every single time I look at one, I know it will make my day a bit worse.

I do not believe this is mere Luddism - I really like some of the special issue coins. And I do realise that there are many more important things to get angry about (and I do), but gaaaaaaah..... Why would anyone deliberately increase the sum total of ugliness in the world when they might make it lovelier instead, just for the sake of doing something new and "modern", or for any other pathetically pointless non-reason?

The RAGE. If there were justice in this world, things would be breaking into flames at my mere glance right now. (Which I think I would rather enjoy...)

(I have just realised that this was news a couple of weeks ago, so I am probably late on the rage bandwagon. Let's all go and shoot burning arrows at the Royal Mint.)

Goddamned ninteenth century Frenchmen...

2008-04-17T12:22:00.003-05:00

...getting it so devastatingly right.

The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.
-- Victor Hugo

Tonterías

2008-04-17T10:10:00.002-05:00

The boy I want (and adore) doesn't want me. Or rather, he doesn't want to ruin things because we are friends. Which is to some degree a kinder way of saying the same thing. He is probably right but I wish he wasn't.

I am listening to Placebo's "Without You I'm Nothing" on a loop and wondering how I can possibly do any work. Which I realise is overdramatic, but I am feeling rejected and overwhelmingly alone and unequal to carrying on being me.

I want to go home, and I have no idea where that is. Except that briefly I felt like I was there in his arms. Meanwhile I laugh in the face of things and try to stop my face from crumpling, except when no-one's looking, so that we can still be friends.

Calvin and the Virgin

2008-04-15T13:22:00.004-05:00

This morning, it was unkind. Just as I was leaving, I remembered I was supposed to be bringing the groceries my officemate forgot at our house after Saturday's barbecue, plus the milk I picked up for her last night (while I was waiting to meet up with a friend who never showed... grumble, grumble).

Kitchen. Milk - check. Balsamic vinegar - check. Broccoli - check. Grapes - check. Margerine... there are two unopened margerines. My brain siezes up. What do I do? Take both? Take neither? (I didn't sleep too well and early-morning decisions have never been my strong point.) I call her mobile. A strange, unintelligable and sleepy-sounding man answers. He says something about a computer. I stumble through in Spanish and hang up. It later transpires that I have somehow saved the wrong number as her new number. I fervently hope that the man I woke up was not someone I know.

I miss the bus. I wait in the cold (the weather gods have gone mad, such that I have a sunburnt neck from house hunting on Saturday, but I really wish I had some gloves on). I get the next bus, get off at the entrance to campus, and start walking to the offices. Numerous cars pass me and I inwardly curse them. A couple (or at least a couple of people) kindly stop and offer me a lift.

I get in the back. There is something brown on my hand. There is something brown on my bag. I pick up the plastic bag of groceries, which I had put down next to me. There is something brown very definitely on the seat. The plastic bag is covered in vinegar. Resigning myself, I rest it on top of my bag. I quietly panic and run through my options. I cannot face explaining what's happened to the nice couple (I am a coward, and it is early). There is a strong of vinegar. I wonder if they have noticed. Vinegar is one of the smells I hate most of all in all the world. This does not help.

Subtly and with disgust, I begin to mop up the carseat with the sleeve of my jumper. It seems to end up not significantly more stained than the rest of the seat.

I am extremely glad to get out of the car. I beat a hasty retreat to my office and the bathroom, where follows much washing of things before I can have breakfast. I am hungry. The vinegar smell proceeds to make me feel unwell for a remarkably long time.

In conclusion, no matter how much of a rush you are in, I recommend that you always check that the lid of the vinegar bottle is tightly closed.

Anyway... what I WAS going to talk about was the bus. Mexican buses (the rattletrap local ones) seem to be personal to their drivers, and I always enjoy all the paraphenalia they decorate them with. This morning's was both typical and quite special, and it made me grin to myself much of the way to work.

This guy had at some point decided to pimp up his bus with a red and black theme to match his bad-boy image and reckless driving. Hence big red speakers, glossy red seat-backs and black seats and a big red knob on the gearstick (snigger).

To the left of his head (on the "wall") there was the obligatory little shrine: a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe with two vases of fresh flowers fixed underneath - often chrysanthemums but today orange lilies - with a rosary dangling from it. The window underneath was decorated with a tasteful rendition in simple black of a weeping Jesus.

The rest of the windows were also decorated in black, with a kind of frame inside each window and a weird kind of dynamic splotch.

In front of the driver, the area between the roof and the windscreen was decorated as follows:
- in the top at the centre, a large sticker of an "ADO" bus - long distance, first class coaches with toilets and air conditioning and TVs. The kind of thing that might once have been given away as promotional material, or sold as the kind of souvenir that attracts only transport geeks (and as someone with a particular fondness for Scandinavian Seaways playing cards and Caledonian MacBrayne merchandise of all kinds, I cast no stones). It made me laugh because it seemed as if the little bus was dreaming about what it might one day grow up to be.
Below, from the ouside in:
- two glossy red speakers.
- two identical stickers depicting the Tasmanian Devil cartoon character... with a broken leg and crutches.
- a weird cartoon bunny sticker with too much nostril and not enough eye, spoiling the otherwise careful symmetry.
- a sticker of the ubiquitous cartoon of Calvin (as in Calvin and Hobbes) pissing, this time in front of a logo of the football club Chivas, wearing a Chivas strip and pissing on the logo of Club America.
Below:
- a super-cutesy sticker of the Disney version of Tigger at school, with an apple and a blackboard, and flowers.
Below:
- two big speaker boxes (also symmetrically in the middle) beneath, partly obscuring the windscreen, with mirrored fronts. On the mirror, sparkley red stickers with cursive script saying "Porque te conoci" - Because I knew you, or Because I met you.
- on the windscreen itself, those semi-transparent strips to cut down the glare from the sky, decorated with Nike ticks, applied symmetrically ticking outwards - so some will always be the right and some the wrong way round, whichever way you look.

I really don't see how anyone could not fall in love with Mexico.

Today is nature day

2008-04-13T19:14:00.004-05:00

I saw a snake!

Just a little one, so I wasn't scared, just enjoying the excitingness of seeing a snake - my first in Mexico outside the zoo. I was cutting across the fields on my way to the office and it was just lying there in beautiful curves on the path being perfectly a snake. It was thick as a thickish finger, and unspectacularly dirt-and-dry-corn coloured, with glittering eyes and a tiny, perfect black forked tongue flickering in and out.

And, I defeated sod's law by having my camera with me. I took pictures of its beautiful curviness and a video of it slithering snakily - and remarkably quickly - away. Unfortunately the conjunction of my computer, my card reader, and the internet is exceedingly rare at the moment, but... a snake, I saw one!

This morning I also saw the cute cat that was in our garden yesterday catch a bird (with a remarkably athletic leap) and proceed to dismember it. Which is the nature of cats and a pure action to which my judgements are entirely irrelevant... but I can't really see it as the cute cat any more.

Sprung

2008-04-11T08:31:00.004-05:00

Spring is here. The weather gods have turned their minds to hot hot heat and stormy flashes of rain. The jacaranda trees, with their short-lived and fantastically purple flowers, are in bloom. But I know spring is here because yesterday I saw two hummingbirds.

And yesterday evening I went on an exciting trip into the city with my friend Victor, back to heaven for a concert by Fernando Delgadillo, a Mexican singer of songs of great beauty and poetry (and sometimes humour). He sings extraordinary songs about ordinary life, and seems to be a pretty cool chap - he doesn't have a record company and releases all his own recordings. Being poetical, the lyrics are hard to understand, so by 1 a.m. (when we bailed) I was struggling with sleep and focus, but what I did understand I loved, and he has a hugely candid, endearing stage presence - a mixture of Jack the lad, scholar, granddad and bloke next door. He sang all my favourite songs (i.e. the ones I know) - Hoy Ten Miedo De Mi, Julieta, Entre Pairos y Derivas, and No Me Pides Ser Tu Amigo (all listenable-to on his website and findable on youtube). He sang beautiful songs I didn't know (Elephantes, one which I thought was called Hoy Estas Aqui but I think isn't, and lots I can't put names to). He told stories and made the audience laugh. At some point the listeners began quietly and feelingly to sing along to the most beloved songs. It was beautiful. And it was an evening spent with someone lovely.

Today, hungry and ill-slept, I was delighted to remember that my department was having tacos dorados this morning to commemorate the birthdays of me and two colleagues - we usually get together for a birthday breakfast every month or so. Having arrived ridiculously (unprecedentedly) early into work I was sitting in my office in the eerie quiet of an almost-empty building when one of those colleagues, who I am very fond of and whose birthday it happens to be today, walked passed the door. I wished him a happy birthday and he said you too, and I grinned and said it was a while ago and he said we're celebrating today, we're celebrating another day of life.

Right on.

Currently chair-dancing to...

2008-04-09T15:53:00.002-05:00

"Staying Alive"

A conducive work environment...

2008-04-09T15:24:00.001-05:00

...probably doesn't usually include "Tragedy" playing quite loudly outside your door. I love our secretary dearly, but she is rather overgenerous with sharing her music. And her tuneless whistling - which just started up as I typed that. Serves me right I expect.

However, I am so far from being focussed in any case that the difference is probably quite minimal...

And if I'm honest "Tragedy" is pretty fun... w00t!

BADY!STANDING IN THE SEADGWI

2008-04-08T15:12:00.005-05:00

I wear my favourite belt a lot. It is pink and it has fabulously bad English words and phrases on it. They appear to be bits of songs, but it is difficult to tell. I love my belt.

But, the buckle has a habit of falling off.

I suppose it was inevitable it would fall into the toilet one day. And I should be grateful that there was nothing worse than wee in it at the time.

I wasn't particularly grateful.

PAINT IT! BLACK

Misc.

2008-04-07T17:48:00.002-05:00

Chicago was lovely. Holidays are great. There is more to say but not much time to say it in. And no home internet access for the moment, which I suspect will drive me mad remarkably quickly. Although it might help with my resolution to get enough sleep; I actually got some rest in Chicago and I feel SO much better in myself. Not sleeping is clearly a fool's game and although I can't do much about my owlish body clock it is time to crack my ridiculous psychosomatic insomnia.

In the meantime, Dinosaur Comics is always awesome, but given my fascination with tattoos I particularly liked this one.

And today I have discovered that Julieta Venegas, one of my favourite Mexican Singers, will be at Shepherd's Bush in October. She doesn't seem to do a lot of gigs - or at least she hasn't been on tour since I got into her music - and I would so much love to see her live. But it would be very odd and maybe sad to do so in London, especially without any other Julieta fans to go with. So do I assume I will be in Britain by then - that's the plan - and buy a couple of tickets? What a strange thought, to be planning my life so far ahead, and so far away...

packing

2008-04-01T12:11:00.003-06:00

After two days of packing up my life into every kind of receptacle I own, and then some, I am terarful, shattered, and quite ridiculous. I do not find the process of packing to be in itself enjoyable, time consuming and grinding as it is, especially given the INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF STUFF I seem to have accumulated in a year and a half. And, it is a sad thing to be saying goodbye to my apartment. It has been my safe haven and I am attached to it. Worst, it reminded me very much of packing up my various university rooms, and the feelings of everything being all over the place and not being ready to go and having to say goodbye to people, whether just for a holiday or for ever. I am only going to Chicago for six days, but the illusion of leaving is sustained by the fact that I really have had to say goodbye to two of my friends, who are going back to Germany today.

Fortunately, my friend Victor was around last night to play the role of my dad - arriving before everything was packed, washing up the dishes in the sink, making expressions of horror at all the crap, packing the contents of my kitchen cupboards into boxes and bags, carrying boxes to the car... the works. This did make the whole thing even more emotionally weird, but I couldn't have done it without him. The only difference is my dad would get cross and shouty, whereas Victor remained lovely thoughout. The man may well be a saint, as evidenced by the fact that he drove away two full carloads of my crap, one on Sunday and one yesterday - and I mean full, the passenger seat and everything - and carried it all into his house himself, where he's going to look after it until I get a new apartment.

Meanwhile I swore at things and laughed hysterically and had hissy fits and cried in the manner of the loon I am. The following is a sample dialogue:
Me: Do you hate me? (for the twenty-fifth time that evening)
Victor: Yes (for the twenty-fifth time that evening) *smile*
Me: *cry*
Victor: Don't cry. Why are you crying?
Me: sniff... I don't deserve you... sniff
Victor: You're emotional.
Me: I always am.
It really doesn't sound any less pathetic in Spanish.

And this morning I packed an amazing amount of last few things and left some in a friend's house on campus and some in my office, and transferred things off the work computer I was borrowing and backed things up and kept a taxi waiting, and kept the friends waiting who were giving me a lift to the airport and struggled to hold back the tears and BLOODY HELL I need a holiday now....

I am in the airport, buying expensive internet, having remembered to write down everything I could want to know about Chicago except the address of the friend I am visiting...

Chicago, here I come!

monstrous

2008-03-31T12:08:00.002-06:00

I have finished my monster (the felt one). I have not finished packing up my stuff. These two facts may be related. There will be explanations.

I'm freeeeeeeeeeeee...

2008-03-28T11:44:00.003-06:00

The doctor says I can go to Chicago. I'm feeling a lot better (and I took pills and potions beforehand and tried very hard not to cough while I was in there). Hurray!

On the other hand, after I wrote yesterday's entry, I experienced an irresistible urge to put some CDs in a box, did so, mentally slapped myself round the head, did a bit of work, read some things on the internet, had a lie down, and accidentally fell asleep. This morning I designed a felt monster. My work is, shall we say, not going too well.

Update: I am in my office. I have seen and spoken to other human beings. Everything is very lovely indeed. Furthermore, my boss has decided that we will be publishing the second of the two pieces I have been trying to get written next month, and he likes what I've written on the first. I want to play with it a bit more, and I need to go through photos for the piece, and my expenses, at some point over the weekend, but basically the weight of work has suddenly and delightfully been lifted from my shoulders.

And, I am well enough to go to tonight's party for a while.

I am feeling really rather lucky. I cannot stop smiling. Hurray indeed.

Update

2008-03-27T18:41:00.002-06:00

Just to be clear, I don't think I ACTUALLY have bird flu. The chances are tiny.

It just sucks being (a) sick, (b) stuck at home on my own, and (c) potentially unable to go to Chicago.

I am actually feeling a lot better in myself, but I am stuck in a race to shake off the cough before, well, tomorrow, when I have to make a decision about the ticket.

This getting better lark is not helped by my complete failure to make myself work today, having put in a good solid 10 hours' pointless procrastination instead, which means I won't be able to get all the sleep I need tonight. I am, as ever, an idiot.

I would rather be:
1) making things out of felt. I have come over all crafty and want to be doing something with my hands.
2) reading The Railway Children. This morning I was filled with an overwhelming desire, nay need, to do this and nothing else. No idea why. Except it would be immensely comforting.
3) packing up my apartment. Hum, should probably explain this one....
4) blogging. Possibly about (3)
5) almost anything else, up to and including home trepanning.

But, I need to be working. Now. Here goes...

Heaven

2008-03-26T09:21:00.017-06:00

I like to keep my promises. I'm terribly bad at it, but I do like to. So, here is heaven:

It is a bookshop called El Péndulo in Mexico City. I suppose a trendy sort of bookshop, with a cafe and restaurant, concerts and open poetry nights, CDs and DVDs with an emphasis on world cinema and unusual choices, and lots of big glossy books of photography and art. And best of all there is a whole stand of books in English, with a fantastic, intelligent, interesting selection of the kind you only ever get in independent bookshops and the best I've seen in Mexico by miles: Charles Bukowski, Neil Gaiman, Noam Chomsky, Jane Austen, Susan Sontag...

I knew I loved the place when almost the first thing I saw was a shaft of sunlight hitting the bright pink cover of this fabulous edition of HG Wells, illustrated by Edward Gorey:

Closely followed by Harry Potter in Welsh, of which I simply cannot imagine the future buyer:

But possibly my favourite discovery was this one - so, so beautifully obscure and intellectually geeky:

I haven't felt that bookshop feeling in a while - tingly excitement at all the lovely books, combined with a profound anxiety at how little time there is to read them - but I did with a vengeance. I picked out an English translation of The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz (having previously, rather to optimistically, bought it in Spanish), a history of Mexico (better late than never to do something about my blinding ignorance), and a book of amazing photographs of ordinary Mexicans from the infamous Tepito neighbourhood of the City, which I realised I'd seen the exhibition of with the lovely Josie last year. I've had a bit of a thing about books of photos recently, and now have a lovely shiny pile of them. Predictably, I have looked at all the pictures and not read any of the serious non-fiction books that make up the adjacent pile.

But the bookshop was lovely. I looked at all the books, and then I went upstairs and got a cold chocolate and listened to the mellow music playing. And I thought about all the chores and useful things I could be doing in the city, and decided not to bother with any of them that day. And the next day I did almost nothing at all, just went with a few friends to a nearby town, the kind of place where Sunday afternoons are slow, and children sit on curbsides, and lovers hold hands, and families eat together with greasy fingers. We wandered about quiet streets, and looked at a little chapel full of jewel-coloured candles, and shared some food. Heaven.

On the theme of books, I bought myself a couple in Los Angeles airport on the way home - a tremendous and guilty pleasure since I am trying to restrict myself to serious non-fiction, which unfortunately tends to have the effect of stopping me reading anything much, and therefore making me miserable - and I recommend to you A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. It is one of my favourite kinds of fiction, involving fantastical events happening in the ordinary world, gods and monsters and abstractions personified, crazy story logic, brilliant plotting and wordplay and jokes, and a general sense of the world being a mad and marvellous place, but with characters that you can care about and believe in, and an internal consistency and flow within the story - as practised I think by writers like Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams and Tom Robbins. A Dirty Job is about a guy who one day discovers he is Death, and it is really very good. There is the odd irritation and hole in the plot, but it made me happy when I was feeling like shit, it made me laugh, and I didn't stop reading til it was finished. Yum.

This, from page 71, is one of my favourite lines and made me snort in a busy departure lounge:

...staring at him accusingly, like she'd caught him feeding Froot Loops to her bête noire...

I will definitely be seeking out more Moore.

I also completely loved the cover art of the American edition, the strong colours and boldness of it, and that it just made me laugh.

Good cover art is important I think - I looked at the UK one on Amazon and it is similar in concept but in execution it is truly horrible. And the cover is a pleasing mix of glossy and matt (I am a little bit weird about the lovely smooth feeling of matt covers) and the paper it is made from is nicely soft and bendy and it simply made me very happy just holding it and ruffling though the pages. Just like we eat food partly with our eyes, I think we eat books partly with our hands. Or possibly I've just been a bit book deprived recently.

Also on planes I saw a couple of excellent films, Lars and the Real Girl, and Juno. Possibly everyone in the civilised world has seen both of these already, but if you haven't you should. I'm not sure you are supposed to suspend your disbelief in Juno, but I liked it a lot anyway. Juno reminded me a lot of Enid in Ghost World, being impossibly cool and quirky and full of brilliant wisecracks even at the most difficult times. I realised that when I watched Ghost World I couldn't help wishing I could be like Enid, and when I watched Juno I couldn't help wishing I could have been like Juno, which is a rather depressing reminder of all the time that is gone and will not come again.

Lars and the Real Girl is just a beautiful, oddball story beautifully and simply told: Lars falls in love with a doll he buys on the internet and treats her like she is a real person, forcing his family and community to do so too. I loved the various strong, smart female characters, I loved the concept of a person who isn't a person at the centre of the film, I found myself loving the outfits (it's set in far northern North America, so lots of woolly jumpers and tights and mittens) and really I just loved the whole thing.

Who wants to hide under the covers with me and read books and watch films til it all goes away?

In solitary

2008-03-25T10:38:00.005-06:00

FUCK.

So I have just got back from Thailand and China. There is much blog juice in this, mostly involving me going ooooh, it's all different.

While I was there I developed a filthy flu-type cough-thing, which:
- made the free day I had in China, and the day in Bangkok on the way back, quite shit.
- made me no fun at all to sit next to on any of the flights I caught, though I was taking magic pharmacist-advised strepsils to lessen the coughing fits.
- has been painful and miserable and generally rubbish and was probably going to be quite boring when I got around to complaining about it here.

So far, so dull. Crap, but dull.

Then just now I went to see the campus doctor, just to see if he recommended anything to help me sit out the cough.

So the thing is, I might have bird flu.

This is rather rattling and a bit scary, but not really terrifying. I haven't died yet, so I doubt I'm going to do so anytime soon, even if I do have it, which is pretty unlikely. However, it has the following ramifications:
- I would be the first person to bring bird flu to Mexico. Not really the kind of fame I was looking for. Funny, to my black sense of humour, but not funny if it actually happens.
- I'm not exactly in quarantine, but I probably shouldn't be socialising either. Which means not going to the office, working at home, and generally keeping myself to myself. Which means not catching up with the friends I've missed, not being in the office with the lovely Allison, not having lunch in the canteen, not hanging out in the evenings, probably not going to a big goodbye party on Friday... and generally being sad and lonely.
- However, I still have a shitload of work to do this week, and this doesn't excuse me from it. And there were lots of other chores and fun things I was going to do, but can't.
- Worst of all, I am under observation by the doctor. Under WHO rules, anyone who comes back from South East Asia with a filthy dirty cough like this has to be kept under observation, and if I get worse the authorities have to be notified. Which I'm sure isn't a trip to the circus at the best of times, but I am planning to go to Chicago to visit good friends in exactly a week's time. I really, really want to go, nevermind what will happen to the ticket. And there's no guarantees I'll be better by then even if it's just a regular ol' non-avian-type virus - I had a cough earlier in the year that lasted at least 3 weeks - and I'm sure he'll stop me going if I'm not.

So everything's probably going to be fine, but right now everything sucks in an absurdly melodramatic and shit way.

I had a massive weeping stress fit at Allison (by phone of course), and then phoned my boss and managed not to break down completely (again), but was still a madwoman. I really need to stop being mad and/or crying when I'm speaking to my boss. Then I resisted phoning any friends or parents and crying at them, mostly because it was afternoon in the UK and working hours, but also in the case of my parents because I didn't quite get round to mentioning I was going to China and it might all be a bit much to take in. Then I sat down to write this and am feeling slightly more calm. Slightly. On the other hand, it's well known for driving people mad, this solitary confinement lark. I must be sure to keep myself busy with plenty of activities. These shall include coughing, staring at a blank screen trying to work, complaining, coughing, weeping, staring wistfully out of the window, coughing, thinking bitterly about the things I could be doing, and coughing. Hooray.

China

2008-03-16T07:40:00.002-06:00

I am in China! China is right there, just outside my window, being China.

I am also in the fanciest hotel I have ever been in (though, admittedly, this is not saying much).

I am also absolutely exhausted.

Zzzz....

When I die...

2008-03-10T23:34:00.001-06:00

I think I would like to become ink.

Listening to a sad song tonight and it can't make me sad

2008-03-08T23:50:00.005-06:00

This is not a whinging post, I promise. The following two paragraphs is strictly for informational purposes and background and dramatic contrast.

So I have had an almost-entirely shit couple of weeks. Last week (the week before last? The one before the week that has just past but we are still in the weekend of...) I worked every night until between 3 and 5 am, and got up every morning trying to hold my edges together. This was sort of my fault for somehow underestimating the magnitude of the job that nearly killed me the same time last year, but that was not a comforting thought. Then this week we have been hosting our two-yearly intra-organisational conference, which has meant me spending most of my days in meetings starting at 8am, and running to try and squeeze important other stuff I was still supposed to be doing into breaks and evenings. I spent Monday and Tuesday evenings in the office until midnight, and by Wednesday I was ragged to the brink of tears.

I will admit that Wednesday and Thursday evenings were both quite lovely, involving actually being sociable, with other people and everything. Both evenings were entirely delightful, and I am not at all sorry I wasn't doing the sensible thing and sleeping. Last weekend also brought some points of light - specifically the arrival of a new computer in exchange for my old one and an obscene amount of money (things like cameras and computers seem to be madly expensive in Mexico). It is a bit shit, but it is marvellously, delightfully functional and I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to welcome the internet, music, and all kinds of computery goodness back into my life. On the other hand, it did mean that I spent Saturday installing software and phoning my Dad for advice and transferring data til I was screeny-eyed (still not finished) and not going to bed to get the sleep I really, really needed. On Sunday I spent the day in Mexico City hanging out with and catching up with a friend and ex-colleague on a flying visit, and buying myself small and lovely things and loving being in the (my) city and being ridiculously tired. And then on Monday my new bank card finally arrived (sent by my parents via fedex at horrifying expense, they being about the only people who will carry the blasted things). This is an immense relief; not having a bank card is a horribly naked and insecure feeling, knowing you wouldn't be able to get hold of money in an emergency. I kissed it. (Tongue in cheek. Mostly. Figuratively. Don't be disgusting.)

So there were some social loveliness and some awesome practical things making my life better, but I spent the vast majority of the last couple of weeks working and being exhausted and miserable and arrived at Friday hating everything and swearing even more than normal. Friday evening was an end-of-conference dinner (in a marquee) at which everyone got cold and hungry during the speeches and I got angry with my friends for spilling wine and giggling while everyone else was listening attentively. After the end of the speeches and fetching a shawl and getting the rest of the dinner I started defrosting (literally and figuratively) and we were among the last ones still there, chatting and drinking. I started feeling quite fond of my fellow beings.

At which point my officemate, Amazing Allison, dragged me off to her apartment for moral support while peeing, because she was afraid she had a bladder infection. And then on the way back she insisted on going over to the women's group house because there was pasta there and she was still hungry. And so I steeled myself for remonstrating with a drunk person, which I'm not very good at because I get bogged down in sober logic.

[More background may be required. I leave for China next Wednesday, and I won't be here for my birthday or Easter beach-trips. I am trying to be positive about this. I couldn't have a big party on Friday because of the dinner, and I'd been thinking about Saturday except that I wouldn't have been able to get everyone to come in the way that you can after work, and so I'd settled on a party when I get back.]

And so we went inside, and it was dark, and suddenly it wasn't and it was full of people shouting "Surprise!" and singing Happy Birthday and I was in the middle of it all, spinning round and smiling and feeling embarassed and smiling and smiling and smiling. And then I was hugging and kissing every single person there. And then I was running away to fetch my camera and put on my favourite top and drag a brush through my hair and have a little cry, because it was overwhelming to be made to feel so loved. Especially because a lot of the time I don't.

My friends had decorated with balloons and streamers. They had bought snacks and drinks, and even things for making piña coladas, knowing they are one of the few (ridiculously sweet, girly) things I drink. They had sent emails inviting people, and rounded up other people at the dinner, and lied and kept it secret. And they had all showed up, for me. I am very glad I have a friend who will pretend to have a bladder infection for me. I am very glad I did not get more pissy with the gigglers, and listened to my good side and unasked brought clean clothes for the one who spilt wine on herself even though I was cross with her. I am very glad I am absurdly obtuse and did not pick up on all the clues, which in retrospect were many. Because no-one has ever thrown me a surprise party before, and it made me happy fit to burst, and it was amazing.

It wasn't the same as the party I would've organised. Not everyone was there, like they would've been at a normal after-work Friday party. We didn't go out dancing afterwards. But, there will be more of those things to come. Almost all the important people were there, and it was happy and noisy and full of dancing and jokes and laughing and love... and I was surprised and delighted, instead of exhausted and stressed-out from organising, which made it pretty much perfect.

It was funny in some ways. I hardly remember talking to people, I was too busy bouncing around and grinning and hugging people and dancing and flitting about. I remember smiles and hugs and dancing, and not many words! There was a huge, beautiful piñata (apparently they had to bring it home held out of the taxi window). There was a delicious, absurdly creamy birthday cake, and I made my wish and blew out all the candles so hard I got candle wax on Amazing Allison's arm, and I rose to the jokingly-made challenge of making my self-imposed thank you speech in Spanish. There were balloon animals, made by my bar-tending, DJ-ing, ex-clown Favourite Peruvian, and a balloon penis. There was salsa and merengue and pop and reggae and a moshing accident that I'm fairly sure involved my head being sat on; fast dancing and drunken dancing and funny dancing and tender dancing.

I, um, may have kissed a boy. In the carpark, in the cold, under the stars. It wasn't entirely unprecedented nor entirely unexpected nor necessarily a good idea, but much better than just saying goodbye and goodnight (and also better than persuading him to stay) and it made me mostly-happy and I'm glad the evening almost-ended that way - especially with half my friends going home in couples!

[An aside on kisses: in Mexico everyone kisses hello and goodbye (once, to the left), and for thank you and congratulations. This has made me a much more kissy person, and I like this very much. I was thinking this when I was giving my friends thank-you-and-I-love-you kisses while we were tidying up. (I did an especially good job of tidying up the cake.) I would never have given spontaneous or comfortable friend-kisses before, but now I am a giver of kisses. I like kisses. Hurray!]

This morning I forced myself into the land of the living and onto a bus and found myself still breaking out into smiles in spite of feeling a bit like I'd been run over by a steamroller and went to the launch of amazing photographer Graciela Iturbide's new book. She has just won the 2008 Hassleblad Prize and I am rather pleased that I fell in love with her work before I knew she was at all important. The press scrum was rather disconcerting, but it was interesting and I listened and contemplated and dreamed in and out of the Spanish and had thoughts and ideas. And then I found Heaven... but I am too tired and this entry is too long...

Coming soon: the pearly gates, and where to find them. If you happen to be in Mexico City.

And the best work email ever

2008-02-26T17:57:00.002-06:00

Eloise Myname,

It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion into the 2008-2009 Princeton Premier Business Leaders and Professionals "Honors Edition" section of the Registry.

The 2008-2009 edition of the Registry will include biographies of the world's most accomplished individuals. Recognition of this kind is an honor shared by thousands of executives and professionals throughout the world each year. Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement.

Upon final confirmation, you will be listed among other accomplished individuals in the Princeton Premier Registry.

For accuracy and publication deadlines, please complete your application form and return it to us within five business days.

You may access the application form using the following link:
http://app.formassembly.com/forms/view/5882

On behalf of the Managing Director, we wish you continued success.

Sincerely,

Jason Harris

Managing Director
Princeton Premier

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha....

The best work-email subject line ever

2008-02-25T15:32:00.001-06:00

"tractor for sale"

The Mower

2008-02-25T00:43:00.002-06:00

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

Philip Larkin

just awesome

2008-02-21T17:40:00.002-06:00

Today I came upon what in my opinion is the most awesome website ever. Odd places, odd buildings and structures, odd customs and activities. I want to go to pretty much every place it talks about. Read it, you'll love it - though it might leave you with itchy feet! (Luckily, I think that oddity, and thus the potential for adventures in oddness, is to be found all over the place, if you only keep your eyes open. We just need the odd reminder.)

How pleasant to know Mr Lear

2008-02-21T16:00:00.007-06:00

I cannot tell you how tremendously I like this picture, stumbled upon on Wikipedia. Apparently there were rumours that Edward Lear was a just pseudonym for someone else, and it really happened.

Cosmic conjuring

2008-02-21T13:23:00.004-06:00

At five minutes to nine last night I was standing on the pavement outside the Argentinean restaurant where a group of us were having a meal to say goodbye to one of our number, staring up at the moon with one of the waiters.

The moon was a dull, shadowy red, with a white crescent of light slipping away in the top-right corner (if circles can be said to have corners). I imagined bright valleys and mountains fading into darkness, though I suppose the moon is more craters than valleys.

And then the white light was gone, and there was nothing but the dimming, rusty edges of the perfect circle of moon.

And then quite quickly, at 9.01, the shadowy centre stretched out and ate the moon. And there was nothing there but ink-black sky.

It was amazing. I know that that is rather the point of an eclipse and I am probably quite obtuse, but the utter disappearance of the moon sort of surprised me. It felt like stumbling upon something secret.

I think this is because in all the pictures of lunar eclipses – and google will find you thousands – you never see a picture of absolute black nothingness. Which when you think about it is not altogether surprising. Nothing is not nearly as impressive as bitemarks in a brilliantly silver moon, or the slow fade to red. But watching the moon disappear is the most astonishing part of the whole thing.

No wonder ancient cultures feared the vengeance or the abandonment of the gods. It’s like watching black magic. And remarkable to think too that in those few moments – and only in those moments – the whole surface of the moon must be completely dark.

And people were watching all over the world, all kinds of people in all kinds of places, wherever it was night. I like that.

Happy thoughts

2008-02-20T16:53:00.005-06:00

I fucking hate Valentine's Day.

Such was the sentiment with which I began my day last Thursday, but since it is neither original nor timely I shan’t go on about it. Except, good God all the noise and the couples and the balloon sellers and and the teenagers clutching their love tokens and the PEOPLE EVERYWHERE did not add much to my mood when I ventured out to buy food and run errands in the evening.

However, the crass, depressing commercialism of VD and its smug way of reminding you of your freakish unloveableness if single was not really enough to explain my vile headache on Thursday morning, and neither was the two thirds of a pisco sour I had drunk the night before at the party of some delightful, mostly only temporarily-resident, Peruvians. (Palatable, but with a weird yeasty smell, and the raw egg yolk is fundamentally disturbing. Licking limey sugar around the rim is the best part.) This headache had its main encampment in the bridge of my nose, but established some strong beachheads in my eyeballs and occasionally sent raiding parties to other bits of my head, and seemed to have rebel sympathisers in my gland. Subsequently, thanks to my lovely officemate talking me into going to the doctor, it transpired that my recently-permanent cold and/or sore throat and/or cough has amusingly turned into sinusitis (though I’m taking the pills now and feeling much better – at least, I’m back to just cold/sore throat/cough).

And then the technician who came and took away my sadly sick and broken computer finally phoned me. And told me that the motherboard was fucked and that fixing it (i.e. getting a new one) would cost about the same as a new computer. And I cried and cried. Which I know is a bit pathetic, but for the past few weeks of my computer being broken I have missed it like crazy and I cannot handle the prospect of being without it. My computer is my ability to listen to my music; read things on the internet; talk to people over skype and voipstunt and messenger; write emails; sink into the comforting cosiness of comedy and drama over BBC internet radio; look up recipes when I need them; upload and organize my photos; blog; record my thoughts.

As a result, I believe the words “I fucking hate today. I fucking hate everything” may have been spoken on Thursday, when my inner (maybe not so inner) petulant, foulmouthed fifteen-year-old took over for a while. She was around on Saturday too, when I wasted most of the day trying and failing to get tickets to see awesome Mexican rock band Maná and walking through a dark and strange neighbourhood trying and failing to find a shop that turned out not to be there.

So whinge whinge whinge, everything is rubbish. Except that somehow it isn’t, and somehow I seem to be coming out from the slough of despond that I have been in of late. So here are some of the things that have been cheering me up since Thursday:

Brussels sprouts. Shut up. I like them.
A work Valentine's party on Friday which ended up going pretty well - so well, in fact, that it was almost worth all the stress of organising it. Dancing. The amazing realisation that I can comfortably dance salsa or cumbia and carry on a conversation in Spanish at the same time (though admittedly neither at an especially complex level) - both things that required all my concentration not so long ago.
My new favourite bar, introduced to me on Friday night after the party by a dear Mexican friend, when we went into town and everyone else was too tired/boring to come. It is smallish and cosy, with wood-panelled walls and lots of ceiling lamps. A boy with a ponytail and a guitar started playing songs, mostly trova (folky ballads in Spanish), but a with the odd one in English - Pretty Woman, a Beatles song, and, hilariously, the Banana Boat Song. His first song was the most utterly bizarre: the Mexican equivalent of Happy Birthday, with the words changed from "These are the morning verses that King David sang to the beautiful girls..." to "These are the morning verses that [musician's name] sang to the drunk boys/people...", set to a Pink Floyd tune! We laughed, talked, requested our favourite songs, and I was immensely, inexplicably happy. The musician shot me mischievous grins. Other people came up on stage, playing drums and guitars and singing, taking turns and wandering off - more boys with ponytails and the owner in a stylish black hat. Their friends and girlfriends sat at the front and joked and catcalled and sometimes joined in. One of the ponytailed boys tried to help his drunk and arrhythmic friend play the clave. The lights went out and everyone laughed and squealed and got out the lights on their mobile phones. We went when we were too tired to stay and the band got the whole room waving goodbye.
Photography, specifically a visit to Mexico City’s photography museum, the Centro de la Imagen. It is a perfect hour or two’s wander, and the exhibitions by Graciela Iturbide and Ernesto Ramírez were both amazing and inspirational. I have come to the realisation over the last couple of weekends that photography and modern art (20th and 21st century) are the things I like to go and look at most of all, and find the most rewarding. It is nice to know this. Helps cut down the agonising.
Perching on a bench in a square, watching people learn to dance Son next to the central fountain.
Two little boys, brothers, on the Metro, playing scissors, paper, stone. (It is more fun to watch here – rather than bringing your shape out on the count of three, the contestants have to sway their hands from side to side while chanting and then make their shape as the chant ends on a triumphant little shout). A little girl, instantly bored on an escalator, holding a plastic bag with a ball in it up to her stomach and saying “look mummy, I’m pregnant”. Shrines to the Virgin of Guadalupe in quiet streets: fixed to a tree trunk and festooned with silver tinsel; a few candlelit tiles in a wall, flanked by two golden chrysanthemums; a grander statuette in her glass case. Handprints in the concrete pavement outside a little family-run store, with names written in next to them; a sun sketched into the concrete a little further along.
The first line of Fluorescent Adolescent by the Arctic Monkeys, heard playing somewhere. “You used to get it in your fishnets, now you only get it in your nightdress…”
The best chicken I have ever tasted, barbecued in the sunny, dusty square of a nearby small town. Wandering around the Sunday market, smelling of the leather of belts and saddles and cowboy boots. An ice lolly like a home-made strawberry split, with little yellow strawberry seeds sunk to the tip of the fruity part.
Volleyball on Sunday afternoon. Sitting in a circle and bouncing the ball to each other until we were in a calm, giggly, zen-like state. Rolling on the grass in paroxysms of laughter. Feeling happy and relaxed in every muscle.
The birth of a beautiful, healthy baby girl to a good friend and colleague and his lovely wife, their first child; his huge smile and running up and giving him a big hug. I saw the pictures of her first poo and her first feed, but I drew the line at the video of her birth!
Black and grey stripey socks that made me feel like the Worst Witch.
Affectionate teasing.

I guess it's the little things... except sometimes when it is the big things, and the medium-sized ones.

Like painting the...

2008-02-20T11:28:00.000-06:00

The end of an era.

Innumeracy is always the best way

2008-02-18T16:59:00.003-06:00

I was looking for pictures of cupid online, as you do, inspiring myself preparatory to making Valentine's party decorations, and I really, really like this picture, Venus Chiding Cupid for Learning to Cast Accounts, by Joshua Reynolds.

comics make things better

2008-02-13T14:19:00.003-06:00

Hurray for geeky humour! This comic made me happy today.

O Tell Me The Truth About Love

2008-02-13T11:45:00.001-06:00

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go around,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

WH Auden

[Today's stuck-in-my-head poem. Bloody Valentine's day. And it isn't even, yet.]

You only get one

2008-02-08T11:39:00.000-06:00

This morning I took control of my destiny. This is quite a terrifying thing to do. I am still feeling a bit shaky.

I'll let you know how it turns out...

In the meantime, here is a photo, snapped in the supermarket just after I got back after Christmas. I love odd English on garments and other objects, and I would have bought this had it not been in the prepubescent girls' department.

Don't we all feel this way sometimes?

employ me, i'm brilliant

2008-02-07T18:02:00.000-06:00

I was about to have a short moan about having to sit here writing my CV, but then I realised I was sort of enjoying doing it. Perhaps because, for the first time, I - whisper it -

almost feel that maybe I sort of have a set of moderately valuable skills.

Bloody hell.

How you know when they're The One

2008-02-07T13:10:00.000-06:00

Today I was curled up in bed contemplating getting up, without enthusiasm but for once without urgency, and I thought about Cambridge.

Specifically I thought about Cambridge in the summer, summer rain on a hot afternoon. And the smell of rain on warm stone brought the whole city back to me - every street and passage and pathway.

I think Cambridge is the most beautiful city in the world, but there's more to how I feel about her* than that.

I love her deeply, with a love that is bigger than myself. I love her past, I love her mysteries, I love all the things about her that are beyond my knowledge.

I love her intellectually, but also intimately. When I haven't seen her for a while I just can't keep myself from stroking her warm, lovely stones.

When I see her, she makes me happy. Happy in a non-trivial way, tinged with the opposites of happiness.

All her failings, her flaws and pomposities and contradictions, only serve to endear her to me the more. Even though sometimes I can't stand her, I always love her.

I wouldn't want one of those jealous, intense relationships - I'd want to spend time with other cities and I'm happy for her to have other people in her life - but I can imagine living with her the rest of my life and not regretting it or wishing myself anywhere else.

Things being the way they are, I can't see it happening any time soon, but I do hope, one day, we can be together.

In fact, I think she might just be The One.

Good to know.

[Hurray for the glorious oddities of life! I wrote most of this post yesterday but didn't quite get round to posting it. Then, yesterday night, I bought a Robbie Williams karaoke disc, the only one in English I could find in the bootleg CD shop, having discovered the massively exciting (to me) fact that one of my friends has a karaoke machine, which means we MUST have a karaoke party. It is hilariously bad, with videos that are not the actual videos for the song, but instead seem to have been made my someone wandering around moderately unscenic places, or places that manage to look unscenic on murky camcorder-type film, ocasionally filming a girl with 80s hair bopping (I use the word bopping advisedly - dancing doesn't quite cover it) along to the music and "being sexy". And this morning I discovered that a couple of these videos were filmed in Cambridge, and I was so very cheered to see her. "Angels" is particularly charmingly set to wobbly shots of my dear Cambridge market, my favourite being a close-up of some fen celery and its little price placard. It really fits the imagery of the song, don't you think?]

[None of this negates what I said about my fear and misery over leaving Mexico. It's a bitch leaving pieces of your heart in more than one place.]

* This is the correct personal pronoun for a city. It just is. Like ships and trains and countries. And interestingly, bells: even though bells always have male names (like Big Ben) they are always referred to as "she". Such are the things one learns from Lord Peter Wimsey.

Ungrateful

2008-02-05T14:59:00.000-06:00

I may be going to Thailand, and China.

I have wanted to go to Asia for a long, long time.

And yet, I am not happy.

Because I am a wretched ingrate, that’s why.

It looks like I am going to be sent on a trip for work (and I’ve never been sent anywhere exotic before) for about a week or so in March.

Ordinarily, this would be pretty exciting. It will be mostly a trip of the going-to-a-meeting-and-talking-to-scientists-and-writing-about-it variety, rather than going-into-the-field-and-talking-to-farmers, and with all the stress of worrying about doing a good enough job, and guilt about my carbon footprint, but, nevertheless it will be new place and new sights and all the joys of going somewhere.

But, I will be away for:
- the Friday I was planning to have a party and go out dancing to celebrate my birthday.
- my birthday itself.
- the holiday days we get for Easter, and perhaps Easter itself, and all the celebrations and strangeness and possibilities of spending time with friends that go with Semana Santa in Mexico.

In other words, pretty much the last celebratory things before my contract finishes (at the end of March).

And it’s a week, at least a week, of not being in Mexico, when I only have seven or eight weeks left.

Leaving Mexico is on my mind all the time now, a constant miserable tension. But when I actively think about it it’s much worse. Every bit of me feels like it’s turned to dust, and my heart aches, and I’m sharply unhappy and fearful with the anticipation of it. Which, I’m quite aware, is not the ideal way to spend my last weeks here, and does not make me the most awesome company ever.

I’ll not be gone forever. I will come back – telling myself this makes it bearable. But, I’ll never live here again. I have to relinquish all the scraps of belonging I’ve slowly managed to claw to myself – a few friends to do things with, colleagues who invite me to the occasional birthday party or baby shower, a few stallholders who know me and greet me with a familiar smile, the dozens of daily smiles and how-are-yous and little chats with colleagues, the notoriety I have somehow acquired as organizer of volleyball sessions and Friday after-work parties, the routines. There are a few people I’ll keep in touch with, probably, but…

When I come back it will be as a visitor. This hurts more than I realized it would.

I sometimes think that most of the things I do, the decisions I make, are the emotional equivalent of sitting down and sticking pins in my eyes.

Old Bet

2008-01-14T21:37:00.000-06:00

Um, Happy January and all that.

In the absence of proper posts, I would like to share with you a fascinating and rather poignant Wikipedia article, which though I only discovered it today is my very favourite ever. Wikipedia is brilliant.

Old Bet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Old Bet was the second elephant brought to the United States.

Biography
In 1808, while residing in Somers, New York, Hachaliah Bailey purchased an African elephant for $1,000 and named it "Old Bet." Old Bet appears to be one of the first elephants brought to the United States; she had previously been on exhibit in Boston in 1804, but Bailey found her for sale four years later in a New York City cattle market.

(An alternate version of the story relates that Bailey purchased Old Bet from a sea captain, possibly his brother, who had acquired the elephant for $20 in London prior to the War of 1812.)

Bailey originally planned to use Old Bet as a draught animal on his farm, but she attracted so much attention that he decided to found a travelling menagerie instead. He started out to show Old Bet with a wagon of hay, a horse to draw it, and an assistant. The admission fee for an entire family was either a coin or a 2-gallon jug of rum. In 1808, Hachaliah Bailey rented two-thirds of Old Bet to Benjamin Lent and Andrew Brown, who also had a right to display her.

On July 24, 1816, Old Bet was killed while on tour near Alfred, Maine by a farmer who thought it sinful for poor people to waste money on a traveling circus, and Bailey memorialized her in 1825 with a statue and the Elephant Hotel in Somers, New York.

[Incidentally, it occurs to me that the three people I know who I know to edit and/or write Wikipedia articles are all boys – which mayn’t mean much, though I think perhaps a passion for (read: obsession with) factual knowledge and a self-confidence in your own correctness are more often to be found in boys – but more importantly they are some of the smartest, most interesting and generally fantastic people I know: Nathan, Ed, and my little brother. My awesome geeks of Wikipedia, I salute you!]

sleigh bells calling

2007-12-25T17:52:00.000-06:00

It's almost too late to say this, since there are only six minutes of Christmas Day left, but, Merry Christmas one and all.

I wanted to say that in the early hours of this morning, as I sat up late unpacking and wrapping presents, and I seemed to hear sleighbells in an icy sky, long ago and far away. But I didn't have any internet, so I just thought it instead.

Then today I watched most of Polar Express, which I thought has many flaws as a film, but is nonetheless magical. Well, if you've seen it, I hoped I would be able to hear the bell, and I hope you can too.

Kisses
E

Luminous

2007-12-14T01:43:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday, the communications team had our Christmas meal together. At 4pm, we all cleared out, leaving a sign on the door saying we’d be back on Thursday (Wednesday being a holiday), and shared ourselves between cars to drive to Mike’s house.

There are seventeen or so of us altogether, plus a few family members - wife, a father, some impeccably-behaved children – and Mike’s wife and son and a handful of their friends and neighbours who came and went throughout the evening.

It was, quite simply, lovely. The house twinkled with Christmas lights. Late afternoon sunlight filled the room. There was banter and laughter and a meal was shared – a meal of simple pleasures: fresh bread; slow-cooked meat; creamy potatoes; a milky, cinnamony dessert. I poured red wine badly. I chatted and joked in Spanish. After the meal, Mike’s guitar came out and so did the tequila, and everyone joined in singing old Mexican songs. A few songs later, out came the percussion collection – mostly maracas and those big rattly seed pods – and all around the table people picked their own rhythms and added them with enthusiasm. I danced along in my chair with a seed pod in each hand.

As the time passed, I looked around the table and found each person looking different to normal. Some of my colleagues hardly seemed recognisable, their faces quite different, unfamiliar. They were quite simply transfigured. Everyone was happy, enjoying the moment, relaxed with the year slowing to its close and Christmas on its way, contented in familiar, affectionate company. It seemed to me that this gentle, tranquil contentment eased our muscles, smoothed away our workday expressions. It seemed to me that each face was luminous, open, each person lit from within. A glow not just metaphorical but tangible. A fragile, vulnerable light. It was a rare thing, everything being just right for just a little while. Recalling it, I feel the memory already folded away into the soft parts of my heart. It was extraordinary.

As it worked out, I didn’t sing in front of everyone last Friday. I ended up playing a bit of volleyball, in fact until it was too dusky to see the ball, so by the time I got there the set was coming to an end. The bar was terrifyingly full of people, so I was quite relieved, but at the same time I did, in truth, want to sing. I dropped a hint or two, but I wasn’t brave enough to volunteer straight out, in case I wasn’t much good – I wanted to be asked, and I wasn’t.

On Tuesday, I had a second chance, when Mike forced me (willingly, but I couldn’t admit that) to do a song or two. We started out with Both Sides Now. It took ages to get the key right and even so I bottled the high bits – I couldn’t seem to pitch them, disconcerted by the guitar accompaniment and the attentive audience. These bits were quite awful, with the terrible clarity and time passing both too slowly and too quickly of a fear coming true, but the rest came out, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, quite beautifully. Then we did Baby Can I Hold You by Tracy Chapman, which has no high bits to trip you up, and the bits of Big Yellow Taxi we could remember, with my lovely officemate Allison joining in too.

I am very glad that I faced my fear and rode it out, because when the song comes out like it should, like honey, it is a wonderful feeling. And everyone was so sweet to me, saying lovely things about my voice. It made me feel like, perhaps, I could be a person who sang in front of people sometimes, and that they might enjoy it. I don’t think I have an extraordinary talent or anything, just that sometimes there might be a guitar and a gathering and a song, and me, happy, for a moment a bird, singing with my eyes closed.

We talked about practising sometime, learning a few more songs. And I felt excited, not terrified at all.

[On the other hand, I will be judging the dancing contest in a little over twelve hours’ time. I’m not sure why I’m doing this, since I believe quite strongly that dancing is and should not be a competitive thing. And I’m still quite terrified about that.]

Why not to become part of the community #2

2007-12-07T14:32:00.000-06:00

We are having a bit of a party in the bar tonight. My colleague and interregnum boss, Mike, will be playing some live music, mostly of the rock/blues persuasion, along with a couple of other people.

So far so good.

A few weeks ago they got together to play and a few of us were hanging out in the bar. It got to a point where we were singing along, and I ended up doing a bit of a solo version of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now".

I am always pleasantly surprised when people compliment my singing voice. My mother, and now I come to think of it my father too, always told me I couldn't sing - they told me to shut up, or asked me if I was in pain whenever I opened my mouth to sing (admittedly, in hindsight, loudly and with youthful exuberance). As a result, I do, after a lot of assurances from my lovely friends, think I can sing, a bit, but that's my secret, and I definitely don't feel confident enough to sing in front of other people.

But somehow, I did end up singing, in front of a few people, and it was actually a great feeling. And Mike paid me a tremendous compliment, saying he'd like to have his guitar behind my voice, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy, and I must've been enthusiastic about doing it again...

Because now Mike is insisting I sing a couple of songs tonight. In front of a lot more people. Not all my friends. I am, to put it mildly, nervous.