Sunday updates

- house and dog sitting again. Much cable and doggie love.

- still recovering from Thursday night's stress. Rumours are doing my loaf.

- can't figure out why I am so tired. Perhaps I have some exotic disease.

- I know I am a sad old nana because given the choice I would rather stay in most nights. See above.

- It turns out that the sainted Sir Thomas More was really rather wrong re: Dick the Shit, and perhaps Dick the Shit was really not that much of a shit after all. My dad will be well disappointed.

- the weather is getting to be so that I can wear my slippers. This brings whole new levels of Happy to my life.

- things are beginning to be ok again, perhaps for the reason that after the twelve car pile up I am more aware of myself and what's going on and am no longer fumbling through in the dark.

- Argentina spanked Ireland today in the rugby, the Irish who were playing like a bunch of guys who had never met each other before, while Argentina proved Henry's claim that a champion team will always beat a team of champions. After the match O'Driscoll pretty much admitted as much.

- I watched Blood Diamond, and am able to admit that while he will never be forgiven for the steaming pile of turd that was Titanic, that DiCaprio boy is one ridiculously good actor.

- I also watched Life, one of NBC's new programmes. Its pretty good, and stars the ginge who was the bad mofo on the new version of the Forsyte Saga.

- my auntie is one of my friends on facebook.

- 73 days to go.

I've got a pain in my sawdust

OK this is just ridiculous.
It is currently t-minus 65 minutes until CSI.

I am supposed to be reading Douglass North's fascinating book "Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance" and taking notes for tomorrow morning's class and packing my bags for a week's house sitting and cooking dinner BUT I CAN'T FUCKING CONCENTRATE ON ANYTHING!!!

Seriously, I don't think I have been this nervous/excited/geeked out about a new season premiere ever. EVER, I TELLS YOU!!!
I went to the supermarket this afternoon to satisfy a craving by buying steak for my dinner, but there is no way I can eat. Butterflies in my stomach....... butterflies.

I wonder why I have become so invested in this programme and these characters? Does it mean that there is something fundamentally missing from my life? Perhaps I identify with them because I see pieces of me, or aspire to share their traits?

Ah, who fucking knows.
All I know is that I have been waiting for this night for four freaking months and it had better not let me down or there will be some serious toy-throwing.

57 minutes.
tick tick tick

In which Claire asks questions

1) Hypothetically speaking, if one was to have a vege-packed omelette for breakfast and Indian food for lunch, does a meal consisting solely of WeetBix constitute a balanced diet?

2) Is it wrong that I am literally counting down the hours until 9pm tomorrow, aka CSI o'clock?

3) Is it possible that I will make it through tonight's game of soccer without breaking something?

4) When will this disgusting muggy grey oppressive weather end?

5) Do you think its bizarre that I am already excitedly plotting a blog-gathering for March next year that will happily coincide with a certain giant music festival?

6) Just how fabulous are cool blog friends?

I've seen love, and I follow the speed in the star-swept night

Over the last couple of weeks I have been having a mini-crisis about how I know far too little about anything, well more specifically far too little about the stuff I am supposed to know buckets about what with being a Graduate Student and all, with the intention being that ultimately I will be an Expert on Matters of Concern but today that doesn't seem to bother me too much, for the following reasons.

- Sophie is delicious and full of snuggles
- I had bruschetta and dolmades for lunch
- Its a lovely sunny day and I sat outside in the back yard under a tree and read for class
- Said reading is approximately 40 pages, compared to the hundreds one usually encounters
- I have just awoken from a 2 hour nap
- The house I am staying in this weekend is very nice.
- I went to the Farmer's Market this morning and bought a supermarket bag half full of tomatoes for $4. If you know how much I adore tomatoes, you will recognise how happy that is likely to make me.
- Sophie and I are about to embark upon a walk in the evening breeze, complete with all the delightful dappled light that tree-lined neighbourhoods provide.

This post brought to you by late summer Saturdays.

I never did mind about the little things

It appears that some of my students have a wee problem with geography. Apparently Tasmania and Tanzania are easily confused.

In other news, I went to the dreaded DMV today and magically (finally) had all the right forms and passed the test and am now a legal beagle in terms of driving my car in the Empire State.

To celebrate, here is a puppy.

Does anyone still read this?

Also, happy Talk Like A Pirate Day. Arrrrrr!!!!

Update o'clock.

Today I wrote cheques, the sum total of which adds up to $361.13. Ouch.

This evening I baked some chocolate chippies. Well, I made the mixture up, which is currently sitting overnight in le fridge, as per instructions. I can't follow a recipe to save my life, so hopefully they won't suck. Hell, if the uncooked mixture is anything to go by, these bikkies will Rock the House. And quite possibly the Casbah, only time will tell.

Next weekend I am on Sophie duty, which entails the following. Stay at a professor's super nice house. Eat their delicious food, drink their delicious wine, and watch their giant cable telly. Get taken out for dinner by said professor's wife, before they take off for the weekend. Play with their cuter-than-cute dog and walk her a few times a day. Get paid for doing so.

On Saturday I made that boy come over and help me sand down the window frames. I am still learning how to be around him again under these new circumstances, but I think it went ok.

I am posting pictures of me because apparently they are worth a thousand words each, which makes this the longest post ever.

In a further contribution to the time wasting extravaganza that is my life, I have recently begun watching The 4400. I know its old news, but I like it so far.

Ok thats enough for you.
Except for this: today I got to snuggle a cute little kitten.
bye.

Cause what doesn't kill us now just makes us better whores

OK sometimes honesty is the best policy.

I have spent the last few months trying to convince myself and anybody who will listen that I completely hated him, that he was a complete twat and every single thing he has ever done is totally inexcusable.
That is exhausting, I can tell you, and I can't keep it up anymore.
So, in an effort to make my life a bit easier, I have tried a different tack.
Of everything in the last six months, this is the only thing I have a measure of control over, so tonight we sat down and I was honest and admitted everything and confessed to trying so hard to hate him because that would have surely made my life easier but it turns out that something doesn't become true dependant on how much we think we wish it to be so. And he explained his part in the whole thing and apologised for some parts and explained others and we talked and laughed and cried and made the beginnings of a peace and now a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can get on with it all.

I had all sorts of wonderfully philosophical things I was going to write here but then I got talking to Ben about cricket and accents and drinking with the Irish and computer bugs so I got all distracted so now I am going to watch Eureka. I thoroughly recommend it.

She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

I find myself overcome with an overwhelming Sad.
There are things that I Know in my head and I would swear the truth of them until I fell down, but somehow I cannot make my heart believe in them.

In the general scheme of things it all means very little; there are people out there who are learning how to breathe again in this raw new world, but at 12.38 am at the end of a long Monday at the end of a long desperate tragic broken summer one tends to lose perspective.

I remember everything he said and everything that we were and the wounds we caused and the way we were and I can't help but wish for an alternative outcome of events. She has given me her blessing to return to him should my heart win out over my head but I know that I would always be second to her, that he would only have me because he couldn't have her and I Know in my head that I deserve better than that but that doesn't seem to mean much to the rest of me.

I am a reasonably clever person, you know? I have 3 degrees and a graduate diploma, not to mention the scholarship I am on for my PhD. So what pisses me off no end is that I can't figure this out.
I recognise the context of it all and that context contributed to both my weakness and my inability to properly grieve at the time, but that still doesn't help me to end it all. I should be able to put this behind me, you know? But none of that changed the way we were and what he meant to me and the massive divide between what I know and what I feel.

Fuck this. Time for a beer and some CSI.

Michelle tagged me

1. Are you a bath products girl, a shoe girl or a lingerie girl?
Can I go for option 4? I do have some sexy bitch shoes, but being a good Kiwi chick I am barefoot most of the time. I am severely limited in the saucy knickers department, but that is probably more to do with body image than anything.
So, if I had to pick, I would say bath products. Although all I have in the bathroom is shampoo, conditioner and soap-free body wash.

2. You are stranded on a desert island, you are allowed to take three items, what are they?
Item 1: A large well stocked picnic hamper containing endless supplies of the finest Marlborough sauvignon blanc, loads of cheese and crackers, tomatoes, bocconcini, fresh basil, ciabatta, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, amongst other things.
Item 2: A tent, complete with air conditioning unit, screened porch, a home theatre system, wireless internet, laptop computer, and one of those fancy 2 door fridge freezer units that makes ice.
Item 3: Clive Owen.

3. Are you are Mummy’s girl or a Daddy’s girl?
That depends on who you ask. I am really one of the lucky few who has not one but two awesome parents, who have different strengths, thus I am both.

4. Beatles or Elvis?
Ummm...... Sargent Pepper Beatles and pre-Vegas Elvis. Psychoanalyse that!!!

5. Would you rather be blind or deaf?
Funny, cos I was just thinking about this the other day, and I concluded that while a life without Interpol would initially appear to be a fate worse than death, I think I would choose to retain my sight. Its all academic though, because who gets to choose?

Who shall I tag?

I am weak!!

Yes, I finally caved and joined Facebook.
Laugh it up, Tim.

If you know my real name you can add me as a friend..... as long as I don't think you're a complete twat of course....

Go on.

None Shall Sleep

Requiescat in Pace, Sr Pavarotti



Yeah, this song still gives me goosebumps.
The fact that a person can sing like that blows my mind.

And the prize for best use of a Kate Bush song in a series promo goes to.....



ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt"

Yesterday I went on a trip.
A sort of pilgrimage, if you will.

Fifty minutes the other side of Ithaca is a small town called Elmira. Like so many towns in this part of the world, it has a grand history of industry and wealth; a history which unfortunately hasn't endured.

A significant part of Elmira's history, and perhaps the reason it is most famous, is due to the presence of a family by the name of Langdon. The daughter of the Langdon family, one Olivia Langdon, met a friend of her brother's in 1868, and two years later the couple were married at the Langdon home. The young man in question was one Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen-name of Mark Twain.

Every summer for 20 years the Clemens' came to Elmira to stay with the family, and in 1874 Samuel's sister-in-law Susan Crane and her husband Theodore gifted Samuel with a study at Quarry Farm, their farmhouse in the hills surrounding Elmira. It was in this study that such works as Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi were written.

Those who are lucky enough to have met him will know that my Dad is a bit of a Mark Twain fan. He is legendary within his Rotary Club for his uncanny ability to summon a quote from Mr Clemens for any occasion, so yesterday's mission was a bit of a Dad day. Needless to say, SOMEONE is going to be getting some Mark Twain/Elmira memorabilia for Christmas.
(Rachael, don't tell him, am going for the element of surprise)



I miss my Dad.

There's no 'I' in team...

I has a hangover.
Initially I thought I was going to die, that this just might be the one that does me in. I had composed a text message to my mum telling her it was all over red rover, but then the healing powers of my morning (and by 'morning' I mean '1pm') cup of tea kicked in, and I think I may just pull through.

Not such good news for the loo however, in a cleaning frenzy last night my flatmate managed to break the flushing mechanism, so now we are old school and one has to stick one's hand in the tank and lift the thingy up to make it flush..... all a bit much for an Overhung Saturday.

Now its time for the patented hangover breakfast ("It'll cure what ails ya!!") of fried eggs and tater tots while I lounge around in my sexy trackie pants looking super hot. Phwoar.