Bollocks Shit Arse Crap Crap Crap

- Pounding headache: check
- Urge to throw up: check
- Whole body aches and pains: check
- Simultaneously shivering cold and sweating hot: check
- Head full of snot: check
- Lungs filled with what appears to be molten lead: check
- Lightheadness and inability to walk in a straight line: check
- Missing my mum: check
- Going back to bed to throw a pity party: check

Two Things....

1) When Sophie goes out walking in the snow she doesn't let the snow get in the way of her snuffling all the things that dogs sniff so she sticks her nose right in to the snow to smell stuff and then she gets these little mountains of snow on the end of her nose and she doesn't even seem to notice but there little nose-snow-mounts just kill me because they are so damn cute and yet another thing that Sophie does that makes her pretty much the cutest dog I know.

2) The other night I had this fantastically filthy (in the best possible way) dream about totally hot TV guy but I can't say who it was because I am ashamed to admit that I watch the programme that he stars in because I have a reputation to consider goddammit and while I freely admit that I love dumb things like movies-in-which-stuff-blows-up there are some things that I just can't admit out loud so my secret TV guy crush will have to remain secret.....

(On Joan Collins)...She thought that the price of the meal would be on the house. I told her that the only thing on the house was the roof....


Sitting here basking in the glory of BBC America (we loves housesitting) and the unlimited gloriousness that is "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" I am inspired to write a list.

Reasons why I love Gordon Ramsay:

- He can cook like a motherfucker.
- He calls bullshit when he sees it.
- He has twelve Michelin stars yet confessed to a reporter that he bribes his kids with jelly beans to say that they like his cooking better than their mum's.
- Every third word is fuck.
- He is a chef who recognises that the key to a successful restaurant is far less about the actual food that is served than most chefs would like to think.
- He takes on the stroppiest, foulest, worst tempered people in his quest for quality food and won't let anyone out-shout him.
- He would be one of the dozen people I would invite to my fantasy dinner party. I would sit him between Anthony Bourdain and Billy Connolly.
- He takes it better than most when people call him a twat.
- He reminds me so much of a chef that I used to work with and truth be told that I still have a bit of a crush on twelve years later.
........Oh great..... now I am going to have to figure that last one out.... Thanks, blog!

OHMIGODOHMIGODOHMIGODOHMIGOD



::squeals with delights, passes out, falls off chair::

No you won't fool the children of the revolution

Oh the delights to be had, waking up without a hangover!!! I am officially too old to be crawling home at 4.30am on a Friday morning.
So because I was restrained last night when I woke up today I had all this energy so I tidied my room and swept the flat and did loads of washing and washed the dishes and now I have a pot of chilli on the stove bubbling away and I arranged a place to stay over Spring Break for some archive work in DC and I even got mine and Paul's Bonnaroo tickets organised and checked with the other members of Team Blogaroo that Tickets Were Acquired so now I think its time to settle in with my two friends Sauvignon Blanc and Bernard Black.
Hilarity shall ensue.

VD is a big steaming pile of turds

The internet's saving grace for all things VD related

Way to rub people's noses in all the bitterness of the past year's storms.
Appropriately I woke up with a roaring headache which set the mood nicely for Day Four of "I Hate Everything And Everyone".
Of course its snowing again as well..... urgh.

10.04am. That's too early for a martini, isn't it?

Really?.....

Currently the temperature outside is -8C
The high predicted for today is -5C

When the "high" is below freezing, you know something is amiss.

Perhaps its a genetic quirk that makes us choose these crazy cold places.
Right now my sister is in Antarctica. On purpose.

Beyond a Joke

Things I hate about this town today include but are not limited to the following:
- the buildings
- the weather
- the locals
- the roads
- the post office
- the location
- the birds
- the laundromats
- the trees
- the mall
- the movie theatre
- the drivers
- the street signs
- the wind (yes I know it's technically classified as weather, but I have a special hatred for it so it merits a mention on its own)

Things I like about this town:
- the Chinese restaurant around the corner
- the cheap booze
- the presence of about 4 or 5 people who don't suck

Putting the South in SXSW

The lineup for SXSW is out, and while I remain secure in my decision to attend Bonnaroo instead, I am impressed at the Kiwi content of the former.

So, if you happen to be at SXSW, go see the following

Liam Finn
Katchafire
Die! Die! Die!
Gasoline Cowboy
Rodney Fisher
Wing
The Mint Chicks
Hollie Smith
The Ruby Suns

...and see how we rock out South Pacific styles.

In 126 days....

• Pearl Jam
• Metallica
• Jack Johnson
• Kanye West
• My Morning Jacket
• The Allman Brothers Band
• The Raconteurs
• Willie Nelson
• Death Cab for Cutie
• B.B. King
• Sigur Ros
• Ben Folds
• M.I.A.
• Iron & Wine
• Talib Kweli
• Gogol Bordello
• Broken Social Scene
• Rilo Kiley
• Lupe Fiasco
• Against Me!
• Ozomatli
• Tegan & Sara
• !!!
• Aimee Mann
• Donavon Frankenreiter
• Jakob Dylan
• Janeane Garofalo
• Zach Galifianakis

Plus a bunch of other stuff.....
Music festivals are the dog's bollocks, to be sure.

I watch the stars fall silent from your eyes

Gtalk message from Ben: "What happened to you Britney"
My response: "Ummmm....... crack.....fame.....being a mental case......."
We are glad that we are not famous.

Today was spent with the delightful Caleb, who is mysteriously way more well behaved for me than he is for his parents and apparently I am the only person in the entire universe who can get him to go to sleep in the rocking chair.

The election-where-they-choose-who-gets-to-run-for-President is on today, and its quite interesting watching it unfold. The American system is odd, I must say. From what I understand, they vote for their representative, who decides who is going to get the party nomination, and from there, the people vote again for their representative to again vote for who is going to be president, but as the 2000 election demonstrated, the popular vote and the electoral college vote are two different things.
The scary thing is that from what so many of my students say, they honestly believe that the rest of the world looks to the US as a model for democracy. Without wanting to offend the beliefs of my dear American friends, I remain unconvinced that there aren't seventy five better ways of doing it. Its a shame its so late and I am so sleepy otherwise I would list them all.*

This evening was spent with my peeps, for whom dear Shawn decided it would be a good Fat Tuesday thing to cook a whole bunch of proper Mardi Gras type feast, so we happily dined upon jambalaya and gumbo and etoufee and king cake and beignets and bananas foster (only one of which I had ever had before which was very exciting) and drank Hurricanes and Zombies and now its 11.05pm and I am full and a teensy bit tipsy so nighty night.

*yeah right

So Us Is This

This afternoon I went to visit a friend in the hospital. She began her PhD the same time that I did, but is much further ahead than I am.

Four days ago she underwent a double mastectomy and reconstruction for breast cancer, and I believe she has chemo lined up in the near future, and I was so impressed at what good spirits she was in. I was trying to imagine what I would be like in that situation, and I couldn't even comprehend it.
She was sitting up, and yes she looked a little tired, but she was telling stories, and making people laugh, and taking an extra half a lap around the rooms on her walk to build up strength.
I always want to punch people who say that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but from what I know about this woman and the things she has been through, perhaps its true in some cases?

One thing I forgot to tell her is that on the way there, my all-knowing iPod played some very appropriate music, the most pertinent being just as I came around the corner and could see the hospital: "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush.

I know you have a little life in you yet
I know you have a lot of strength left

The iPod knows.....