April 2009
7 posts
“According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, approximately a thousand...”
– In search of the ‘perfect’ vagina (via gauntlet)
OH MY ACTUAL GOD. This is so sad.
I met a gynecologist in the pub the other night (as you do) and she described to me how she had recently performed a labioplasty on a woman who was perfectly within the range of normal. ‘Why are we doing...
“How real? Do you have to get dressed for it?”
– My friend C reacts to news of my new Real Job.
Oxford Circus crossing goes diagonal →
michaelrundle:
(via 5500)
This is so exciting! And also a sign that I have been living in London for too long/am old, when changes to the pedestrian traffic system make me so excited. What am I going to get worked up about next, pothole repairs? New bicycle routes? Yes, definitely new bicycle routes.
Easter was spent divided towards two parties: first, dinner with an old friend which was lovely, but which involved me digging in to a conversation with another guest who was a ‘private security consultant’ in Africa (freelance mercenary) which threatened to derail the pleasant evening entirely.
The other guests wandered from the room as another guest who is a relief worker and I...
March 2009
21 posts
Yesterday someone wrote something really mean about me on the Internet - so super mean, that it made me feel as I used to when I was in 7th grade and got taunted on the school bus. I nearly cried, but then I went downstairs to see always-dependable neighbour J.
He pointed out that the threat against me - involving fashioning some kind of weapon out of a coathanger and a tampon - only came up on,...
Would you take your husband's last name?
noraleah:
(Here’s my take.)
I think not, because I am really fond of my last name, which is sparkly and unusual, and also because after thirty years of life (I’m estimating, at the rate I’m going) I think it would be very odd to change. However, on the rare occasions where I allow myself to feel hopelessly romantic I imagine that it would be nice to have the same name as my husband -...
I go downstairs to borrow J's iron
Me: J, can I borrow your iron? I have a job interview tomorrow.
J: Sure, work away.
Me: Gosh, I wonder who designs ironing board covers? This is hideous.
J: Probably failed writers.
Sebastina’s chain fell off today, and for a moment I felt totally Sturm and Drang, but then J came downstairs and fixed it and the S&D were replaced by feelings of inadequacy that I cannot fix my own bicycle and thus must rely on the expertise of various men of my acquaintance to sort things out. Next stop: some kind of bicycle maintenance course? I don’t know if I could bear...
“Seth has no talents. That means law school.”
– a line from the favourite book of my youth, Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen, that my dad was once fond of quoting to me…until it became apparent that I did want to pursue a creative career. Yes, I probably should have gone to law school.
I am actually pretty amazed...
…just how much of the joy has been squeezed out of blogging as a result of me now feeling compelled to do it in this bland, impersonal way. Is this a lesson in narcissism?
Anyway! Let’s carry on. Yesterday I went to see Alain de Botton give a ‘secular sermon’ as part of The School of Life. Naturally, I was extremely cynical about it - because that’s what I do - but...
Favourite Irish things!
Inspired by noraleah, and in honour of today, a list of some my favourite things from a country that felt like home (and which I lived in, for a few months) for three years…
- Dalkey Island
- Dairy products
- Bacon fries
- Swimming in freezing seas
- Craic, both in concept and in execution
- The 2003 Special Olympics
- The imperative not to to disembark from a bus without thanking the...
I should have stayed home and eaten a peanut...
“France is dying from too much democracy…” my lunchtime companion explained. “…the trouble is that the police cannot hit the bad guys with club any more.”
Um, that wasn’t worth the free food.
Today I took Sebastina for our longest ride ever (thus far), to Islington to my friend B’s house for Sunday lunch. It was a beautiful sunny day, the first one this year that made London feel like a place worth living, and as I waited to cross Bethnal Green Road I saw my neighbour, J, on his way back from a brunching activity.
‘J—-!’ I shouted at him. ‘Hey!’ he...
Tonight, I...
…ate in a gastropub I’ve never been to, in a part of London I haven’t been to in ten months, and still managed to find that a man I dated v briefly two years ago was seated at the table next to ours. We did not acknowledge each other.
…laughed with my friends more than I have in ages, over the awkward proximity of the man-I-dated, and the difficulty that French Canadians...
“Thankfully, since white people only keep their most original and creative ideas...”
– Stuff White People Like #123: Moleskine Notebooks (via 2arrs2ells) (via marco) (via iainbroome) (via somethingchanged)
I hate notebooks. I mean, I think I love them, and I buy them and then as soon as I write anything in them they immediately become sullied and damaged by my scrawly writing and...
The Julie Myerson scandal is fascinating me
Much as it is fascinating the rest of reader-y Britain right now, in a car crash sort of way. But perhaps I am taking it more personally than some, for two reasons:
- as a former nightmare teenager - really nightmare, I know you don’t believe it because now I just seem to be a cute little monkey, but it is true - so much of what she write rings true to what happened in my family, and I...
Dear guy driving a large silver Mercedes,
Pulling your car out into the centre of the road and gunning your engine in the pretense that you are going to run me and my adorable bicycle down does not make anyone thing that you have a large penis.
Regards,
Ferdolyn
Is there a way to switch off the play count...
It just reminds me of what a weirdo I am.
Currently playing: 1901, for the 144th time.
Things are going super well for me and my new bike Sebastina. As I explained to an old flame the other day (undoubtedly in some weirdo attempt to make him jealous), I don’t need a boyfriend anymore: I am really involved with my bicycle.
He looked at me askance.
Only EMOTIONALLY! I yelled. I don’t think he was jealous at all, but he definitely now thinks I am a weirdo.
Whatever....
Dying Jade Goody gathers family and friends to say... →
noraleah:
My American brethren have no idea who she is (a former Big Brother competitor and one of the UK’s biggest reality stars) — but I think you can appreciate how bizarre this story is. The woman’s dying, apparently. She has said her goodbyes to friends and family. There are photos of her being wheeled into a hospital. She doesn’t look well, but she’s also wearing heavy eyeliner and she...
My contact details have lately been added to a PR database that has resulted in me getting a full range of amazing press releases for products from fancy laundry detergent to ecological make-up to invitations to interview a leading economist. I am also apparently on some kind of key plastic surgery list: I’m now getting missives from one particular clinic on a near-weekly basis. And...
The amazing, icky, miracle of life
somethingchanged:
Jesus Christ, this is an egg. Why so solo? I thought one had millions and millions of them, like caviar.
Hundreds of thousands, I believe: they ripen one at a time, except occasionally when there are two and then you have fraternal twins (or you take fertility drugs and then you have octuplets, or whatever).
I once I had a hilarious argument about this with an...
February 2009
12 posts
While I realise that blogging about one's food...
…I just have to record the fact that I just ate an all day breakfast sandwich - for non-British readers, that’s sausage, egg, bacon, ketchup - which came in a box bedecked in a sticker that solemnly informed me that said sandwich contained no mayonnaise. Which is obviously important, for health reasons.
Cut
Slicing lemon to go with my lunch: the knife dug deep into the tip of my middle finger. True story: when I was ten, I cut my thumb while slicing carrots, fainted from the sight of the blood, hit my head on the radiator, and ended up in intensive care with a severe concussion.
I was scared it would happen again. I flung myself down the stairs and pounded on fellow work-from-homer J’s front...
“It is fairly well agreed that the Queen does not carry cash. Is it ironic since...”
– discuss (via blandben)
Do you carry dozens of photos of yourself around in your wallet? That would be awkward.
Tonight I found myself wondering
Will I regale my children with tales of my youth in London in order to make myself seem glamourous, as I drive them to their orthodontist appointments?
Burning questions I have been thinking about thus...
- When I have my eyebrows threaded (which I did a few hours ago), my body goes into exactly the same panic reaction that I used to have on airplanes. I mean, having one’s eyebrows yanked out with a piece of thread isn’t pleasant - it’s pretty painful, really, although a must for a beauteous eyebrow - but why does it actually make me feel claustrophobic?
- When someone comes...
“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They...”
– Kurt Vonnegut
from the mouths of Gods
(via afghanistanbananastand:yoquieropancakes:24freedinner:kerr:iainbroome)
I beg to differ, dear departed Kurt. A good semi-colon is a beautiful thing; it is the champagne of punctuation. And semi-colons are also useful for other things: making lists of...
“…his tribute to the Queen Mum on her centenary (“the balconies, the...”
– Poet Laureate: does poetry need one? - Telegraph
Oh, Andrew. That said, I think we should still have one because there is something quite sweetly anachronistic (as opposed to just plan anachronistic, like the Royal Family) about having a dedicated national poet in the age of Twitter.
Simone de Beauvoir shares her daily routine →
This makes me feel rather better about my own working habits, especially the bit about not writing scholarly books.
Sadly, however, I’ve no Sartre to hang out with.
(via miss-r):
INTERVIEWER People say that you have great self-discipline and that you never let a day go by without working. At what time do you start?
DE BEAUVOIR I’m always in a hurry to get going, though in general I...
“I am considering going to London for a reunion…any chance you could put me...”
– I just got this text message and I have no idea who it is from. I was tempted to say, ‘sure, come along!’ just the amusement of being surprised by who turns up…but decided to go for the more conservative, more awkward approach of confessing that I just don’t have their number...
