T'eyla Minh

Journal re-tagging continues. On looking at the list, I have one thing to say:

"God GOD, that's a lot of shake fandoms!" :P

Was just in Tesco because I figured I would fare better getting a pumpkin now instead of later. Considering there were three left, turns out that may well be true. Anyway, it reminded me of when I was in there the other day and the entry I was going to do on getting home...

Periodically, the Tesco Metro in town decide to reverse their escalators, presumably to save on belt wear or whatever. Anyway, this decidedly simple action is enough to make ordinarily intelligent (at least, one assumes) people into blathering idiots.

I understand that we get used to things being a certain way, and when that changes it is quite confusing. But that isn't any excuse for the common sense lapse which results in the following:

Pushing past other shoppers who are coming off an escalator which is going DOWN, only to then attempt to go UP on the same escalator because it was that way around the other week, and then look surprised when it's not any more. You'd think the people coming OFF THE ESCALATOR would be enough of a tip-off...

People are weird.

Gah. What is it about PC messages - error or otherwise - that renders usually intelligent people suddenly incapable of reading?

Nothing much else to report. We started working on Porgy and Bess last night (or 'Betsy and Porg', as Adrian likes to call it) which was... interesting. Harder than it looked, and has that rather amusing effect of a majortarily white choir trying to sing phonetic African American dialect... There's a section towards the end where we have to basically learn the tune but then, in the performance, copy what the soloist ad libs. Which should be disastrously entertaining, to say the least...

I appear to have managed to poison myself again. As Paul is fine, it must be something I've eaten that he hasn't, and since we had entirely separate meals yesterday, that narrows it down to:

orange + lemon muffin from Pret
two-day-old tuna (unlikely)
bottle of apple juice
McDonalds

Given my stomach is displaying similar symptoms to the last time some off apple juice poisoned me, my vote's on that at the moment. Alternatively, since the muffin had little chunks of orange in it, it could be that my body has gone so long without proper fruit intake that it rejects the very idea of fruit pulp - I also had a dodgy stomach after I tried my first smoothie...

I hope it's just the McDonalds or something...

My insides haven't been the same since the glandular fever, to be honest. I spent the majority of the first two weeks unable to eat anything solid and lost quite a bit of weight (didn't last long, unfortunately) and ever since then the slightest thing seems to make my stomach throw a wobbler. I spent quite a significant period from October 2006 onwards feeling sick every morning (to the point where, if it hadn't have been impossible, I would have suspected pregnancy...)

So, since I just lost all my breakfast, I am eating a biscuit. Carefully.

I think I might start writing down a 'food diary'. It might help to take an objective look at these things so I can see what 'bad foods' I need to cut out... Yes. Starting Monday.

In other news, I've used up my remaining 1.5 annual leave days to extend my easter leave to a full two weeks. I was originally off for all of 12th March and the morning of the 13th, , then Easter, but I've now taken the afternoon of the 13th and also the 14th. So I'm now off from 12-25 March. TWO WEEKS OFF WORK! Hopefully I might get some bloody flat-sorting done at this rate...

At the time of writing (well this paragraph, at least), I am waiting on a social worker to email me her core assessment so I can amend it, as Ian can't get into his email to forward it to me. It's like waiting for paint to dry...

Which sort of reminds me of another silly half-conversation from yesterday - although, like the majority of them, it loses a lot in the retelling.

Gaynor: [on phone to helpdesk] I'm not flashing...
Ian: [overhearing] I should hope not!

Anyway. I should probably do some more work. If and when this bloody assessment ever gets emailed, it'll take me the best part of an hour to sort it out... probably be quicker to retype it.

I promise to post an entry of some substance at some point. I had a few ponderings going through my brain last night about inspiration, but that can wait until it's a bit more coherent...

It's. Too. Hot.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO jackiesjottings!!  Have a pirate. :)

Listening to CD2 of 3; tomorrow, Shock Treatment.  Today, it's been So Long & Thanks For All The Fish, which I think is in the innings for Best Song Ever right now.  I may have to listen to the Once Around the Sun CD, though, as Joby Talbot really is very good at this music thing.

( Amusing snippet telling the story behind SL&TFATF )

Work was fairly tedious today, really.  Nothing very exciting happened.  I phoned up Bartley Green to inform them that one of our cases was transferring and sent the file over, which it isn't my job to do, but anyway.  If it's all done wrong and goes tits-up, then it's because I'm not meant to do things like that.  The heat became unbearable at about 2.30 as usual, and Sandra interrogated me a bit more about Paul, making like she's expecting a frelling wedding invite.  Er, not that there's a wedding or anything.  Um.

That's about it.  Frell knows when I'll get anything to eat tonight. I think I'll go play Sanitarium a bit more...

I've been meaning to type up one of these for ages and kept forgetting.  In the local Sandwell Chronicle, there's a bloke by the name of Philip Solomon, who writes random articles about local points of interest.  In Black Country dialect.

I have something of a soft spot for Yammish, being a Yammer born and bred despite not having the accent, so Mr Solomon's weekly articles are really quite adorable, as well as appealing to my inner phonetics geek.

So, here's this week's. Translation provided on request. ;)

Philip Solomon's Ode Black Country Musin's - 'Ighest quality traps bear out Vikin' theory

Ado, aer kid.  This wick I thought it wuz time ter get the 'istory cap on agen.

Now a faermous, proper Black Country town, is of course Wednesfield, but yer see, year agoo that would probably 'ave bin Wodensfield, naermed after the ode Vikin' god, Woden.

Now some people say as tharray so, but it's gorra be, ay it?  Common sense tells yer that.  Un all yow schoolkids frum thar area as follows me column, just goo an 'ave a look at whar it sez on the gaertes in the park.

In fact, thinkin' abaert it, a lorra them Wednesfield folk 'ave got the look of the Vikin's abaert 'em, as well.  Yer know, very 'andsome, fair-yedded, yet they'd soon sort yer out if yer crossed 'em.  Un I should know cuz I wuz born in Wednesfield.

But another thing they wuz really faermous for all over the waerld, wuz mekkin' all sort of traps.  In fact they 'ad a reputation fer mekkin' some of the very finest, un I ay ob abaert the sort ter ketch mice in, neither.

Every animal yow could imagine would 'ave a trap med ter ketch it - even things like lions - but I suppose moost of the traps they med would 'ave bin ter ketch rabbits, 'ares, foxes un all sorts of similar creatures, which we all think am very nice but of course would 'ave bin the bane of the ode gaermekeeper's life on all the country estates up un daern the country.

Un if yow want ter research this, I venture ter say yow'll find as a very large percentage of any of these contraptions yer see 'angin' up as examples of yesteryear in some of the big 'ouses wuz made in Wednesfield, un might even be stamped with the naerme.

Course, I suppose terday there ay the saerme need fer such awful things as some on 'em wuz then.  I wuz once showed an 'orrible thing in America, a great big back-breaker of a thing with massive teeth on it, un do yow know whar it wuz used for?  It wuz a mon-trap, un although I cor be certain, I should think we even med them in Wednesfield at one time, cuz if a trap 'ad ter be of the very 'ighest quality, Wednesfield wuz wheere it generally come from.

In mooer recent years, I suppose the town 'as become well-known (alongside its close neighbour, Willenhall), fer mekkin' locks as a lor of yer wull known, un' probably 'ave waerked at plaerces such as the Yale, un' lots of other smaller plaerces.

So theere yer goo, that's what Wednesfield wuz faermous for.

Also, at one time, it would 'ave 'ad a very traditional little market wheere yow could 'ave bought anythin' frum a sheep's 'ead to a spool of cotton, un in fact, it still 'as a very nice market ter this day.

But next time yow visit theere, yow want ter watch out fer two things - Vikin's, traps as might be set fer yer, un things ter lock yer up with!

Tarra a bit, aer kid, un I'll be back next wick ter tell yer a few mooer musin's.


'Sbrilliant, isn't it? :D

In other news, Eni sent me a goldfish through the post.  How's that for random...

This one didn't take as long; wish I'd typed the other one straight up...

( Phantom )

Tee hee.  I just love that story...

a quote from saturday that i just remembered, for your amusement.

whilst discussing the casting of the phantom movie...

Me:  And... Simon Callow's in it.
Eni: Who?
Me: He was in Four Weddings and A Funeral.
Eni:  Ah, I haven't seen that one yet.
Me: Oh, well, he's the one in the kilt who dies in Four Weddings...
Eni:  SOMEONE DIES?!? ... Oh, wait.  Four Weddings and A Funeral...

that entire snippet of conversation is probably the eni-est thing ever... and considering i've only known her little over a month, it's rather impressive i know that. :)

it must be summer. i was out with bare arms just now...

that, and there was a fly in the kitchen. methinks i should clean it before we have an infestation. it's practically a biohazard as it is.

Today's Quote (a long one): "It is a kind of heaven. This is what i was made for. It is doing nothing. A fraud is being perpetrated: writing is not work, it's doing nothing. It's not a fraud: doing nothing is what I have to do to live. Or: doing writing is what I have to do to do nothing. Or: doing nothing is what I have to do to write. Or: writing is what I have to do to be my melancholy self. And be alone.

Moreover, I don't have to think about food. No one here now finds eating an essential part of their life. In addition to smoking, drinking coffee and writing, I make regular trips to the fridge to gaze on its cosmic emptiness. I adore its lit-up vacancy... There's a bit of inedible cheese, a jar of jalapeno chillies which I nibble at when I'm peckish. Every 36 hours to so I call in an emergency pizza. Another nice man on a bike brings it round. I do not die of starvation. I continue to drink coffee (sometimes tea), smoke, write and stare at the ceiling."

Jenny Diski, "Moving Day" in Don't

i did an entry whilst at uni but it didn't post it. i think i can vaguely remember what it was about - having watched "the green mile" (wonderful film...) i was still lying awake at 4.00am, and am now running on about three hours sleep. this is not a good thing. i am, however, amazingly not tired...

oh, and wonder of wonders - david brottman let us out of picturing books half an hour early, because we were all dying from heat exhaustion...

that's about it. the other one was better...

Today's Quote: "Why, dey's like angels. Angels from God's own heaven..." (which is probably a mis-quote; it's close enough) - John (can't spell his surname...) in "The Green Mile", whilst watching Fred Astaire and, I assume, Ginger Rogers although someone is bound to correct me if I'm wrong, in "Top Hat" (And if anyone'll know, then I'm betting on either igneouskitten or sweeterthing...)

currently, the phrase, "Turns out, Scorpius is like eighty-five percent water. Who knew?" is making me cackle hysterically.

from here, if you're curious. he finally updated...

oh, and, slightly non-spoilery line from 'angel' tonight which had me cackling like a lunatic...

fred, pretending to be a vampire, claws up her hands and goes "rahhhh!". and angel says, "you're a vampire, you're not in 'cats'...."

*grin*

okay. body, this is ridiculous. i have had over 12 hours of sleep. it is not possible for me to be tired. moreover, i have an essay to do, and a choir rehearsal tonight; therefore, it is vital that my brain functions at more than a quarter impulse, and that my voice is not marred by the cough-that-won't-sod-off.

ugh...

Today's Quote: "...If His Majesty cannot regulate himself, how should he regulate the country?"

(Fitzroy, "The Madness of George III", Alan Bennet)

for some reason today i was compelled to go into waterstones. i had no reason to, really. just felt like it. and while i was in there, i briefly considered buying "tipping the velvet", just out of curiosity's sake, but then figured i'll be able to get it cheap somewhere eventually. so instead, on a whim, i checked the poetry section, and decided to buy a collection of t.s.eliot poetry. i did, however, check to see if the copy contained interesting things; it does - "the waste land" (all of it), " the love song of j. alfred prufrock", "the hollow men" and, of course, "rhapsody on a windy night."

and then i sat in the learning centre and read all 110 pages of it. "ROAWN" remains probably my favourite, followed by "la figlia che piange" (not in this book, unfortunately) and section two of "TWL" - "a game of chess" because it's so... odd. but not as odd as part four, to be fair.

anyway. look out for quotes from that when i'm in the mood. and i may even start doing daily quotes in general, because my MSN usernames don't count. :P (except for thsoe certain days when i manage to find something perfect, of course.)

i'm so horrendously uninspired right now it's untrue. keep wanting to start a new novel idea, but that'd mean giving up on "omnis falsus est" entirely and letting it go the way of "the thorn bird". ideas had at 17 obviously aren't the best ones. actually, considering the plot complexities of "OFE", giving up might be a good idea... except i like it, dammit! it's just annoyingly uncooperative these days.

and all i know about the thing i want to write is that in my head it's all amazingly grey (monochromatic, even) and rainy, and set in back alleys of big cities, with a gang of characters with serious problems... but it won't gel into even the most basic premise for a plot, and that sucks. oh well.

(addendum: i guess i could go with the flow and cinderella-ise it...)

incidentally, i wrote this entry (yes, on paper) in the learning centre at lunchtime, lack of capitals and all. hm. perhaps i should scan it and subject you all to my handwriting ;) or, at least, my purple fountain pen. *sigh* okay, i need a life.

anyway, i'd opened my folder and pencil tin with the intent of writing... well... something. i just never intended it to be an entry. never mind. saves me having to think later, i guess...

Today's Quote:

"O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag
It's so elegant
So intelligent"

(from "The Waste Land" - Part II: "A Game of Chess")

found through eve, from here

"From my close observation of writers...they fall into two groups:
1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and

2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review."
-- Isaac Asimov (1920-92), Russian-born American scientist, writer

I will LJ-cut it because it's very long... Enjoy!

( The SFX Event - a Synopsis )

If you're still alive, keep reading. It only gets better. However, you'll probably all want to kill me...

( Saturday 22nd June 2002 )

And finally... Sunday will have to go in another entry, because LJ is informing me that there aren't enough characters to do it. So... um... yes. Useful. See next entry...

this, with many thanks to this woman for finding it, is the original poem that trevor nunn based "memory" on.

Rhapsody On A Windy Night
(T.S.Eliot)

Twelve o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered,
The street-lamp muttered,
The street-lamp said, "Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin."

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street-lamp said,
"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter."
So the hand of the child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
"Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,
"Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.
Mount.
The bed is open, the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."

The last twist of the knife.


and it's screaming to be a fic for something. possibly for my post-DWTB "farscape" fic that i still haven't attempted...

and i'm listening to "cats" right now. and yes, i'm nearly in tears.

bloody nostalgia...

this, taken from "BITCH" by elizabeth wurtzel ("introduction: manufacturing fascination"):

"Eva Duarte Peron, a.k.a. Evita, not only died at thirty-three of ovarian cancer but has had to suffer the indignity of having her life turned into an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical."

actually, there were several good quotes, that was just the one that caught my attention. there was also:

"...But the intrigue with these dead white males, it doesn't take on the quality of an archaeological dig, the longing to understand why Greta Garbo wanted so badly to be alone, why Judy Garland was so damn tragic, why Marilyn Monroe was a demolition derby..."

(incidentally, according to garbo herself, "i never said 'i want to be alone'. i said 'i want to be left alone' and there's a big difference." just call me random quote girl...)

AND there was even a part on catwoman :)...

"...It is the same woman played by Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, the mousy and meek secretary by day who uses leather and lamé to become Catwoman by night, to flip and strut, to scratch and bite, to be the mouse that roared with dangerous curves; and cat-scratch fever, we're meant to understand, is a mild malady compared to what this feline woman can do to you when she's mad..."

hee!

visualising gender is fun :)

i know it's earlier than usual, but i don't think anyone else is going to be participating, so...

( the answers!! )

we looked at two poems today that really struck me. i transpose them here for your enjoyment, complete with why i like them :)

The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping
(Grace Nicholls)

Shopping in London winter
is a real drag for the fat black woman
going from store to store
in search of accommodating clothes
and de weather so cold

Look at the frozen thin manniquins
fixing her with grin
and de pretty face salesgirls
exchanging slimming glances
thinking she don't notice

Lord is aggravating

Nothing soft and bright and billowing
to flow like breezy sunlight
when she walking

The fat black woman curses in Swahili/Yoruba
and nation language under her breathing
all this journeying and journeying

The fat black woman could only conclude
that when it come to fashion
the choice is lean

Nothing much beyond size 14

i think this just reminded me how grace nicholls' poetry was the only stuff i actually liked at gcse, and i love this poem :) especially that "lord is aggravating" line.

anyway, here's the next one. longish explanation follows.

(from) Long Distance
(Tony Harrison)

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather bound phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.


right, explanation forthcoming... but first, a dream that i re-remembered at break today. my "farscape" dream. enjoy :)

it was only short, and very bizarre (hey, like i ever have any normal dreams... the day i do, i'll be very scared). it was a john&aeryn dream (again), my second on record, and that makes me officially obsessed... okay, so we knew that. anyway, i digress. the dream.

i think i was aeryn. i don't really remember, it was all very hazy. if not, then i was watching it. in fact, i vaguely remember actually seeing aeryn, so i probably can't have been her, but the whole thing was very odd, sort of veiled. like i was drunk, or very tired, and the atmosphere was... weird. and the colouring was very warm, all reds and yellows and browns and oranges. it reminded me a little of a scene from "lolita" (the jeremy irons version), but i forget why.

from what i remember, plot-wise, there was very little. there was a room. a window. it was late evening in summer, or possibly early morning, but it was that sort of time where the sun is just barely visible and everything looks all shadowy, but it's still light. and it was all very warm... i remember the warmth of it. and there was a chair... and john was in the chair... just a little wooden one, i think, and aeryn came in... and she just sat on his lap. and they were just there, in each others arms.

i recall it made me feel all warm and tingly inside... but it was vaguely upsetting after monday's ep (and i think that must be where it came from...)

then... it got a little surreal. (of course.) something about the sun, and how it couldn't touch her (that might be to do with those solar flares in the ep, too.)... and i recall this feeling of overwhelming dread...

that's about all i remember coherently. i forgot it when i woke up, but i had a feeling i'd dreamt something really... weird, or profound, or something, but i just had this feeling...

then i remembered it in the middle of poetry after i read the harrison poem... weird, huh?

but that poem... it just reminded me so inexplicably of john and aeryn, and don't ask me to explain why because i can't. switch the gender roles, imagine they have a child who's telling this, i don't know, but it did. it was that line, "as though his still raw love were such a crime." it really got to me.

and i hate it when things get to me and i don't know why.

i have that feeling... like i know that very soon i'm going to sink into a major low again, for no feasible reason, but all the same i can't stop it and don't really want to... *sigh* and right when i have lots of work to do, too, and really shouldn't be on livejournal ranting about my personal problems and my crazy dreams...

i walked home today. it was lovely. really windy near the park, and all the leaves hit me as i staggered through them... and it was raining this morning...

right. work. workgood...