Dishes

5 dishes/any type of food cooked or baked I have come to love in the past year with its 4 seasons:

1. Potato and corned beef hash
2. Pea soup
3. Parkin
4. Singapore chow mein vermicelli noodles
5. Salt and pepper chips

3 reasons why our local paper is dying

1. Big contributors like WH Smith ask for £1,000 up front before they will let us circulate our paper with them. Wherever they sell, little papers can't.

2. Advertisements are hard to come by when the local populace has rooted for the other local paper who has been around for close to 160 years. Loyalty and tradition. Welcome to the small town and the UK, where such sentiments are an intense shade of double-edged.

3. There is all-around apathy. I have also established, based on my voluntary paper girl experience of the past few weeks, that the faker the lashes and the thicker the makeup and the more varied the shades of fake tan and shades of concealer and foundation,  the bigger the apathy for well-written local news.

5 things I did at 21 that I can't do at 31 without feeling sick

1. stay up all night twice in a row
2. watch a trilogy in one sitting
3. read a book without moving or taking a little break once every few hours
4. look at the world in black and white easily
5. break into a sudden sprint from leisurely walking along

Birthday Month 2012

An excerpt of somebody's birthday this year:

1. It still makes me feel a funny kind of sad even after years of telling myself that it is like any other day.
2. I started the day with a friendly 3 am call from HSBC from Manila.
3. I had a bit of a breakdown in bed and couldn't seem to get up to face the world.
4. The idea that nobody at all back home knows how isolated and miserable this situation is making me is a double-edged sword. I am glad they don't know, but I am also desperately lonely.
5. A new chum talked me out of the house and fed me soup in a Manchester soup shop. Bought a hat and a bar of honey soap.
6. Dinner with the mother-in-law in a warm house made my toes warm. She is a precious thing, that woman.
7. There was much anxiety over his lack of communication en route from Belfast.
8. Walked home an hour before midnight and found him home exhausted and asleep.
9. Biiiiig fight.
10. Slept on the couch in the front room.

Hello, 31.

In conclusion:
Surely, as I keep pushing the boundaries of how low I can get on birthdays, then the rest of my life should be an improvement...?

-End of excerpt

Things You Say To Yourself Sometimes...

1. "I don't care." - when you obviously do.
2. "This is the last time..." - but finding out that it isn't. Like eating Pringles or another stage of a game when you ought to be sleeping already.
3. "It's worth it" - and it isn't.
4. "I'll do it." - and you know with every bone in your body that you probably won't.
5. "I'm gonna be OK" - and you don't feel it.

First Time Moments: May 2012

1. I ate my first sharon fruit which, as it turns out, is also called persimmon.
2. I visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
3. I went to Darlington (near Newcastle) to meet ex-colleagues from CVG.
4. I finished stage plotting for Act 1 of"Unoriginal Sin".
5. I almost missed the only train to MCR that would let me catch my 15 pound ride to Darlington and also actually held up my hand to try and hitchhike in panic because I didn't know that at 7:38 AM the X27 would pass by Scotch Corner to take me into Darlington in time for the 15 pound bus back to MCR.
6. I saw Delta Buoy perform at the Oakwood.
7. I saw Re-entrants perform at the Oakwood.

5 Advantages of Being Penniless

1. Food tastes better.
2. A day out is more invaluable.
3. Real friends appear out of nowhere.
4. One appreciates Tesco and Sainsbury.
5. Capitalism loses brownie points.

A man with money is no match against a man on a mission.  
Doyle Brunson 

Discourse

And now for the best tips on handling an argument online (especially on Facebook, where these are people you love and feel affection for, argument notwithstanding):

1. As much as possible, never make it personal.

  a. Do not point out flaws belonging to the person with whom you are engaged in an argument. e.g. "PANGET!"

  b. Do not try to ruffle feathers that shouldn't be ruffled. Stick to the merits raised in the debate.

2. Avoid referring to yourself too much. 

Passive sentence construction and third person perspectives are important in convincing everyone that you are not hung up on yourself, but focused on the concept you defend.

3. Know your shit.

  a. Know what you believe in and be sure you've thought it through.

  b. Do not be afraid of being called tasteless. Just make sure you are well-informed.

Your responsibility is Truth and clear outlining of the semantics and labels of all terms used in the discourse. When the truth is ugly, then pointing it out usually garners much criticism and judgment.

Having said all this, be prepared for the variety of opinions when posting anything controversial. People you love do not always see things the same way you do.  This does not make them monsters, nor does it make you one.  

Promise yourself open-mindedness and you'll be all right. Do not mistake this for upholding principles you believe in. The former merely means that once you arrive at the latter, then you know it is something worth arguing to defend, and heck even die for.

Good luck.

"Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts."

 
- Heinz R. Pagels

a review of "Love is a Battlefield"

"When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite."


-Winston Churchill


Enough said, methinks. :o) 

Don't worry; I am not out to kill a man. The art of war includes love as a battlefield, after all. My take is a metaphor. I have recenty regained my sense of basic courtesy in close quarters and I don't plan to lose it again. No matter how nasty the undercurrent gets.  Easier said than done, but I will try my best after this post.


After this entry, this blog will turn into a "How to..." format.


Cheers, Blogger.


Recumbent Couch Potato, signing out.

pwned by money problems

"If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some." - Benjamin Franklin

The guy has a point.

I hate money but I need it. I must also love it, as well.

I am becoming very well-versed at loving and hating things at the same time.  It's oxymoronic. It's ridiculous. It's capitalism and comfort and individualism. It's love and justice and violent tenderness.

It's me high on bum-hood and low on esteem.

It's a blog entry. It's me: mediocrity at its best.

The best of the mediocre, signing out.

I forget myself, so...

Why don’t men get Mad Cow Disease?

Because they’re all pigs.

-taken somewhere off the Internet


Have you ever felt completely alone?

And more so because someone is sitting across the table from you, or even saying polite things to you, but that person is a universe away?

Have you ever believed in something despite your gut saying you have everything to be worried about?

When love is involved, there is no limit to stupid decisions.

These are parts of the recipe for making one believe that men are pigs.

In truth, we all act like asses from time to time in our lives. Gender doesn't limit how we act like that. Or if it did in the past, it doesn't do that as much now.

I just happen to be on the receiving end this time around, and the perpetrator happens to be male on the other end of this sordid farce. It's just that I am an idiot because I believed in the best of a person and he really really really let me down. More than once or twice, so I am to blame.

And now I've insulted pigs and asses. Pfffft.


Specist signing out.

"Citius, Altius, Fortius"

- the Olympic motto (faster, higher, stronger)

The Olympic Games in London are almost upon us.

My back hurts and my mind atrophies. I can only dream of going faster, higher and stronger.

My dreams are murky and my actions are limited. I'm no Spring chicken either.

When a person feels utterly alone and forgotten, there are only dreams and other dark things for company.

It's a good dream.  I will watch the real Olympics participants and see their dreams come true.

Foolish people who jump off a cliff for the wrong things have...other destinies.

Asinine Soul, signing off.

Overheard: Cheese is telling the truth

I heard my own voice saying some very painful, scary facts a few minutes ago.  Facts that will change my life (and another person's as well) if they are to be acted upon.

They are painful and scary but I think they are true. I don't want them to be true, but it has been months and I think there is no denying how real things are.

Yup, this entry is turning into an 80s song and it's disgustingly cheesy. Note to self: the closer one's life gets to the lines in a cheesy 80s song, the more pathetically grown up one has become.

It is black Saturday, and the seasons wax and wane and lives are forever changing, always always, always.

The pain of being alive---how did I grow up and be part of this? I promised myself I wouldn't, when I was only half-grown. Then whatever secrets I had that made me immune melted away verrrry, very slowly. So slowly that I didn't notice how I had *gulp* "grown up".

I need a reprieve so badly. That isn't the way though. One must grin and bear it. One must keep trying.

So I will play a song that pre-dates 80s cheesefests---I'll go hippie:

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

-Joni Mitchell

"Bilog ang Bola"

“After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?”

―Neil deGrasse Tyson

One thing my system swallows readily today. One truth I can embrace; one scientific fact that still makes me feel as big as the entire world around me. One tidbit about what I am that is indisputable and makes me both the most insignificant speck in the universe and the biggest of all the galaxies I can ever contemplate.

 Thank you, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

In case you haven't ever seen what he has to say (among other things like calming us down about all those end-of-the-world prophets and their seemingly alarming warnings based on things like the Mayans and their calendars), here is what he means by the universe inside us:

“The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth - the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. 

These stars- the high mass ones among them- went unstable in their later years- they collapsed and then exploded- scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy- guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. 

These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems- stars with orbiting planets. 

And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. 

So that when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. 

When I reflect on that fact, I look up- many people feel small, cause they're small and the universe is big. But I feel big because my atoms came from those stars.”

One can really take comfort in that on a night like this---in this particular bout of voices that don't respond, where reprieve can only be won after gut-wrenching spirals and spinning pain in the universe that is my brain.  These words shine through and bring me back because they are simple and unassuming. No ulterior motive. It's between the universe and your soul.

What's simple is true.

No trumpets, no "faith", no contribution, no alms, no nothing. In your head where there is only you and your pain, the simplest of all details can bring you back.

Brainiac-and-all-alone-in-the-universe-tonight, signing out.

Idioms and Idiots

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?


- Margaret Atwood

--except, dear Ms. Atwood, that the snow outside my window is blowing about sideways while a desperate pale light is trying to get through the thick clouds, and it is APRIL. The enchantment I think about is dark magic, and the author of it a character from the bowels of villainy.

I would enjoy this enchantment far more if it were sunny inside my own personal universe but it isn't, so I am appropriately demoralized.

I learned something about idioms last night:

"Son of a gun" - is a maritime idiom that originated in the British Navy. It is supposed to have been used for the babies belonging to sailors being born under the relative shelter of a ships' gun.

I always thought is was a euphemism for "son of a bitch" but now I find the naval origin more plausible.

And now on to idiots. I am one. An idiot who jumped. "Lundagin mo, beybe" - something I heard in philosophy class years ago at university.

Jump, it says. Live. GO for it.

Some of us fools are dashed on the rocks below, you know. :p Just for the record. Some of us cross continents chasing after stars and hearts and cheese and we fall on our faces. Just for the record.

Snowed-in little cat, signing out.

it takes a decade

 “People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think” - George Carlin

A lot of people around me say things that I always quietly but firmly disagree with.

1. "I have no regrets."

Nothing could be further from the truth in my life.

I simply do not understand how people can think that. Is it a clear conscience? Short memory? Both? Mega truth-twisting of epic proportions?  Over 10 years have passed since I turned 18 and the avenues I've gone down that led to shame and frustration and overall Homer-Simpson-D'oh moments are as numerous as the roots under a rhododendron plant (that means a LOT, kids)!

There have been so many decisions big and small that I wish I could go back to and do differently. The big mistakes..! Oh the big-ass mistakes that were made with the rashness of youth -- mistakes I cannot ever take back.

Regret is my middle name, and that's the plain truth.  I'd be lying if this weren't true. OK, so it's my story, my life, my imprint, but I am puzzled by how proudly people say that they have no regrets. Why do they preen like that when they say it? Why is there virtue in it? Is there virtue in it?

It might not be pride----it might be defiance. It's the same feverish gleam I have seen in fanatics. When I see that, I tend to back away and melt into the crowd. Fanatics are scary.

2. "I wish I could be in high school again."

Fuck, no. Uh-uh. I've been there. I feel nostalgia for the people I shared historical personal moments with, certainly, but...go back?

Go back to when my limbs grew at different rates?
--when my teeth were still slightly too big for my face?
--when I was cowed by age-ists who looked down on children?
--when I kept getting bitten by dogs including my own (this one slightly exaggerated)?

At the top of this list of horrors is the wild sense of panic at my identity and overall insecurity which I have thankfully struck down with my twenties.

So no sir, I do not want to go back to high school and its murky footing.

3. " Take me for who I am / what you see is what you get and I will not apologize yak yak yak..."

I call lines like this the Friendster profile precursor to Emo---Emo's Australopithecus, if you will.

Me, me, me. What I would do if I thought I...

Get the picture? We are all a bit guilty of this (I am a blogger after all, tee hee!), but some of us just do it too gratuitously. Others intersperse it with echoes of a bigger kind of reality, and those people I stalk like I stalk snails and dead celebrities.

This tends to come out of the mouth of cardboard people in their little, little unimaginative world of constant, extremely narrow self-introspection --- these people also tend to follow this through with the line found in Item Number 1.

Hypocrite (only somewhat!) of April 2, 2012, signing off. :p

The Fool's Day

It's past noontime and I just got out of bed. What's worse is that the sun came out again after going M.I.A yesterday, so I missed the entire morning of yellow sunlight. I am also missing money from my little orange purse. I feel like that slot-machine-crazed man in that episode of "Twilight Zone" who couldn't stop working the slot machine until it drove him to a grisly death outside his hotel room window, several floors down.

The root of this unfortunate puddle of gloom?

Poker.

All nighter. And I lost.

Nasty, sleazy, tempting poker, with the pot brimming over with everyone's £5 notes/coins, beckoning like a bit of flame to a moth. Didn't get home until 6 AM all depressed, cold, tired and drained. To add insult to injury, we missed the morning sun!

I hereby resolve to go off poker indefinitely (like my legal mumbo jumbo?).

"In a bet there is a fool and a thief," goes one of them smug proverbs that happen to pack a lot of truth into one-liners (bastards).

And on that note: this year's April Fool, signing out.

post sunny week

We spent an entire week digging a great big hole in the garden to make a pond.  After the subterranean power struggle that ensued, I find that I have much respect for roots and trees.

And the smell of earth..! Nostalgia is one word to describe it.  Another is a simple, dark kind of joy you can only get from sunlight, earthworms, soil, birds and trees all around you.

And slap me silly, but the tea at the end of it is something to look forward to.

Oh dear, am I assimilating..?

I have a few solid goals on this blog:

1. There will be no shitty smiley faces in my entries.
2. I will type the right way as much as possible.
3. there will be no swear words :)
4. The entries will have no amount of humoUr (I have been told that my humor is a tad too subtle sometimes).

Let's get started, then, Blogger. Take 2, coming up. April 2012.