"One of the barrels was used for a red wine, and the red-soaked charred wood smelled sweet and complicated, like my life."
"One of the barrels was used for a red wine, and the red-soaked charred wood smelled sweet and complicated, like my life."
The night before, I dreamed that on my first day working for About, I kept using the names of PW coworkers and getting completely mixed up. It was really embarrassing, a classic new job anxiety dream... except that everyone was totally sweet about it and reassured me it was fine, and it turned out most of the PW editors were freelancing for About anyway (ahahahaha) and so everyone knew the people I was talking about and they all came in and helped me feel more settled in and told me what a great place it was to work.
My brain is hilarious.
springheel_jack about the phrase "temporarily able-bodied":I get that some people, disabled and otherwise, like "temporarily able-bodied" as a way of reminding people that taken over time, disabled people are not really a minority. I get that reminding people of that can be useful. I get that some people will only change their behaviours if we can appeal to their enlightened self-interest.
It still makes me itch, though - it's verging on twee, it brings the emphasis back to bodily differences rather than the social model of disability, it ignores altogether any disabling that isn't about bodies, and sometimes I get a whiff of "look at how enlightened and empathetic I am" from abled people who use it. Realising that you might one day be on the receiving end of the things society does that are disabling, or even remembering that for a while you used to be on the receiving end, doesn't mean you automagically understand what it's like for me, now, every day. Which, most of the time, is actually Pretty Damn Good, thank you very much, but it's still a different flavour of pretty damn good from the flavours abled people get. Not better, not worse, but different. And the best thing you can do to enhance the goodness is not to downplay that difference or use a cutesy phrase to describe yourself, but to think about what you might be doing that contributes to disabling people and then ask yourself how you can stop doing it.
Oh, and fair warning, since I know how these discussions often go: if you feel moved to respond to this post by complaining that it is infringing your free speech, telling you what you can and cannot say, or any variant thereon, don't be surprised if I run out of patience rather quickly. If you need schooling on the different concepts of censorship, political preferences, aesthetics and good manners, I'm probably not the best person to do it (but I'll consider it if you ask very nicely, offer me a pint and wait for a day when I have surplus spoons.)
This morning has been less fun. I finally got around to filling in my candidature forms for being a council candidate. Hopefully I will be approved. This will mean that in May people might get to vote for me. It's a prospect I approach with some trepidation: the minutiae of my life are all on the internet for anyone to see, and I suspect that somewhere I have said unwise things that an opponent could try to make political capital from. Plus, you know, the whole bi/poly/open thing. I'm by no means ashamed of my lifestyle, but it might not necessarily make good headlines in the local rag... Still, we shall see how it goes.
Oh well, another eight hour shift to do today, but then day off tomorrow...
My March sponsor is Mark Reckons, who has tagged me in a meme which I will do later.

the tree is doing fantastically well -- last year it had 3 blossoms, this year it's covered. lee valley now has deep watering stakes, so that'll be easier to handle now than it was previously. since the bed around it is was largely annuals except for the lupine and mexican feather grass, i can start pondering what i want to plant next. i still like the idea of the goth theme.
man, the garden is so far ahead of time right now; it's kinda neat (though i fear a freak storm, so i am keeping the tenders inside as yet). i have fresh herbs! it's interesting to note which plants don't seem to care at all; those are the ones that don't go by temperature, but are photoperiodic, and need a certain daytime length -- daffodils, and carpathian bellflower for example.
I did try using it to keep track of things I've been up to, but I don't think anyone was really interested, and it was a lot of work for very little gain, so I gave up on that. I will continue to post about A-Z walks here, though they've been on hiatus for a while, mainly because I don't really want to walk from Harefield to Pinner and so I keep putting it off.
Once scheduled posts are implemented, I'll be posting about my attempts to learn to read Chinese menus.
For now, though, I'm mostly going to be using this to organise fun things to do in London, and hence am seeking Dreamwidth users who live in or within reach of London and are interested in any or all of: real ale, London's transport system, stumbling about in muddy fields, museums, finding exciting things in unexciting places, eating interesting food (vegan, Vietnamese, nose-to-tail, regional Chinese, raw, Thai, regional Indian, Japanese, vegan Japanese, modern European, modern Indian, vegetarian Indian), making things, taking photos, figuring out whether something's in Rotherhithe or Bermondsey or both, shopping in actual physical bookshops, and other such pursuits.
- gender,
- polls,
- sex,
- statistics
One low-ish-end (£300 new a couple of years ago) Trek hybrid, suitable for someone around 5'7" to 5'11". FREE to a good home.
One Trek road-bike (red 1.5!), suitable for someone 6' or so. (I'm 5'10" and it's too big for me; someone a bit bigger than 6' could probably get away with it as well.) Cassette & crankset have been upgraded; front shifter is a little sticky but functional. This *may* have another taker, but please do say if you're interested. Cost around £300.
Both were when last looked at in working condition; I'm happy to undertake to check brakes/steering & pump the tyres up before they're collected (i.e. so that they'll be safe to ride away) but both (especially the hybrid) may need a little TLC to make them properly pleasant to ride. (I might be up for negotiating a fuller service in exchange for beer tokens :) ).
Collect from our place (Bermondsey) ASAP.
Of little interest to political historians and so largely not a matter of public record, the vows Gordon Brown made to Sarah Macaulay in 2000 at a surprise (and secret) ceremony in North Queensbury are published here for the first time
Sarah,
I make to you now a firm commitment and, in a real sense, a binding one. I commit to ensuring love remains at least at the 2000 level for the next 2 years, with an expectation that love will grow by 3.14% by the year 2003 – an end to boom and bust of love of your ex-boyfriend’s years.
In addition, I will ensure that where possible I will agree to honour you, in so far as it is prudent to do so.
I am also pleased to announce that before our first anniversary, I will, in line with estimates both have and hold you, irrespective of your medical needs or financial situation.
This is the firm, near rock solid commitment I make to you. Contrast that with the so-called promises of your ex-boyfriend: He promised you flowers every day without being able to say how he would pay for it! He promised to make love to you twice a day, every day – but we both know that on many days he broke that promise, proving that your ex-boyfriend cannot be trusted.
All your ex-boyfriend could do was sing songs about you, make passionate love and shower you with materialist, capitalist bribes. Is this a boyfriend of substance, or is this a boyfriend who only knows how to tempt you with shim-sham and tricks?
My target of sharing our bed once a month is both practical and, in a very real sense, better suited to a fairer, stronger, tougher marriage. The other targets I have set, which form part of this agreement between us, include at least 2 minutes of conversation per week and a prudent and responsible amount of housekeeping money.
This is my very real commitment to you.
Certain unreliable sources suggest that, towards the end of the vows, Sarah was heard to be snoring from under the veil until Charlie Wheelan, disguised as a bridesmaid, elbowed her sharply in the ribs when it was her turn to speak.
Have a very bunny-ful day (ideal with like eating chocolate)
I may try replacing all the oil with walnut oil next time, although it may just make the dough impossible to handle and/or make the walnut taste too strong. Still, I think I'd like to try the experiment just to further my increasing understanding of how sourdough recipes work. I may also try a version with wholemeal rather than rye, for the benefit of those household members who find rye a bit strong. I think a white version would taste entirely too much like cake (not that I have anything against cake, but I mostly want my bread to work with savoury spreads.)
Given that my summer break kept getting eaten by work, and Thanksgiving and winter breaks were mostly about my feeling really lousy, and not doing much besides watching back bits of TV shows and sleeping a lot, I am delighted to have a break in which I might actually have some brain and time to do something more enjoyable.
Tonight is for lounging.
Tomorrow is for our Springtide ritual (which means I must bake bread). There may be spinning group in the morning, depending on when I wake up and how starting the bread goes.
Sunday is for pottering. Also laundry, if I don't do it Saturday.
And then I drive up to Duluth for two lovely nights at a widely acclaimed bed and breakfast, a bunch of pottering around a city I don't know yet, and probably a fair drive up the coast of Lake Superior (last one is weather dependent, but it looks like the few things that would discourage me are unlikely. Basically, anything that makes driving actively unpleasant, like a blizzard or major storms.) I have an idea of which places I'd like to eat at, and other that, a vague idea of other things I want to do. There'll be photos and journal foo about it after.
And then there's more lounging and stuff, along with less thrilling things like doctor appts.
Yay for spring break!
Nabbed a survey from
( For once, I stole none of the previous person's answers, mostly because piranha's answers were more interesting than mine are likely to be )
Ohmigosh, I'm not usually a clock-watcher, but three and a half hours until Spring Break, yay!
There are some quite engaging characters along the way, and the plot held my attention well till quite near the end, but eventually I lost track of all the different Margarets and their situations. I also got annoyed by more than a whiff of heterosexism and by the one-dimensional view of the alien races in the book. Humans are varied - some good, some evil and everything inbetween - but aliens are either all good or all evil, as far as I can make out. There's a reason for this within the plot, which becomes clear right at the end, but that wasn't enough to lessen my annoyance. I also found the eventual resolution of the threat of destruction rather too simplistic to be plausible. These last two problems are not unrelated.
( clicky )
ooooo-kay. i knew that drakes (male ducks) are not gentle lovers, but that instead they generally rape their sex partners, which don't necessarily have to be female, ducks, or heck, even alive. what i didn't know is that apparently evolution has served female ducks with the ability to sidetrack the drake's ejaculation into a blind alley of the duck cloaca if she doesn't like him. and in turn drakes have developed explosive corkscrew penises.
read more about it (with high-speed duck penis video!)
thanks to
