Middlesex

" persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if i keep writing I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar."

death of a dream

so, i am not ashamed to admit i love shitty blockbuster heist flicks. anytime, anywhere, i'll watch slick bastards damn the man and possibly wield naughty weapons.

so in a day of nostalgia and joy, i slipped in Mission Impossible for the first time in years. A mainstay of my video collection, and an early member of my adoration of all things espionagy.

fair enough the make-up is dated, the technology looks archaic, and the soundtrack gimicky. these are the small things one must forgive - like with Sneakers or Charade.

but i cannot get over what the last year or two has done to tom cruise.

i used to see that wild enthusiastic look in his eye and think "gosh, it's so crazy it just might work! you clever bastard." (and want to name my sons ethan hunt) and now i see it and think "that man possibly ate placenta and believes aliens came to earth. you psycho fucker." (and want to never see that manic look again).

it is truly scarring.

ready for something

i didn't know you could be overwhelmed by nothing.

nothing has changed here. same job, same glorious weather, same stupid boy making stupid mess i don't want or need. same missing my sister, same joy at having had visitors, same flatmate drama (well not exactly the same. she's taken it to a whole new level of 7th grade passive aggressive. but its the same story with the same ending.) same humous picnic lunches and freckles on my nose.

and somehow, every flicker of movement, every glance, every everything seems heavy and burdensome. and my brain, already overactive to the point of dangerous (have you seen the brainscan?), is in overdrive. i am pretty sure cartoon steam is about to come out my ears. my spidey-senses are tingling at the slightest twinge of anything and it's highly distracting.

perhaps what i need is a little distraction. today's line-up: superman-stormbreaker double bill, and a manuscript copy of the new artemis fowl. nothing feels better than a little comicbook action and teen fantasy to lighten the load.

i ain't no fucking dolly parton

i have officially become a working girl. no, i don't mean a lady of the night, though at this rate it has it's appeal. more the melanie griffith type - except less hairspray and harrison ford.

i come home from work, put on sweats, crack a beer and look forward to nothing more than emotional masturbation and the possibility of a bath if i can be bothered, which is unlikely. it's the opening of a pathetic girl movie in technicolor glory. cue carol king or kate bush or some shit.

to be fair though, i drink hoegaarden and have sexy hair today, which is better than girls like this usually do.

let us hope that is a sign this a temporary phase. that someday soon i will look back and laugh at my 9 to 5 heel wearing grin and bear it life. that someday i will do better than this. be better than this.

night of the living hedgehog (an ode to gameshows gone by)

so once upon a time, i lived with lauren. when she didn't hate me for filling the kitchen with ants or forgetting to pay the phone bill, it was really really great. especially when she could get drunk off 2 sminrnoff ices or indulge ourselves in flavo-ice and temptation island 2. or that time she needed help to band-aid over her nipples because her dress was too low for a bra and lord knows she wasn't going to nip out.

but all good things have a price, and hers was the random medical scares. (though, this is not the time for the insulin scare story where we went to the hosiptal in the middle of the night and i watched "aliens in the wild wild west" on disney only to run into a friend who got a broken beer bottle in the face while watching a child throw up in the waiting room. that's a different time.)

but once, when the pump was still newish lauren had to stay awake until her bloodsugar chilled the fuck out.

i don't remember what happened or why. what time of year it was. or what inspired us to watch TBS, back when it had just nixed it's "superstation" logo. But curled in our basement hell hole cubby; lauren, bridget and i wiled away the hours with old school Family Feud.

oh yes, it was the night of crazy grandma.

Now, I am not a huge family feud fan. But years of gameshow network with the girl had taught me to find Richard funny rather than pathetic and the retro-ness (sidenote: can you have a word that is only prefix-suffix without any actual content? is this postmodern lingusitics now?) of it all had it's charm. I still of course refused to watch the ones with Al from Home Improvement (except that time there was the Stars on Ice face-off. that was amazing.) and if anyone thinks Louie Anderson should still be alive, stop reading now.

Anyway, it was 3am. And it was old school family feud with the "ooh cheek or mouth Richard?" suspense and this tiny mad woman became my hero.

I wish I remembered more of it (It is times like these I miss diary-x for having lost all such carefully recorded memories I wrote down expressly so I wouldn't have to store them in my brain any longer), but her best two were:

question: Name a favourite pet
answer: hedgehog

question: Name someone you would leave your keys with
answer: mailbox
Richard notes this is not a person and gives her a rare, possibly unprecedented, do-over while trying not to fall over in gin-soaked, coconut-oiled laughter
new answer: mailman
she may have hastened to change this to "stranger" or I may have added that in later for effect. I have a tendency to do that.

Anyway, I wish I remembered more of that night. For all the drama of lauren's brushes with sugar-less death, it did make for some good times.

And I thought of it today because I found this. A pale comparison, but a fresh reminder of those classic gameshow days gone by.

perhaps jean grey wasn't a total cunt

didn't you ever wonder if the phoenix was really jean grey just snapped? she was sick of the fake and the wimpy and the dictation and the lame sweetness and just fucking flipped and went on a rampage? that the whole suspended animation thing was just a flimsy cover up?

because scott wouldnt put out and the professor wouldnt let her use cerebro and the team shunted her to recon and research. that she fainted at every breath and constantly had to fend off logan. that 20 years in that school and she was still just an assistant. that she had to wear nude colored cargo pants. i'd have done more than a poorly executed apocalypse, that's for sure.

today it feels like that.

like the well of frustration is running over and this tub of me has no overflow drain.

i feel in a rage. or rather, like in the very near future i soon will be.

granted, part of this will be it is the morning of my last day of vacation and i have done absolutely nothing. and part of me is still a whinging toddler who hates the end of things.

but it is seriously more than that.

i bit liam saturday. hard. he was mad at me for something i hadnt done and stormed out of a party. i left soon after in a drunken rage of disappointment and libido. i ran into him on the street, my mind too fuzzy to know if it was on purpose. i didnt have words. i had what equates to pg angry sex. standing on a street corner. hot and fast and rushing and a little bit violent. i felt caged. and it felt great. and if fucking scares me.

sometimes he is so terribly frustrating. harsh. cruel. cold. and most the time i am yoga-goddess weatherer of storms. but every once in a while he gets in and tears me apart and i flood like the hoover dam. and it makes me hate both of us. and i dont know which frightens me more; that we got ourselves here or that when the chips are down and i've lost control, i hurt him.

it also doesnt help i was in a mood that whole night because it was phils goodbye party.

and for all our mess and his silliness and everything we have ever screwed up between us, he was so easy. to be with and not be judged or used or feel compelled to talk. he was a guy in the very best of ways and i will miss him.

plus, he gave me his return of the jedi pillowcase. i have no words for how much this means to me. he has had it since 1983. it was always the one i used. on drunk nights when i crashed on the sofa. on the infamous walk of shame morning i was too hungover to go home and lay around his all day, grateful he didnt ask. as a seat cushion for arrested development marathons. my arm rest for blue jays games. my pillow that one night we "napped". and he gave it to me. he was always a sentimental guy. and now it sits on my chair, and i dont have the heart to use it.

and of course there should have been a party to see him off. he always complained he had no friends but me and jack. and truth be told it was sarah's friends and my co-workers and random neighbors. girls he'd slept with and pub aquaintences. the party went on for hours after i waved goodbye to the taxi. but a little piece of me wanted to say goodbye to my boys - for jack took him to the airport - on my own. not with strangers passing a fag an armsbreath away and my own drama waiting for me upstairs. it felt rushed. cramped. amputated. and he was worth more than that. i hope he knows it.

sorry, i am just full on whinging now.

last night having to talk on the phone right before bed was horrible. which dont get me wrong, it can be lovely. but it can be so full of heavy silences and pregnant phrasology i rarely have the energy for much less sleepy hung over and lonely. plus, it is infinately worse when it is all just flippant chatter and errands i dont want to address from bed on a sunday. sometimes it only reminds me how far away you are. i know i am a freak about the phone, but it put me in a mood straight away today.

anyway, i should stop. cut myself off before i say something really horrid i dont even mean. just to feel it in my mouth. let me watch the dominoes fall. pick at the scabs and watch them bleed.

i am going to have breakfast and pay my council tax and play my violin and then i think take a bath. and hopefully this tar, this thick creeping bile, will be seeped away. gently excreeted from my every pore until my insides are clear again. i am clear again. i am clean.

sara the obscure fanatacist

it has recently come to my attention my love of fiction in all it's manifestations, is possibly nothing more than egomania.

every book, every film, television or website is about me.

is a painting of my life as it is, was, or could have been. how i would be or may become given the right inscentive and opportunity.

in hopeful, ironic, or desolate ways, i consume in an ongoing search for someone who gets it.

and when one aspect of my life seems bent on overwhelming my every sense, it is the only thing i see no matter where i look. everywhere voices are echoing my current tempestuous heart.

am i jude? am i sue? arabella? her bitch ass husband i cant even be bothered to remember the name of? is it temptation, fate, or lust? does it matter? what is true?

a 200 year old book about fucking wessex farmpeople and here i am feeling pinned. my selfishness knows no bounds.

whatever way the wind blows in my current headcase, sue is just now on par with amy march.

vie melodien

in the dappled sunlight of my gold coifed room (perhaps we have finally out run the porn dungeon title), i was moved to music this afternoon, and picked up my violin.

an instrument (and object) with which i have had one of the most tumultuous relationships of my entire life, leading to our five year estrangement. a separation i felt compelled to reconcile these last few weeks.

as i opened the ridiculous case, still tattered from tiny locker jams, the complete familiarity and yet entire foreignness of it was overwhelming. it was all there - the massive sponge stain, the fancy import rosin that'd been a christmas gift, the spare Dominant strings in their hideously retro packaging, the suzuki books covered with garish stickers.

i won't pretend i was ever a prodigy. by the beginning of high school i'd given up practicing all together and within two years was relegated to the back of the orchestra with the stoners and dropouts (where a whole different piece of my education began). but even in the later years, in fleeting moments, it was perfect.

the right tune, the right note even, and i could just soar. it was a voice opening in me. an unanswered truth.

sometimes, just for a minute, when playing something breathtaking, i felt whole.

and perhaps it was the fleetness of these moments that pushed me away. my lessons were chunks of prescribed classics chosen for their modal shifts. our orchestral pieces were heavy on cello melody because everyone knew they were the only halfway decent section, and mostly 40 minutes too long for anyone with ears.

and i was uninspired. the one thing it promised seemed to be forever beyond my ability and not even a concern for my teachers.

so i left it. a nostalgic relic, a closed possibility. a dream.

and as i lifted it to my shoulder today, i thought perhaps i should have left it there. to rot in my parents closet.

i am absolutely rubbish. clunky. out of tune. slow. airy. childish.

the hickey on my neck of which i was so secretly proud is long gone, the grooves in my bowfingers filled back in. we no longer fit, my violin and i.

we are like reunited lovers, trying to find where we were. how we were. limbs akimbo. bodies out of joint.

and of course we can't. i am not the same size or shape or player i once was. we'll have to begin again, finding our voice, seeking the sweet spots. retuning ourselves.

it hurts a little the songs i scrape through now are dated in mr. dewey's sharp masculine scrawl '02/25/94'. that i can hear the strength behind notes that come out as whispers makes me wince.

but oh, the promise of that power. that expression is what brought me back. that it's still there, this voiceless singing and challenging flight. the possibility of momentary transcendence.

if i am patient, we can, once again make music.

Stephen Slays

i know i am less than politically active in my daily life.

i live in a bubble of my own making consisting mostly of castle ruins, fictional romances, and very hot shoes quite content to ignore the "hell in a handbasket" scenario towards which i would be otherwise inclined.

this completely voluntary ignorance, coupled with my living abroad (i keep wondering if i'll ever get to refer to myself as an ex-pat) lead my information to be sorely outdated if not entirely made up.

that said, today sonja pointed me to Stephen Colbert's White House Corrospondents Address. holy mother fucking hell. That man has balls the size of Montana and as Chris says, we all know one man who is going to get audited this year. Damn he is clever. Though I must say, it's a shame the biggest laughs came at the safest jokes. Where is Gilbert Godfried when you need him?

I've always had a thing for Stephens (well, the few of that moniker that are straight...). But give me a well informed wise ass Stephen (especially with bowtie) and i am equal parts awe, lust, and fear - a stunning combonation.

one step closer to kevin bacon

everyone who knows anyone in the film business is a name dropper. you can't help it.

i don't miss it much and as a bonus, the further away you are, the more easily awed your friends/co-workers/target (not that i would ever brag while chatting someone up. of course not.)

but all that aside, i'm just a little happy that a movie i once helped out with is on imdb.

granted, i griped the whole time, i did it only for my sister, and i think i am visible in all of one scene. but all the same, it exists out there.

not that i have ever watched my dvd copy (it probably totally blows), but still.

and by the way, the DoP fucking kicked ass. He is probably going to be actually famous. Then the real name dropping and back stage stories can begin.



ps - I can't believe I anticipate the success of others and gauge its usefulness. it's sick.

i heart tv

we all know i love steve carell.

i loved him before he ate big red candles and threw tridents.

i loved him in head to head debates with steve colbert in his bowtie era and interviewing appalachia's finest in those early post-Kilborn days.

and i will continue to do so - even if he does insist on making that piece of trash, that atrocity evan almighty.

but until today, i couldn't forgive him for the office.

granted, i am in the land where ricky gervais is king and i don't own a television, so my hatred of the american remake could be preemtive. though i must admit, it does look from here like nothing more than coupling 2 - a sacriledge to the epitome of british humour and pain (and the inexplicable dorky sexy of martin freeman).

today i am willing to reconsider. still off from work, i happened upon the office PSAs. and begrudgingly, some are actually funny (well, at least funnier than the Family Guy PSAs in that one where Lois loses the car in a Native American casino, which is already a rip off of the Simpsons where Marge gets addicted to slot machines, except with more spirit guides.)

so maybe i was a little hasty in my condemnation. maybe i was being judgemental in rallying against all hollywood sitcoms (and was becoming more british than i thought in my pseudo-patriotic televisual stance). and maybe i was the tiniest bit wrong.

just maybe. i make no promises.

but the least i can do is give it chance.

i'll try for you steve. for the sake of our love.

observations of no importance and little relevance:

- i knew i loved Jon Stewart, but when USA Today called him Mr. Snarky it sealed the deal
- the only genuine quirkiness is when the practicioner doesn't believe it's abnormal.
- pomegranate juice is ambrosia
- i am determined to summer in the highlands

freedom, women, and lost arts

there is something entirely liberating about basking in the dying sunlight in just a tuxedo shirt.

i think this is related to that ever sexy woman-in-the-boyfriends-oxford inclination (and therefore embedded in my genetic code).

probably along with the desire to have thinner arms and coo at little girls in wellingtons.





in other news, check out the big finale: juggling comedians - what is the world coming to? and yet i kind of love it.

the resurrection of reality tv

oh. my. god.

reality television, i may yet forgive you for all you have done. if sci-fi can make good on the potential herewith, i will forgive big brother 6, temptation island 2, gay or straight and even cheaters.(i conceed to the apprentice, america's next top model and room raiders there is still a home for trash tv in my life, but you take it one too far once too often.)

but oh the glorious dreams i will have tonight imagining spandex geeks and middle-aged mutants tonight.

wait. that's not what i meant. but come on it's stan fucking lee.

jesus, mary, and the holy ghost of hollywood

sometimes pajiba really is all i hope. and i quote:

Item #4: Shohreh Aghdashloo (her actual name) has been cast as Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary, in New Line’s forthcoming Nativity, to be directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who also helmed the solid Thirteen and the regrettable Lords of Dogtown. Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) has already been cast as Mary in what is sure to be the latest he-said/thee-said brawl between the godless baby-killing homo infidels of Hollywood and the righteous warriors of Zion headquartered in Lynchburg and Colorado Springs. Really, though, I don’t see what the fuss is about. It’s not as if New Line’s producers are shamelessly capitalizing on the popularity surge of America’s civil religion so that they can exploit icons of faith in order to turn a quick buck. And it’s also not like religious leaders are going to stand up and decry the film sight unseen or encourage their flocks to strike out against the film industry, with violence if necessary. Seriously, I think we’re all rushing to judgment here. — DC

that said, i'd see it.

the cosmic horn

so i have a new favourite book. seriously. i know teen girl chick lit should be below mention, but jesus these are probably the funniest books i have ever read.

it's all bridget jones diary-esque, but a million times better and funnier because it's all the madness and cruel humour of first time confusion on all the subjects dear to romcom novels. seriously. the wisdomosity of the snog-o-meter has found its way into my daily texts.

i bring this up, as i will probably drop into Georgia dialect and you, my dear readers, won't have a clue what merde i am looning on about. (see? exactamente.)

so, the important things to know:

the specific horn - when your eyes and hormones are for your one and only Sex God
the general horn - when you have various and multiple horn inducers
the cosmic horn - when anything that moves seems like fair game.

also, red-bottomosity. as in female baboons get all ruddy in the nuddy-pants department when they are ready and willing and although more metaphorical, still a dilema of highest proportions in my mad mad world.

so my point is i totally have the cosmic horn and my redbottomosity has reached mass proportions.



i went home with a guy i used to work with last night.

a guy i have always found a bit of a laugh, who's twinkly blue eyes and irish lilt i decided ought to be mine for the night. i expressed this by grabbing his lapels and pulling him to me for a massive snog at the taxi rank.

in the morning we had a bit of a chat, a cup of tea, and absolutely no funny business. i like it clear cut, though in my hang over i did wish for a bit more of a cuddle.

i am beginning to worry about my levels of redbottomosity though. i was so full of the horn i gave little care to the fact that
1 - i was on my period
2 - i hadn't shaved in a week
3 - i had already had sex with a stranger this week.
4 - we ended up out in the end just he, me, and a co-worker i had already made out with previously

as to #1, i neglected to mention it until it was quite crucial. quite rude of me actually. i sort of feel bad. so no, we didn't have sex. i guess i have to amend the snog-o-meter. I'll say it was a 9.75 - lower body fondling in bed and somebody came.

#2 is only slightly embarassing, but is eclipsed by the fact i am sure i woke the whole bloody flat without thinking.

#3 speaks for itself and

#4 i made no effort to hide my intentions for the sake of propriety. i am the office whore.

my cup of hormones overfloweth. i am steeped in horn. it's kind of fantastic.

i am le tired.

no, not just regular type. french apocalyptic type.






i love that in my world (namely that which my brother has forced upon me until i consider it normal) internet-cartoon references are a legitimate mode of dialog.

things about this morning:

1. i think i am sick. i was interrupted from a johnny-depp-seducing-me-through-dance dream to blow my nose. utter humiliation and disappointment. the last thing i want on the sexgod while 6-ing (oh the Georgia snog-o-meter is brilliant) is snot. this fear must have been pretty hard core, as upon returning to sleep he was a terrible kisser. my subconcious has vile retribution.

2. last night i stayed in to finish a post-bath book, curled up in front of the fire with candles lit. it was of course an oscar-winner of young adult fiction. i was curled on the floor weeping most of the night and went through a whole box of kleenex. my eyes are still puffy.

3. in an effort to feel better both physically and mentally, i am wearing a slip with an embroidered hem and ribbon belt with ballet slippers about the house. it's helping more than you would think

never say i didn't warn you

the fail safe romantic comedy i watch every few months in order to rectify the wrongs of the day, remember life is good, and restore my faith in humanity is secretary.

sometimes i am so weird, i get scared.

i just realized i am watching a Kieslowski art house french film and eating mediterranean croutons like it's the done thing on a sunday evening.

jesus.