raspberry needs (stolen from facebook)

Type in "[your name] needs" in the Google search:
1) Raspberry needs an abundant supply of moisture at all times. (i got it, ok... i'll drink some water!)
2) Raspberry needs full sun.
3) Raspberry needs a more dignified way.

Type in "[your name] looks" in the Google search:
1) Raspberry looks includes shades for eyes, cheeks and lips.
2) Raspberry looks so beautiful. (heh. blushes)
3) Raspberry looks good on her! (dirty!)

Type in "[your name] is" in the Google search:
1) Raspberry is crumbly fruit.
2) Raspberry is an erect shrub that stands over two feet tall.
3) Raspberry is delicious on a hot summer morning.

Type in "[your name] likes" in the Google search:
1) Raspberry likes to drown herself when the vacuum is running.
2) Raspberry likes last year.
3) Raspberry likes coffee ice cream, and professes a passion for sushi.

Type in "[your name] wants" in the Google search:
1) Raspberry wants a world with no manners. (hardly)
2) Raspberry wants you to try it out. (no pressure, though)
3) Raspberry wants lots of room to go mad in the garden. (mad, i say, mad!)

Type in "[your name] says" in the Google search:
1) Raspberry says that Greenspan does appear to be acting more as apologist
2) Raspberry says Florida's "fascinating school voucher experiment" is intriguing in many ways
3) Raspberry says mister Boggis wouldn like that, he dont like people painting his turkeys.

random acts of fabulous

the only evidence that proves it

i've been having some crazy vivid dreams lately. last night i dreamed that i was in my old apartment in peegee, drinking watery orange juice straight from the jug (again with the massive quantities of liquids consumed in dreamland) and the kiddo came out from his room, wondering if there was anything for him to take for lunch... i pointed him at some leftover pizza in the fridge and settled back to read r/r's blog.

he was writing about a trip he'd made to oceanside, washington (a place that doesn't exist, as far as i know) on a quest for manitoba social clubs and former haunts of kurt cobain.

oceanside is a sleepy little town one might even say lackadaisical or dead inside but we met a charming japanese couple at an exxon on the outskirts. they filled our tank and fed us complimentary sushi: little bite sized salmons and tunas that they fished out of the aquarium on the counter beside the slurpee machine, decapitated and gently laid on a pillow of rice. they didn't know anything about kurt cobain but they told us that isaac asimov was giving lectures at the planetarium about the existential meaning of the space between the stars. admission was only five dollars.

all the while i read i was drinking oj from the jug and it was spilling down my shirt, and the kiddo was telling me about cooking in the restaurant he works at, and his girlfriend, and asking about what we were having for dinner the next night. i woke up this morning and had to look around to see if any of it was true - did the wineglass really fall apart in my hand was there really a 3/4 empty jug of orange juice on the table did ryan ray really get into a fistfight at social club named after regina but dedicated to expatriate manitobans. the wineglass and the juice aren't there, but there are some questions to which i don't have the answers.

i can't think of any song lyrics relating to laundry

it may just be that an afternoon at the fluff n fold has sucked the creativity out of me, or it may be that no one has seen fit thus far in human history to script an ode to a freshly laundered sheet.

pity.

anyhoo. big day - laundry, read a laurell k hamilton novel, and am working my way through allende's aphrodite. (got a library card last night - look at me go!)

i was kinda grumpy about the rain, yesterday, and how it's sort of chilly out, until i spoke with my mom this (snowing in vancity) and some friends from back in pee-gee (day 2 of sub negative thirty degree weather). all of a sudden 15 and sunny is kind of a-ok.

and yes i'm still speaking celsius. i don't figure it's worth learning fahrenheit until i'm legally a citizen. can you imagine how disappointed i'd be if i went to the trouble of learning a whole 'nother weather system, only to be kicked out of the country?

the horror.

serendipity (the word not the movie)

though any romantic comedy featuring john cusack can't be all bad, now can it? it's probably best if you don't answer that question, and take this opportunity to reflect upon the hotness that is martin blank.

onward.


the word itself is today's reason to drink, per my google homepage. wikipedia says that it was coined by horace walpole on this day in 1754 (he stole the word from a persian fairy tale) and means making a happy or fortuitous discovery while looking for something else (you know, kind of how i found the meaning of the word serendipity while looking for a reason to get loaded at 9.30 in the am).

it's not like i *need* a reason to drink, i just like to have something to say when people ask my why i'm on my fourth tequila sunrise by the time 11.30 rolls around.

anyhoo - weekend. mostly non-eventful in a relaxing did lots of walking kind of way... discovered a great new breakfast type cafe within walking distance where you can have oatmeal with soymilk and strawberries for $3 or some other reasonable sum.

oh - note to self. raspberry you need to make a conscious effort to drink more during the day. water, that is, not alcohol - you are doing just fine on that account. when you start having dreams that are centred around drinking big delicious icy cool glasses of lemonade and water then you are probably a bit on the dehydrated side.

just sayin.

where the hell I'm going at 1000 feet per second

in an effort to combat my cabin fever we went out and played tourist today... went walking through the bottom of a canyon in the sunshine this morning then sat outside at a cafe and had breakfast, then went up to the old presidio and walked all over that damn place this afternoon. i wish i'd had my camera in the canyon but forgot to bring it - there's this little log cabin halfway down that looks like it's been there for over 100 years (and it probably has) - you know for sure that it was built before all the ginormous homes were balanced precariously along the top of the escarpment, and will probably be sitting there all snug as a bug long after earthquakes have sent them rumbling tumbling down.

i also ate an in-and-out burger - my first ever. it's apparently a california must so i braved the allergies and gave it a shot.

yum.

the fries aren't the best, but you can watch them hack up giant potatoes to make them, so that's something.

metal health will drive you mad

so after spewing the contents of my brain all over the innerweb in an pseudo-apocryphal mental orgasm this morning, i bawled my eyes out for about 20 minutes while wandering around the apartment (as an aside, have you ever been mid emotional explosion and realized you needed to pee? there's something especially undignified about sitting on the pot crying, wiping your nose and your nethers simultaneously)(anyhoo) and then crawled into bed and went to sleep for about 2 hours. the only word from the outside world was that periodically my cat would poke his nose under the blankets to make sure i was still breathing, before continuing on his feline way.

i did bake the scarlet letter cuppy cake yesterday, by the way, but none of the photos looked anything other than ass-esque. ergo, you will have to use your imagination.

bang your head

you know there are very definitely days where i wake up and think to myself this isn't going to work. i wake up make sure i wake up so i can say goodbye and instead get an itemized list of the shit you need me to do today take out the recycling take pictures of the stuff to sell on craigslist yeah i know i'm sitting here beside you but please jump up from what you're doing and go measure the table oh and i'm going to conduct this phone call and turn down the program you are watching 'cause well it's work so it's clearly more important than you.

yeah i know i sound like i'm whinging and i am but when i say i've spent the last two mornings reading through all of the bullshit on fucking visa applications and i can't see the difference between these two options telling me to go back and look more isn't going to make me happy. i'm not stupid i've searched and searched and really can't see how one is significantly better or worse than the other.

pulling the bullshit guilt trip about how you're doing the extra work and putting in the extra hours so we can afford *my* visa 'cause it's *me* who needs it after all is just going to make me less happy.


makes me want to say fuck it i'll borrow the money off my folks and go home where i *can* work and fuck it if it's just me who wants this needs this.

fuck it 'cause i don't need the bullshit and for all your big talk about how i'm contributing and the stuff i'm doing is important like finding the apartment finding all the furniture doing all the cooking all the cleaning except the dishes and the garbage (oh wait i am doing the garbage and the recycling) fuck it 'cause when you say bullshit stuff like that it shows me what you really think.

hit play

the wind is lashing lustily and the trees are thrashing thrustily

unintentional porn courtesy of the freakydeaky mind of poohbear. he's all hopped up on honey and rainwater, bouncing through the clouds attached to a sky-blue balloon. watch out for the palm trees, pooh, they're bound to knock a bear down to size.

ya ya ya

the sister's on her way to jamaica, currently, and (though my friends back home insist i have no right) i'm more than slightly jealous. the two moves in two months and fucking 1.5months rent damage deposit it cost to get this place, coupled with furniture acquisition and a trip home for christmas (of all the fucking expensive holidays we had to move right in time for...) have left us just to the right hand side of flat broke.

and therein lies the reason why i haven't taken a class joined a gym started yoga begun a hobby. the demon greenback and all its entrails.

whatevs, though... today we start the process of getting me legal. so i look forward, not backwards and stay positive even though i'm feeling a bit trapped by circumstance. today i shall bake cuppity cakes and because it's d-day (the day the architect's divorce is final!) i shall inscribe them with a red letter A. i'm so witty. oh and then i can get a job, maybe something fun in a used bookstore, or a cafe making lattes and bantering with the suits - something with no stress and no take home anxiety or drama - something that i can keep doing on a not full time basis and maybe just maybe go back to uni. i'd like that. but remind me, then, of how i was bored staying home doing nothing all day being a good little urban housewife.

god hates

excuse for my ignorance, but isn't one of the basic principals of new testament christianity love thy neighbour?

those fucking bigoted misanthropic assholes over at the westboro baptist church are going to picket heath ledger's funeral b/c he played a gay man in that movie that a few people saw.

i noticed that they have posted a phone number. i wonder if it would bother them much if they got a few million phone calls from a)heath ledger fans and b)actual decent members of the human race.

fucking assholes.

why buy a mattress anywhere... else

i've been listening to the jeff o'neil show via the innerweb and they were just discussing the fact that phenomenon of minor injuries caused by playing with your wii (heh) has become prevalent enough to be considered a syndrome - the wii syndrome. now, to me that sounds like something you get when you are a bit insecure about the size of your manhood.... causes you to head out and buy a really big truck or perhaps a flashy american sportscar in bright yellow... or maybe how eddie vedder feels when he's got his pellet gun..

but i digress.

not that i was talking about anything to begin with.

but still.

i'm feeling some pressure to perform, here. i went back and was reading a bunch of my archives yesterday, and was rudely reminded of the fact that i *used* to be a better writer... like i used to actually have interesting things to say.. like i used to be cool.

fuck i think i'm off my own bandwagon (i've been poaching liberally from the jeff o'neill show today. and i've spelled it differently both times in this post.. i'm such a badass!)

you know, there's a long established link between creativity and mental health - that is, it takes a certain amount of nuts to produce good art. i wonder if the meds aren't just hiding my crazy, they are also making it so i can't write well anymore. i mean, i'm still fucked up - if i were to go cold turkey i'm sure i'd self destruct in a glorious blaze of drinking and drugs and sex that would put frickin britney lohan to shame - but maybe i won't be so f'in normal.

ah i dunno - it's probably not worth it. certain aspects of normality have their attractions (boyfriend, apartment, not being on a rollercoaster of frickin' emotion and drama all the time). might be an interesting experiment, if i weren't thousands of miles away from free healthcare, but not so much here.

i think my life is passing me by

so it's 9.30 and i'm in bed eating cereal, perusing anthony b's blog and wondering wtf to do with myself today. at least the sun's out - yesterday it was rainy and conducive only to cranking up the heat, putting on fuzzy sweatpants and baking cookies.

(as an aside - i invented a cookie recipe yesterday and it turned out really well. let me know if you are interested and i'll email it to you.)

mind you i kind of feel worse about doing nothing when it's sunny - like i'm wasting it, or something. but really, there's not much *to* do. we did a huge grocery shop this weekend, so while i should get some buns to make turkey burgers for dinner, there's not much required there. it's not warm enough for the beach, or else i could take the bus that way. i guess i could go to the library, but our furniture expenditures of the weekend have sort of limited our disposable cash, which means no new-to-me book purchases till the end of the month.

le sigh.

i guess i could clean.

someone amuse me, please. i feel like that green day song.

bored

not that i'm bored or anything but i just dyed my hair and gave myself a haircut. looks fine from the front, but i'll have to wait for the architect to get home to learn whether or not i've butchered the back of my head.

got a mouthful of love

have we talked about trader joe's yet? and how much i love that sweet sweet establishment? and how i'm not sure how i lived from day to day without it previously? 'cause it's true - i don't know how i did it. i'd say that on any given day i consume at least one trader joe's product (already finished today's: maple frosted shredded wheats mmm) and $2 wine?! get out of town! it's cheaper than orange juice!

other than that, not much is going on. we bought a bed this weekend, so no more sleeping on the floor, but haven't 'christened' it yet, if you get my drift, 'cause on saturday night we went to see some local bands at the casbah (think richards on richards without the perpetually overflowing toilet) and the architect drank lots and was passed out before i finished brushing my teeth, and last night i was tired and somewhat grouchy.

maybe tonight. who knows?

i did actually make it out to the book club on saturday and i'm so pleased that i did, because the folks there were tonnes of fun, and it was awesome for me to talk to people who weren't selling me something, or pouring my coffee. i was really nervous, though, 'cause ... well... meeting new people isn't the easiest thing in the world, for me. but it's done and the ice has been broken and off we go.

dingadingdang my dangalonglinglong

how can you not love a radio station that plays jesus built my hotrod followed by bob marley at 10am in the morning? it's nigh on impossible, i'm telling you.

ok i know it's not ten yet - this was yesterday but i'm sure this morning they are cooking up similar pots of awesomeness, i just haven't gotten out of bed yet to check.

so our furniture acquisition has been coming along by leaps and bounds. chateau craigslist is actually starting to look like a home - down to a *real* bed that actually matches our dresser (ikea malm, black/brown). darn comfy, i do say.

we also bought two small bookcases yesterday - most of my books are still in storage, so these are more than adequate for the handful i brought with me, as well as the few purchased in the last couple of months. yay real home, almost!

next step - getting some stuffs up on the walls.


OMG i'm going on line in 10 min to buy tickets for the Black Keys at HOB on March 21!!! sorry slightly distracted, there. it's amazing how slowly time passes when you are waiting to buy concert tickets.

name that tune

here's a little game i like to play with myself.

no not *that* kind of game... perverts.

when i go poking through the traffic for my site, a remarkable number of hits come from google searches for song lyrics. and, fairly consistently, the song lyrics are mostly incorrect. i mean, this isn't a new phenomenon, i know. heck, people have written books about it and made their fortunes. le sigh, if only i'd been blogging 20 years ago. darn you al gore for waiting so long to invent the innerwebs!

but i digress.

the game is, for me, to see if i can identify the songs through the google search that brought people to the site. for example: "here we go again get wicked" is hear the drummer get wicked from the song of the same name, released sometime in the mid 80s (i think). heh clearly i'm an expert.

here's a better one: "its on for any season i got so many reasons" is "a song for any season, i've got so many reasons you're gonna wanna make it some day..." - that's tiga. good song.

i still don't know how many calories are in neo citran, though.

when i do that damn thing i do that there

favicon changed praise the 8lb lord baby jeebus. it's actually way easier than any of the help files i looked at would suggest, and i managed to do it with a .jpg rather than a .ico file (blogger doesn't like those). so i'm pleased with myself. yay me!

i had the worst f'in sleep last night. it took forever for me to fall asleep (probably due to my 2hr midol-induced mid afternoon nap) and then when i did i was having the worst anxiety dreams *ever*. they were so vivid, too - like the dreams i used to have when i didn't sleep on the weekends just took lots of drugs and my body was totally REM deprived.

you know those dreams that people talk about where they are running and running as hard as they can, but can barely move? mine don't go that way - for me it's more like i'm struggling to get up a snowy hill but i keep sliding backwards. the more i dig in the faster i slide down.

last night i got word that an old friend of mine just had a miscarriage. we've lost touch over the years, and it's probably my fault 'cause i really *am* no good at female friendships, it would seem, but her and her husband were always there for me during the crazyjeremy shit, and i love them lots, in my own way. so i'm sending happy thoughts into the ether, hoping they're heard, somehow.

you know there's always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

alexisonfire makes me homesick

on the weird winds of ontario

yeah so r/r was right and i knew all along he was right i was just lazy and didn't want to start over.

but i did and the dates are back. out of the mouths of ontarians...

next challenge - getting my raspberry back up in the icon window.

in other news, i have cramps and currently want to kill myself, or at least amputate my midsection. i think i shall take a large number of drugs and go sit outside in the sunshine. if i'm not back in six-8 hours send a cocktail.

the dashboard melted

now i'm no fashionista, but a girl's got needs. so when my m&d gave me a $100 macy's gc for christmas, i thought hot damn! newbootsnewshoesnewclothes! (not all at once, of course - this is macy's, not walmart. sheesh) so twice thrice i've headed down there, now and three times i've been disappointed.

oh not with the quality of merchandise at america's favourite department store. oh no. i've been disappointed by my ability to find something that i feel like buying or wearing.

part of it is, of course, the fact that most of my outings day to day involve walking or riding my bike - either on errands or just for pleasure. this sort of restricts my wardrobe to a certain extent, as some garments just aren't suited. riding a bike in certain skirts is not only awkward but borderline indecent - the wind does have a tendency to ... er... malfunction your wardrobe, as it were.

the other part of the problem is that it's 20degrees out and *january*. when the weather hits 20deg in canada, it's officially summer. down here, though, it's winter to the locals, and they're all running around dressed appropriately. ok maybe no toques and parkas, but in pants and sweaters and dark colours. i, of course, don't want to be the canadian rube in shorts and a tank top but *seriously* - it's 20degrees out! 22 yesterday! we're talking bikini on the beach weather, in my world, or at the very least sitting in the sunshine having cocktails in a sundress.

i feel as though i'm in some kind of wardrobe purgatory. i *want* to buy new clothes but the stuff on the rack is all sweaters and warm things. my brain tells me it's too frickin hot out for that crap, short circuits, stamps its foot and goes for a drink.

on a patio.

without me.

in a sundress.

and there i am, left standing in the midst of wraps and sweaters and knee high black leather boots, jaw slack, arms akimbo until the architect fetches me and brings me around by wafting a bottle of $3 wine under my nose.

needless to say, i've spent the gc on cookware.

the weight upon your kiss; ambiguous

i've been reading a lot lately. like a*lot*. i'm not back to where i was the summer i went a little crazy, where i was afraid to talk to people and never left my apartment unless i was on my way to the wendys drive through for a baked potato and a green salad or down to value village for more paperbacks. those days i was reading at least one, sometimes two, sometimes (on the really bad days) three a day. it was the only way i could escape, you see, escape the voices in my head - i put other peoples' words in their mouths and kept them full of thought other than those which were coming to me uninvited.

i have, however, been reading a lot. this depression thing gets the better of me, sometimes, especially when i've not been so good with my meds, and when there is stress in the air. even the sunshine can't shake it off, some days, and today is one of those days. it's not as bad as it used to be.... i could make polite conversation with the guy at the corner liquor store, but i had to go there instead of the supermarket when i took a fancy for a tuna sandwich at lunchtime. i'm comfortable with him, you see, and i don't know the people at henry's.

so on these kinds of days i sit out on the steps in the front and read my book, hoping that none of the neighbours looks up and sees me, nibbling my sandwich, sipping my gingerale, and reading my book. i just want to sit here and watch, and pet the cat beside me on his harness, and read and, most of all, drown out the voices in my head.

i wouldn't trade one stupid decision for another five years of lies

ok seriously - will *someone* please look at my code and tell me why the fruity heck my dates are no longer there? SERIOUSLY - i keep staring at it and staring at it and it makes me want to scratch my eyes out with a frickin chunk of steel wool.

oh and i'm really hungry. there are leftovers in the fridge, but it's a long way away and i've got a cat on my feet again. we've really started to bond over our mutual reluctance to get out of the nice warm cozy bed. *yawns*.

actually there are *good* leftovers in the fridge. last night we went across the street for dinner to this lounge that the architect did some of the structural design for. it's pretty 'see and be seen' but the food is tasty - especially the pesto hummus which gives me a bellyache but is oh-so-delicious. hm maybe that's worth getting up for.. maybe.

PLEASE FIX MY DATES PLEASE I'M BEGGING SOMEONE ANYONE

stop - you've got to shake the waist-ah!

so the architect's sister is in town this week for work... she came by for dinner last night and we (her and i, but mostly me) drank 3 bottles of red wine. i feel surprisingly good, all things considered, but i've decided that it may be a good day to lounge in the bed with a cat and a nice breeze from the open window.

my life is rough, let me tell you.

the architect wandered off to bed and left us alone to chat. i hope i didn't say anything i'll regret later on when we see her for dinner this evening. heh.

yeah so anyway i tumbled into bed at an unknown hour (but if i had to guess i'd say midnight-ish) wearing my tshirt, socks, and my undies. i had just fallen ass over teakettle onto the floor while trying to take my jeans off, so i imagine the socks seemed too much of a threat to national security and a sure way to wake the architect up.

so.

much.

grace.

heh.

i wasn't actually grouchy yesterday, i promise.

You're fat - and look as though you should be...

has anyone else seen the ads for the 'feasty boys' on the travel channel, or the food channel, or the shopping channel or whatever it is? they tout themselves as searching for food for the regular guy and advocate the four 'bees' - bacon, butter, something and something....

sheesh if america really *is* suffering an obesity epidemic (and i've been to the "south", and i live in san diego which (the architect assures me) is one of the fittest cities in north america - trust me; they're not kidding when they say that) i wonder about the wisdom of popularizing fat as a positive lifestyle choice?

(this, by the way, is part two of the series entitled 'raspberry needs a haircut'....)

caring *is* creepy

so the keyboardist for the shins was arrested in sacramento for assaulting his girlfriend (a former 'america's next top model' contestant) in a hotel room. not that i'm condoning domestic violence, but i'm thinking that spending any time in a hotel room with someone who's taken any advice given by tyra banks to heart - especially one who is the kind of person who immediately publishes an internet journal post including photos in a pathetically transparent attempt to gain publicity, would drive most people to violence.

i mean, come on. this is the best shot whatshertits has at making getting her name back into the public eye. the only time we hear about the former (and when i say former i mean the losing (though sometimes even winning) contestants of any of these reality shows is when they end up in jail.

(i'm not publishing her name. i refuse to pander.)

whether or not marty crandall is guilty (and we are still living in north america - he's entitled to a trial before a judge and jury of his peers, not before a legion of reality tv addicts (unless he's one himself, in which case those are his peers)), his alleged victim has shown extremely poor taste in her actions. i mean, seriously - it's bad enough that our society is so addicted to celebrity that public figures can't even pop to the store in sweats without it being blasted all over the internet by the 'paps', never mind contributing to it yourself.

domestic violence is a big deal - using it for self promotion (which seems to be the case here) belittles the horror that it represents. and you are right - this girl could have very sincere in her motivations for discussing this attack via the internet. however, i am at the point where i am so disenchanted with the celebrity factory that is our culture that i am going to stick my neck out and assume otherwise.

put the needle on the record here we go again

ok i may be kinda drunk.

yes again.

red wine is cheaper than juice here, ergo, why would i drink anything else?

clearly.

we've bought a bunch of furniture off craigslist in the past little while... we're trying to re-arrange our lives to fit the furniture and the furniture to look like we have lives. does that make sense?

i didn't think so.

watched another episode of no reservations - crush alert still high. the architect is teasing me about staining the leather couch with my panty soup but it's not the show that works me over - it's the books. i did my reading earlier on when he wasn't here.


heh.

le fook

ok so i've got the sitemeter, but wtf happened to my dates?
i just can't leave well enough alone, can i.

oh and i seriously need a haircut.

begging you to beg me

clearly when i'm home by myself for a great deal of time i think about sex far more than is healthy.

that, or i shouldn't go to bed horny (damn lazy red wine sleepytime) 'cause i had some seriously dirty dreams last night.

they may have involved anthony bourdain.


they may not have.




i'll never tell.


anyhoo i think i'm done futzing with the graphic up top but i can't figure out how to fix the raspberry vs b thing in the nav bar, or how to get my sitemeter back up. any words of advice would be extremely appreciated.

(the return of semi-frank conversations about sex to this blog are, in part, a response to the self-ass-kick i recently gave myself regarding my internal censorship. i hope that no one who has come to the sundae sanatorium recently is shocked or offended... this is the way that i think a lot of the time. i'm not sure if i'll go back to the photography (i'd have to discuss it with the architect) but we'll see. for now this is a step, as they say, towards the gutter, from whence i can gaze upon the stars...)

details, details

i can't figure out how to make my favicon (that little b symbol up in the navigation bar) change with xml. gawrammit it, i'm irritated about that.

ok so the architect is snoozing away beside me, carried off to dreamland on a chariot made of his share (which is slightly less than mine 'cause i'm a lush and don't have to work in the am) of 2.5 bottles of wine (it's cheaper than juice, here! why isn't everyone in AA?) and i'm hornier'n'hell.

do guys care if their girlfriends take care of business while they sleep? 'cause a girl has needs, dammit, and she watched her first ever episode of anthony bourdain's no reservations tonight (new season starts monday! he's going to vancouver!) and i'm kinda hot.

ok i admit it- i have a geeky cook-girl crush on anthony bourdain, bad shirts, cigarettes and all. rawr. it's not so much his show (let's not kid - he's not the most attractive of men, and his voice isn't overly masculine or anything.) as it is the attitude that's conveyed when he writes. the irreverence is what does it for me, i think - i'm such a sucker for the bad boy. enough to give a girl the vapours i swear.

anyhoo - i too have had my share of wine (yeah like you couldn't tell) and so i'm going to stop poking around at my code before i really break something and go to bed.

wish me luck lovin' the one i'm with...

xo

there

ok i feel better about the layout for a while.

it's like you never had wings aah ahh

the cat is doing random circuits through the apartment which involve traipsing across my chest as i lie on the bed. i'm not sure what he's doing or what he's trying to tell me but it'd clearly important enough to step on at least one of my nipples every five minutes or so. i have a cute picture of him sitting at the screen door but blogger won't let me upload anything at the mo... damn blogger. (look at me biting the hand that feeds).

anyhoo... i'm feeling a bit stressed out about money and such right now. we really couldn't afford to go to vancouver for christmas but we did and now we are broke and still (with a few exceptions, including a $20 table we discovered in the macy's furniture clearance centre) sans furniture. it sucks that i can't work legally, and i'm totally insecure about asking someone to hire me on under the table. i don't know why - i have more balls than this - i'm just freaked out. i think part of it is that i know if i was caught i could be deported and never allowed back and all of the shit we've gone through in the past couple of months would have been for nothing - either i'd be back in canada alone, or we'd both be back starting at zero again.

le sign.

anyhoo - enough of that crap. i've got a book to read, along with some blogs, and a cat to snuggle with.

even the noise you make when you sleep

so here's a confession - round about the end of the summer i felt the need to listen to old bruce springsteen.... i know it's not 'cool', but there it is. he's a good songwriter, and his voice is sort of unique, and i like it, and and and....

the only person i really admitted this too is the sister (well and the architect, because he's forced to listen to whatever i'm blaring through the computer). we listened to a bunch of it while on the way up to pee-gee for the weekend back in september.

now, though, i feel kinda vindicated. i mean, if the arcade fire dig bruce, then he *must* be pretty hip, right?



and you have to admit - this is the best springsteen song not written by the man himself...

it was the best of tunes...

ok with no further adieu, here is my only contribution to the mania of year-end (year beginning, i guess, but sue me i was traveling with a cat on the 31st) lists...

1. UNKLE - War Stories The first half of a perfect soundtrack to a summer evening on the balcony with a glass (or twelve) of wine, the architect, and the sister. Listening to War Stories makes me want to listen to Never Never Land, which makes me want to listen to War Stories again.
   
2. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank My favourite summer commuting album.
   
3. Kings of Leon - Because of the Times This album is allll about driving a rental car around San Diego in the sunshine (to me, anyway).
   
4. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Sadly, this was my first introduction to Spoon, but I've since gone back and listened to some of their earlier work. I think it's just a great, fun, listenable album.
   
5. Radiohead - In Rainbows There's not much I can say about this album that hasn't been said a million times. It's not my favourite (I liked Hail to the Thief better), but it's good and I love the way they make an entrance.
   
6. Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass He's great live, too.
   
7. Beastie Boys - The Mix Up Ahh jazzy b-boys... the second half to the balcony soundtrack.
   
8. Baby 81 - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Not my favourite by them, but it's a great album nonetheless.
   
9. 45:33 - LCD Soundsystem This really grew on me. It's probably the grooviest running soundtrack around, and (aside from a track or two) I preferred it to Sounds of Silver.
   
10. Interpol - Our Love to Admire ... How *are* things on the west coast, you may ask... Well they're movin real fine.

now in honesty, there were a few 2006 albums that really played a big part in my '07, so i'd be remiss if i didn't mention them here:

1. Rise Against - The Suffer and the Witness
2. Silversun Pickups - Carnarvas
3. Evil Nine - Fabriclive 28
4. The Black Keys - all of 'em, really
   and last but definitely not least
5. Alexisonfire - Crisis

i know they aren't the 'coolest' choices... but for some reason this is the stuff that spoke to me again and again last year. sometimes i think that music sites and magazines compete to list the most obscure albums / artists in their top ten. i figure if my lil brother (the biological one, though my spiritual lil brother is good in this aspect as well (despite his shocking blog-absence)) hasn't heard of them they can't be *that* great 'cause he really keeps his fingers on the pulse of current 'college' style music.

whatevs, though... this is just what i like. maybe there is something there that you will enjoy as well.