To Do

1. Visit the dental hygenist


2. Tennis with Gordon


3. American Soccer game with brother and My Man
   


4. Climb a thirteener (they are less populated than, and can be as challenging as, the fourteeners)


5. Watch (from a distance) My Man and my little mom eating her Buffalo stew straight from the pot. Enjoy this moment immensely


6. See S and D and their two kids


7. See J and M and their two kids


8. See C and listen to him tell me about his problems with a bisexual girlfriend


9. Get the piano inspected and valued


10. Miss Dog


11. Drink Jalapeño Beer under the shade of the big tree at the abandonded train station depot that now serves as a bar at the curve of the Rio Grande


12. Eat at Robertos. Jalapeño Rellenos.


13. Jigsaw puzzles with brother and little mom


14. Whatever else catches my fancy

Shopping

1. Piñon Incense


2. 2 pair of running shoes


3. A pair of running trousers


4. A tennis racket


5. A pair of casual shorts


6. A pair of jeans


7. Sunglasses


8. Crazy Jane's Mixed Up Salt


9. Hair Bands (no metal)


10. Tums (to be used as calcium supplements)


11. Dental Floss (thickly waxed)


12. Soft and Dry with Baby Powder


13. Opcon-A


14. Lubriderm


15. iPod


16. Red Vines


17. Lemon-Lime Jelly Bellies


18. Anything else that catches my fancy

Going Home

At the end of this week, I'll be going away with an empty duffel bag inside a semi-empty suitcase. I'll also have a shopping list. I still need to compile the shopping list to make sure I don't forget anything important like floss of an industrial strength that just doesn't seem to exist over here or deodorant that may be linked to an increase in some kinds of cancer but really keeps one's pits feeling clean (if not dry). And hairbands. Hairbands that are miraculously seamless. The kind over here all seem to require a bit of metal, which, while holding the elastic together also generally pulls out a few healthy strands of hairs.

Ow!

There's more, but I'm afraid of coming across as too materialistic or too dissatisfied with what I can't find here* or too much of a cliche -- which in fact is probably true, a cliche of the typical Brit who goes to America with an empty suitcase and a fistful of pounds -- too all of those things to continue with my list.

Oh! Mustn't forget the replacement for the one Dog ate!

I don't think you will notice I've gone away. I'll still be here, or so I think ... it's difficult to know exactly where I'll be.

While I'm away there will be some Big Events.

I will celebrate my 12th anniversary of lawful marriage to the Mista on the same day that I celebrate the 8th month anniversary of my emancipation from The Evil Fags. I will celebrate a birthday, and a brother's birthday.

While I'm away there will be some small events.

I will celebrate my mother's new hairstyle. She told me that everyone where I'm going tells her that she looks like Anderson Cooper.

I asked her who Anderson Cooper was.

She told me to look it up on The Internets.

So I did.

I was shocked by how masculine looking she must be after her recovery from the Party Crasher** and I told her so. "You look like a man?"

She laughed and corrected what everyone where I'm going says. "They say I look like Anderson Cooper, but they mean my hair looks like his hair."

"Ahhh." I gulp. I know she must look beautiful, my little mother who was always compared to Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O. My beautiful little mother with the flowing ebony hair now has a little shock of white, flecked with ebony remnants.

Before I go to celebrate big events and small happenings, I have a few things to do. I have to draft up the plant watering schedule for CBF, who will be house sitting. I have to print out my e-itinerary and rental car confirmation. I have to devise a plan to cover up my 3 week absence at work.

Of course, I also have to compile my shopping list.

*I am well aware that these things may be available here, but that I have not put the proper effort into my searches.
**Breast Cancer.

Bank Holiday Weather

My Man gets home from a week of being away and tells me they're saying that the weather this weekend is going to be shit.

He wasn't even here? How does he know?

Of course, My Man gets all sorts of information from reading periodicals filled with facts and figures and stories that directly impact us today, now! I could maybe find the weather forecast from somewhere on my blogroll, but the weather's going to come whether I know about it or not.

And maybe it won't really be so bad, just because 'they' say so.

CBF is over. She agrees with the 'them' to whom My Man refers.

"A bank holiday in England. Of course the weather's going to be bad. When is there ever nice weather for a bank holiday?"

CBF was away for the last bank holiday, the bank holiday when we did have write-home-about-it weather. My Man reminds her of this.

"Actually it was great weather for my birthday weekend." My Man is all fact and reality and how things are.

CBF has a slight streak of pessimism. Is it an example of the European stereotype? Old World Europe prepared for disappointment, that history has taught, is inevitable? Or, a stereotype of Eastern Europe and remnants of invasion and communism and hardships like having to eat newspaper soup and you were lucky if you had salt and pepper to season it up? Or is it just Petunia commentating on crap English weather?

Meanwhile, I hold out hope that 'they' will be wrong.

Saturday morning comes. The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. I am smug.

I'm right! They're wrong!

As smug as I can be through my sneezes and runny nose and itchy eyes. I've taken a tablet.

When will this thing kick in?

So certain am I in the good weather of the day, I book a court for 4pm.CBF, My Man and I will hit some balls. My allergies will not get in the way.

As the day passes, my certainty wanes. The sky can't seem to make up it's mind: to smile or frown. The wind creates little ad hoc hurricanes in our back garden. While my sneezing has abated, my nose continues to run; my eyes continue to itch.

My Man makes note of the wind. "The wind's going to make it not so much fun to play."

I pretend I don't here him.

CBF arrives. She has ridden her bicycle. Her face is scrunched up. She looks like she has tasted something bad. "The wind is crazy and there is tons of shit in the air."

Nothing will ruin our tennis. We're going to have fun god damn it.

On the court, we are lethargic. It's as if the pollen is so thick, the wind so strong, that we are unable to move through it, to move against it. All that shit in the air gets in our lungs. I start to wheeze. CBF asks me if I'm alright. I nod because I cannot get the breathe to mutter, "yes". The three of us agree that it feels as if we have tiny shards of glass in our eyes.

The sun is shining, though. The weather's not total crap. Until this morning.

So maybe "they" are right.

Comments?

According to my Haloscan dashboard, I have at least 4 comments to the last post, but they are not showing themselves on the blog itself (go on, take a look).

Anyone else having problems w/ Haloscan?

Splitting Hairs

The lady with the bad habit has no idea she's conjuring up memories. She's dressed in a woman's suit, black, ill-fitting and frumpy. Cheap. Not the slick, well-fitting ensemble of rich-textured cloth you'd find in the City. More the style I think you'd find in the solicitor's offices around Holborn, where I'm certain she has caught this west-bound Piccadilly train.

Her head is tilted down; so from my vantage point - the seat opposite hers - I have an aerial view of her nose, the only visible feature of her face is only partially visible. With one hand she clutches a clump of her unkempt hair; the fingers of her other hand work through the individual strands in the captive clump. She is searching for split ends.

She pauses, releases the strand of hair, pushes her hair back and away from her eyes, and looks up. I'm shocked. While scouring her head for split ends, she had had the air of a mentalist, a fringe element, possibly homeless, definitely crazy. Yet, once the search has been put on hold, she looks quite normal, sedate. Big blue eyes in her unmade-up face.

She reaches into her bag for a pen and notebook; I breathe a sigh of relief. Her moment of obvious and outward neurosis has passed. She opens the notebook, but the cap stays firmly on the pen. She reaches up and chooses another clump of hair, eager to examine it's contents, eager to find split ends to delve apart.

I look away. I can't look, but I have to look. I look down.

On the floor I see her bag. It's such a normal looking bag. It looks like it belongs to a normal looking person. Not this self-grooming monkey. An empty Tupperware sits visible in her open bag. It's the same style Tupperware container I use.

She's got my Tupperware. She's just like me. Oh, please call off the search for split ends - right now! You have no idea how unattractive it makes you look.

The memories come flooding back. The mentalist-looking, self-grooming monkey in a solicitor's office suit has become a conjurer.

I wonder if Tupperware is a brand they had in England, and consequently if it is a catch-all word like hoover or band-aid or kleenex or xerox* but to describe plastic containers of various shapes and sizes. I think how different Tupperware used to be to our modern versions, which probably have different brand names. I think about the yellow tupperware in my kitchen. It's been used to store sugar for over 38 years. I stole it from my mother when I left the United States. I knew it would be a memento of my mother and of my childhood. I think about my mother taking the yellow tupperware from it's place in the pantry in order to mix sugar with cinnamon, the first step in preparing what was my favourite breakfast: cinnamon toast. (memory 1)

The woman is picking up a new clump of individual strands, each a split end candidate.

Stop, stop, stop. It makes you look so tacky!

My mom was right. I praise her for breaking me of any habits that would have me mistaken for a mentalist once I was all grown up. I remember I used to search my hair for split ends. I was eleven or twelve, on the cusp of young womanhood. I remember mom chauffeuring me from piano lessons, from school, from friend's homes. She drove a Datsun 280ZX with T-tops (a Z car!). Made me feel like Smokey and the Bandit. I used to love finding a split end and carefully pulling it apart from the two respective ends. 1 destroyed, a headful left to go. I remember mom telling me to stop. "So tacky." she would say. (memory 2)

Despite mom's disapproval, I continued to occasionally peruse my head for a splittable split end. I remember being on such a mission in my final year of high school. I sat across the room from Robert Cohn. He went on to become a big deal at Harvard University. In high school he was a nerd, an affable nerd who could sit at my lunch table any time he wanted. (memory 3)

I haven't thought of Robert Cohn in years. I stopped looking for split ends because he told me he found it funny to watch me going cross-eyed from across English class.

Train of thought thanks to lady on the tube with the bad habit.

*I think I've noticed 'xerox' as a common noun and verb is falling into disuse.

Reflection

Dinner is a tacky affair.



10 men and me have been convinced to stay behind and strategise.

"The future is one way or the other, don't you think?"
"It's this way!"
"No, no! It's that way!"
"It could be this way via that way, or that way by this way."

No fucking way.

I think The Dog is at home alone and due a walk, and it's not fair that I'm here with these bad bottles of wine and cheap food, and it's insulting that the boss thinks we agreed to stay because of the lure of a free meal and wine.

I have no patience for any of it, but it's my job, so I have to pretend.

Sometimes in situations like this, I look around the room and wonder, "Which one would I sleep with? Which one would I choose if the world were coming to and end and this was my choice?"

"Ellie?"

"Yes? Oh! No, no thank you." I decline a top up. The sooner we finish the sooner I get out.

My irritation bubbles just under the service.



Generally I prefer the black and white pictures to their coloured counterparts. Here is an exception. The colour picture is so much richer. I like the pictures within the picture all neatly lined up. I like the reflection of the Asian man. I like that there is so much stuff going on in that photo.

Window Decoration

This post is supposed to be about female depilation (as opposed to male depilation or just depilation in general). It's supposed to gross out the squeamish Mister Jimmy Page and his trousers.

But, I don't feel like blogging about my recent bikini wax.

I feel like blogging about the thoughts in my head, which right now are jumping all over the place from 1 silly place to another, but all with a common theme.

Like I notice my last post didn't have any labels, so I've gone in to edit that post and assign it some categories. I wonder why I'm always forgetting to assign labels to my blog posts. Then I wonder if each time I edit an already posted post, does this cause readers like bloglines to think I've posted something new? In other words, can the Internet distinguish between a new post versus a simple edit to a pre-existing post.

I think about how I cannot get enough of Muse. I listen to them over and over and over again. For some reason, Muse makes me think of The Overnight Editor, for whom I have the utmost respect and fondness, and I don't even know him and that just seems weird.

And why on earth am I so damn certain that OE likes Muse?

Then I think of OE and the lovely Isabel, and I wonder how many moments together have they been able to steal from the distance or is it just an Internet thing?

I trawl through my blogroll, -- and the moment of typing 'blogroll' makes me think, "why is it blogroll. why not blog role or blog list or list of blogs. and is it one word or two?"

I'm always wondering about 1 word versus 2. Headstart or head start.

I think about how sick and tired of being a Slimy Mollusc I am. When will I evolve? I'm sick of checking my stats and wanting more and more and more. I should be satisfied.

I reread my last sentences. I laugh at myself. "I should be satisfied?" I ask myself and laugh at myself because the implication is that I am not when I so totally am.

Fire Alarm

The water beats down around me. It washes away sweat, sweat that is beginning to dry and would leave a fossil-trail of salt if it weren't for the outpouring of hot water around me. I'm still sweating. I feel my face red and hot and looking like a heart attack. I need to shave. I'm going to wear a skirt today. The hair on my legs will not do. I lather up the left leg. I shave off the little weeds that poke up from under my skin. I lather up the right leg. I begin the trawling of my razor up my calf. I'm halfway through the right leg when there is a little tapping on the thick plastic door that separates me from the rest of the gym.

"Hello?!" I peak out the inch or so I have cracked open the shower door.

A lady in a gym uniform calmly and with authority informs me that the fire alarm has gone off. "You have to get out now."

"You're kidding, right?."

The smile she gives me tells me that she is not kidding and that she is sorry she has caught me so ill-prepared.

"Would you like a bathrobe?"

Duh. Of course.

"That would be great. Thanks!"

As I wrap my hair in my towel, turban style and slip into the terry cloth robe provided by the uniformed gym lady, I hear the very same uniformed gym lady informing some other hapless showerer that their daily hygienic routine must come to an abrupt halt. My fellow showerer* does not take it with the same pleasant grace with which I greeted the news. I hear a woman's voice raised in consternation. I don't make out the exact words, but surmise that the uniformed gym lady has just been told to fuck off.

So burn in hell if you want.

I have time to slip my feet into my sandals, which I've uncharacteristically left out of my locked locker and neatly tucked under the changing bench. Head in towel, body in dressing gown, feet in sandals, I shuffle through the mysterious tunnel which I never knew until this moment existed and is the path to save oneself from burning alive.

Out on the street the sun is shining.

Thank god it's warm.

The pavement is littered with other homegym-less types. 2 or 3 others dressed like me. A number of sweaty men and women standing idly in track shorts, trainers. Across the road on the other pavement I see a couple - a trainer and a whatever you call a person who receives personal training - carrying on with their personal training session. One of those two was clever enough to have brought the dumbbells out with them.

I haven't anticipated my current state of self-consciousness. Whilst robing up I didn't think anything about stepping out in the wardrobe dictated by the current circumstance. Just minutes ago my attitude was a shrug of the shoulders. Now, in the glare of the sun, I feel like a joke of a sun myself. All eyes on me, the centre of this little solar system of outcast athletes. I don't know where to look. I look up. I look down at my toes. I realise how incongruous my sandals look with the white terry cloth robe.

These shoes don't match.

Despite my relative discomfort, I see the humour in my present situation. I don't have any super duper important meetings first thing this morning, so a wrinkle in my routine won't put my nose out of joint. It's like a scene in a movie.

* As in had been showering at the same time as me; NOT as in had been showering with me

Summer Signs

I sit in my garden chair listening to The News drone on unintelligibly from a neighbour's open window. I haven't got much interest so I do not try to exercise my Jamie Summers-style super sense of hearing. A baby in my kitchen alternates between squeals of laughter, silence, and desperate wails. Silence. Wail. Silence.

"Papa!"

Silence. Laughter. Silence.

I have an admission to make: I do not have a super sense of hearing.

What is true: my current interest level in The News and my inability to make head or tails from the jumbled noise coming from my neighbour's open window are aligned this morning. I don't care what the inaudible gray noise, which I know to be a television man's voice, has to say. I'll read the paper or watch my own television later today, if my interest level shifts gears. Right now, the droning is just a part of early morning summer-ish ambiance. As is the baby in the kitchen.

I sit in my garden chair and think about what summer brings to London.

Have we really had 5 straight days of sunshine and warmth?

I can't be bothered to dissect the past week to verify the sunny day count. I don't need to justify the feeling that summer is here. London summer advent has signs. They are here.

First of all the open windows. My windows, the neighbours' windows. Not to mention the chair in my garden, and the fact that I'm sitting in it. The baby in the kitchen is also a sign. The baby in the kitchen is not my baby. You should know better by now. I do not have, nor have I ever, had a baby. The baby in the kitchen is a visitor. Visitors abound in London Summer.

I think about the other signs I've witnessed over the course of the past week.

The abundance of cleavage. Skin. Exposed. Everywhere.

Itchy red eyes and tissues in all of my pockets and increased trips to Boots or Superdrug or the local chemist for packets of Claratin or Zirtek or the one that starts with a P but I never remember the name.

The increased need for a lead when The Dog and I go to the park anytime that's not very early or very late because there are scads of picnic-ers or sunbathers or picnic-ers-slash-sunbathers (and even readers!) littering the normal way. These people - especially the picnic-ers - excite The Dog to a point of socially unacceptable friendliness.

Summeresque sunshine also brings out the freaks. The man in a dress shirt and shoes wears shorts to practice Tai Chi in the middle of the pavement.

Summer is here. Finally.

Bad Form

My Man tells me men don't behave this way. Men behave in a lot of crap ways, but on this particular point, I concede. I imagine men don't break locker room decorum in this specific way.

A three day weekend has distanced me from the offender and has dulled my annoyance with her chronic impropriety. I have actually forgotten all about Cat Ass Face*, as I shall call the bitch of whom I am about to complain.

Back in the locker room after my workout, I feel exhausted. My sweat permanently odour-stains my athletic bras so I stink of ammonia. My knees ache. I bend my body in half and place my hands on the floor. A last quick stretch before I open my locker, get out of my kit, and head for the shower.

While I'm down here I might as well untie my shoes.

I untie my shoes, get ready to step out of them. Despite my exhaustion and stink, I feel unnaturally good. Otherworldly. Light. Distant. Immune. I roll up from my bent over position, not quite one vertebrae at a time, but slowly and carefully. That's when I see the little flowered toiletry case that reminds me of Laura Ashley or Cath Kidson. That's when I lose my cool. That's when I remember Cat Ass Face.

Fucking bitch.

A flash of brilliance.

I will tell the Internets about her!

A brighter flash.

Do I have my camera? Yes, I have my camera. I can capture it on film! You're not supposed to take pictures in here! It's empty. No one's going to catch you. It's not like you're taking a snapshot of Amy Winehouse!

I grope through my bag, grab onto my camera, and snap the accompanying foto. Not hugely damning evidence now that I look at it; this snapshot doesn't show anything out of the norm. A sweat towel casually lying on the counter next to a sugary-sweet flowered toiletry case.

Nothing overtly wrong.

Except that this piece of counter space is prime time real estate, and we're just about to enter rush hour. Cat Ass Face knows this. That fucking flower printed toiletry case is her piss on the counter. It's her way of marking her territory, reserving this little space of the gym for herself while she goes and uses the sun bed and then goes to shower.

Never mind the rest of us.

Never mind that others have gotten here first and not cordoned off little corners of exclusive space for themselves.

Never mind that you reek of self-entitlement. I'd rather smell of ammonia.

*Cat Ass Face has pursed up lips that makes it look like she's recently eaten a very sour grapefruit, or rather more graphically, looks like, well, a cat's ass. In other words, she looks like an uptight bitch.

Toro

Today is the My Man's birthday. He is a Taurus. When I originally renamed the accompanying foto, with the explicit purpose of using it for My Man's birthday post, I mistyped and the foto became Toto.jpg rather than Toro.jpg. What a world of difference the slight difference in shape between 'r' and 't' makes in this instance. I'm startled by this spontaneous observation. I don't think I've ever quite appreciated how very similar a 't' looks to an 'r'.

t r t r t r

The r is missing the little umbrella handle of the t.

The t, the little hooked beak of the r.

That's it. Otherwise no difference.

Yet the difference between toro and toto, undeniable.

My Man is no Toto.

I'll be taking my Toro to sushi for lunch. Who knew bulls ate fish?

Czech Please

My friend CBF isn't around this week. She's gone home to 'get it out of the way for the year.' When she phrased it like that it made me laugh; I understood her all too well. Sometimes going "home" is just an obligation. Possibly with enjoyable aspects (catching up with friends and those members of the family that don't drive you crazy), but an obligation nonetheless with the associated expense and inconvenience.

With CBF gone for a week I wonder how I will satisfy my craving for a pint and a bowl of chips.

My Man, being in the throes of draconian food discipline, won't do . As an example: yesterday when we went to the pub to get a pint after our long day of garden work and I casually mentioned I'd like a bowl of chips with my cold, hard-earned lager, he looked at me askance.

"Do you have to get a bowl of chips? I'm trying to be good."

Inside I winced. I really, really wanted a bowl of chips, a bowl of chips onto which I would apply a generous helping of salt, something else My Man has admirably denied himself.

I've given this weekend over My Man*, so I didn't complain or wheedle or try to convince him that my ordering a bowl of chips should have no bearing on his good intentions.

You don't have to have any.

I didn't tell him so. Instead, I ordered a chipless pint and wondered to myself when might I satisfy this craving.

Normally, CBF, my partner in crime, and I would steal some weekend time for a girlie pint and bowl of chips. A caper made all the worse by mayonnaise dipping, an activity CBF introduced to both me and My Man. My Man embraced mayo on chips before I did. I've never been able to stand ketchup; I couldn't imagine adulterating the salt of my chips with anything else. Now I quite like a bit of mayo with my salt and chips. And pint. Let's not forget the accompanying pint.

And I must be something of an addict. I'm actually entertaining the idea of going to the pub alone. All for a bowl of chips. And pint.

When is CBR getting back?

*For reasons which will be obvious tomorrow.

p.s.

My Man suspiciously asked me if I wanted to go to Gourmet Burger. This was suspicious because one does not go to Gourmet Burger and not get chips. He must have known that if I agreed, his suggestion would include a side of fries.

Why the change of heart? Why the lapse in his regimen? It would not have been my last post (the few paragraphs that precede this postscript); My Man doesn't read this blog. Besides, he was in the shower when I last posted, and he made the suggestion when he was drying himself.

At the moment, it didn't matter. I greedily agreed. My Man laughed at how vigorously I shook my head.

The certainty with which I allude to my getting chips at Gourmet Burger in the opening paragraph of this postscript, is in fact, all bravado; whilst My Man went up to place our order I wondered if our little fried friends would be joining us for dinner. My Man had talked about splitting a lentil burger and a blue cheese burger (nb: the blue cheese burger is about as close to heaven as you're going to get while sinning), but the subject of chips didn't come up. It was the elephant in the room. We didn't mention it. If he didn't order them, I wasn't going to ask for them.

My Man ended my suspense by catching my eye from the till and mouthing, "do you want a dipping sauce with the chips?"

It might have been obvious for a fraction of a second that my hear soared before I regained my composure.

I mouthed back 'naw'. I assumed mayonnaise would be included and didn't count as a 'dipping sauce.'

I now have some pending detective work; I need to uncover how My Man knew I needed some chips.