30 - 1 day
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Of Montreal - Satanic Panic in the Attic
Topic: Stephen Says
Just got back from our favorite Italian joint for a lush dinner (PS - the head waiter says 'Hello to mom.') where I've eaten so much that I feel like throwing up. Yum yum it's the birthday meal.

So on my birthday, I'm working 'till 9:30pm, the day afterwards, a 13 hour shift plus sleep in and then throughout the weekend. At least I've had the last three days 'off.'

By 'off,' I mean that I've been taking a smoking cessation course through the NHS - I'm now qualified to assist in quit smoking courses (group & 1 on 1) for both members of John Q. Public & those with mental health needs. It also means that I can freelance a bit (at 30 quid a pop!) should the opportunity come up. Ah well, it's good for the CV. With luck, in a year or so, I'll be able to qualify for a higher certification, which is kind of cool.

Otherwise, nothing much else. I'm aware this blog is kind of boring now but that's good. We're down to about 200-300 hits a day which is still way too high to make sense but it's better than the 800+ hits we were getting a while ago.
Weird.
Are we that interestiong?
I hope to God not... That would be wayyy too disturbing.

Anyway, I'm tired & theres a touch of wine around and I'm going to see if we can watch the Wicker Man tonight.
If only to see Britt Ekland do her ass-slapping naked dance...

"It's Stephen's birthday, Oh yes it is and it is today..."
-Festen... Sort of.

What a Bust
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: BBC 4
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Where is the good side to London?

Woe is the city-loving girl who cannot enjoy London.

Yes its's big, yes there's a lot of history, yes there's a lot of art, yes there are a lot of powerful people, yes there a lot of ethnicities, yes there are red phone booths, yes there is a lot of variety in food, shops and neighborhoods.

But what metropolis doesn't have everything above (minus the red phone booths)? So what makes a city unique, or likeable even?

I sum it up in one word: soul.

Could you describe the soul of New York, Stockholm, Cape Town, Tokyo? It can often be discovered in the attitude of the people who live in said city. But no one seem happy in London. I don't envy anyone in London, because it is an uninspiring mecca of selling out and buying in.

I am still willing to be proved wrong about all this. But it's almost 3 years since we've been exploring London, and granted with not much money, but that shouldn't be a crucial factor to a decent city.

I went to Spitafields market, Portabello road market and the stores of Oxford Street, Carnaby circus & stolled around Soho. I really tried to focus on the positive, but there is nothing nourishing about London. Except for the people's need and persistence to survive in it.

I did get some help from a person on the street handing out cards:

"MR SUWAREH: GOD GIFTED SPIRITUAL HEALER AND CLAIRYOANT SUCCESSFUL POWRE OF KAHTTEN IN 7 DAYS...REMOVAL OF BLACK MAGIC...DON'T SUFFER IN SILENCE! ALL WORK GUARANTEED."

Thanks MR. Suwareh.

As for the food quest, I found an all English food shop, a spice shop, and an all Spanish foods store.

Stephen has set the table, so we can eat his delicious gnocci.

Bye.

What a (2) week!
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Os Mutantes
Topic: Stephen Says
I've just come off working 11 days straight and roughly acruing 75 hours of overtime during that period. Yep, I'm looking forward to next month's pay cheque. Thank goodness I've got the weekend off and will be spending Monday to Wednesday in Guildford taking a smoking cessation course for people with mental health issues. It'll feel like time off, at least. In all honesty though, this management thing ain't so hard.

E&I have spent a quiet Saturday in the pub reading the paper (Incidentally, The Guardian is strictly for guilt-ridden baby-boomers who would like to hold onto the belief that they're still in someway liberal but can't bear to face the reality of the shit they've created. Case in point: a baby-boomer was lamenting on the radio this week that her children weren't having lots of children of their own because she felt it was her kids duty to look after her in her in her old age because she'd spent all her savings and hadn't pepared for retirement and felt that her kids dhould be having more kids to look after them and ARGH! what narrow-minded thinking. Sorry - tangent over) and drinking mirco-brewed stout allowing me to forget all about the madness (heh) of the last 2 weeks.

We got Ghostbusters & The Wicker Man DVD's for 2.99 each. And The Princess Bride for under a fiver. Lame but guess what we're going to do over the next few nights.

E's off to London tomorrow to give me some space etc. as she pursues her organic/ evironmentally friendly food crusade and I focus on some hard-core, unadulterated spacing out.
And getting my things in order.

At least I've at long last made a start on the bathroom. E is complaining that I smell like chemicals.

Oh, and honestly, I've never heard so much moaning about how I look in make-up. Really! If you all are going to gripe about it this much, I'm liable to start with the eye-shadow full time. I walked home from work that way and no one batted an eye, you bunch of homophobes!
Watch out - I've got weirder pictures than those that I can post!

Trying something new

Mainline churches should be silent while Religious Right political leaders get to speak their mind? Do you care?

Check it out... Our first blog ad.
I think.

So what did YOU do at work today?
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: Cat Power
Topic: Stephen Says

Elisabeth says I look like a cancer patient. It was very difficult to stand like a woman and don't get me started on how hard it is to hold a cigarette like a transvestite. Because, of course, all transvestites smoke, don'tcha know?

Send in the Clowns
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Barbara Streisand (Because Stephen's Not Here)
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

My face got so red my co-worker asked me if I was ok. Having been roped into emergency reception cover since I started, I learned today that I'm now scheduled to do this once a week for the company's receptionist while she has her lunch break. This has made me very angry.

Why? Because I'm a selfish workaholic? Because I hate answering phones? Or is it because not one single man has to do this? It's only women who are fit to have their own work interupted.

My emotions out of control, I got all into a huff and told my manager how sexist it is and how I can't accept it...Then he proceeded to talk about how funny it would be for the office to play men vs. women 5-a-side in football and what a laugh it would be like the last time the men beat the woman 36 to 1.

What do you say? What can you say? Lad culture prevails.

Food news? I'm continuing to pack my lunches, and even made chocolate chip cookies, which I'm trying not to scarf down all at once.

But healthy persuits don't always agree...such as the raspberry/banana smoothie I made today with mouldy rasperries. I only noticed afterwards!! And let me just say, it's a good thing Stephen's working a late shift. I'll keep the windows just slightly ajar.

I finished reading Susan Sontag's "Death Kit" a very trippy existential ending.

If I can stop being lazy, I might attempt a wholemeal bread loaf from scratch. Otherwise, I'll just be lazy.

Now you see him, now you don't!
Mood:  sad
Now Playing: Cat Power (You are Free)
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

We had a lovely goats cheese/leek quiche for dinner (thanks Delia), enjoyed some wine/cider and engaging conversation and were just embarking on the rest of the evening and then, ring ring...

Stephen had to go back to work! He's gone already...let's see thats four hours total I'll have seen him today. Sob.

Whats worse is when will the poor man get some time off between shifts to relax? Sob (on S's behalf).

To change the subject: my food campaign: I've made a carrot, sundried tomato, pepper, beans, scallion and cashew salad to take into work for lunch. I've decided to bypass the on-site canteen because this way I can monitor where my food is coming from, save money and reduce waste. So it takes some elbow grease, but when you like to eat as much as I do, it really does not seem like a burden...yet.

Can't think of a title
Topic: Stephen Says
Man, I hate this time change. Walking to work this monrning, the streets were even more empty than usual. It seems that the church-goers that I usually pass couldn't be bothered. The only life forms I saw (And I use 'life forms' lightly) were poor saps (Read: yobs with jobs) hosing out the tunnel from the Friday & Saturday's barf-fest and ritual kebab chucking contests, making the tunnel take on a surrealy musky smell. Like when you get back from vacation and open up the tupperware container in your fridge that you probably should have thrown out before you left and at very least should never have opened in the first place.

Typically, I thought I was going to be able to leave work on time but then I didn't. Ah well, no loss really as it just felt like I was leaving at the usual time and I've happily adjusted to working mad hours for the conceivable future. It's just crappy that, as a result, I find myself doing less practical work and spending more time socializing. At the same time, when I'm bogged under like this, it's the socializing that I fall behond on so it all balances out, no?
Feh, I'm just rambling.

E&I watched Charlie Chaplin's The Kid last night and I've got to say, I really, really enjoyed it. I don't know, I must be mellowing out in my old age... Or it could have been the quietly Brechtian overtones & subtle (Or not so subtle) commie overtones to it. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. Or maybe not.

I've got the day off tomorrow and I'm going to clean the bathroom and fix the toilet seat. Oh the glamorous life I lead.

Yet more stuff
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: Primus - sailing the seas of Cheese
Topic: Stephen Says
1 year ago today, E got her new glasses.
1 year and 1 day ago, I linked to Get Your war On. If you're not reading it regularly, why don't you just click on the link and get yo'self re-aquainted with it.

Just Stuff
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Pigment Vehicule - Murder's Only Foreplay When You're Hot For Revenge (Stephen's is here)
Topic: Stephen Says
I swear to God, I'm not blogging just so that I can type in what should be considered one one the best names for a rock album ever. The wonderful thing is that they followed it up with their next album called 'Independent Women Are So Damn Good.'

There's another album out there called 'Perfect Cop Moustache' but I haven't listened to that one.

This week I'll have logged 50+ hours plus 2 sleep-ins so I'm a tad tired but, as they say in England, 'woteva, minga'.

I'm also into a new British TV show called the Green Wing.
I also had a nose bleed on the way home.
I also have to work for tomorrow.

But at least I've gotten into this mental stte of mind where I just accept that I'll be working all the time and so it's not bad at all. In fact, it's quite pleasant.
It's just a shame that it leaves me nothing that I can blog about.

Ok, I WAS going to end there and not mention E's insane obsession about not upstaging each others blog entries BUT since's she's just griped at me about it, here I am upstaging her blog entry:

Back-flip, summersault, cartwheel, double-inverse summersault, back-flip, front-flip, double-back-flip, treble-front-double-back-summer-flip-sault-with-a-double-axel-cartwheel.

And a perfect landing.
sucka.