Thoughts with Paris

work

2005-12-25T07:38:00.000-08:00

hmm. i'm at work. and it doesn't feel so awful.

i told my mother last night, at christmas dinner, that i'm planning on going to UK for grad school before going to 'law school'. she didn't kill me.

my brother whispered: "that's pretty smart."

my mom said to herself: "she's so smart."

i'd be waiting anyway, because of deadlines passing and deadlines coming

wow, she didn't kill me.

my brother gave me a blank check.

that's going to become a bookmark.

i received an email back from a band about a show i've taken off work from to go.

thank Christ, they better let me know the vague place's address and ticket availability.

i want in.

i have enough money to buy a video-iPod.

to DC i go for the 25th. in three hours.

Walter Mann Sr.

2005-12-24T00:05:00.000-08:00

only in Texas:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/23/mann.jail.ap/index.html

work is never over

wait...they don't love you like i love...oh who am i kidding...

2005-12-15T00:26:00.000-08:00

lastly, the majestic.

we spent more time up here than at the rock show.

yes, Mr. Afshin, Bright Eyes aren't worth 30 ones but hey, I gotta look at dudes in ties and girls in jumpers.

all in a good night's rest.

shitty photos

2005-12-15T00:21:00.000-08:00

if you look closely, there is Conor's friend's harp

look closer and that's Conor O. somewhere swinging his arms.

they weren't THAT whiny that night...ok Conor was definitely whining a lot but what else is there?

.cont.1

2005-12-15T00:19:00.000-08:00

much better up there. everything was so concrete. everything knew what it was meant to be.

art and logic.

where it matched and paired.

.cont.

2005-12-15T00:17:00.000-08:00

true, more lights.

beats he opening bands.

always hearfelt about lights in the dark and off in the air.

oh where's phil elvrum?

from a concert back when i remembered the taste of salted popcorn...

2005-12-15T00:05:00.000-08:00

this is a corner of the landmark loews theater at journal square, jersey city,

lovely...

truly gorgeous when alone at the top of the staircase...

university of glasgow

2005-12-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

Editors

2005-12-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

good music

here and boston in january

http://www.editorsofficial.co.uk/

from Birmingham, England

though i'm almost vegan

2005-12-10T09:16:00.000-08:00

i've been reading this book called "Stiff" by Mary Roach.

it's about human cadavers.

awesome, i skip the bar and john legend invite to read this book.

it was however, a bit disconcerting when i was in the cafeteria at work, the Southwest Airlines news was on TV, and people were eating lunch, enjoying their an hour of time off -- explaining to them what happens to your body when you're in a plane and it hits water (usually if you fly and drop, you drop on water)

"Well, so all your organs are in midair, searching to arrest. They need to stop sometime and usually you hit water. When the body's velocity is stopped by the water, the part of the heart closest to the water stops and smashes against the internal walls of your body. The other part of your heart is still hanging midair and this tug and pull -- tears your heart to pieces."

In this article, Alex talks about the same sort of things as does Mary, only with non-humans. Now, imagine the game birds in this article are actually humans. Makes death a whole lot easier to deal with. I, for one, will from now on book my flight seats closest to the emergency exit door.

Friday December 9, 2005
The Guardian

The birds lie beautiful, iridescent against the folds of a polythene bin bag. They don't look peaceful. They look dead. They're a brace - a young couple. My mind races with macabre romanticism, imagining the dead lovers' characters.

He's a preening fop, proud and dandy. She's a Laura Ashley librarian; shy, but bright. Her sensitivity coupled with his sense of unbridled adventure gives them that impenetrable air of invincibility that is exuded by soul mates when confronted by the tedious insignificance of the rest of creation. I don't know whether I should cut their heads off first, or pull off their feathers.

The pheasants are a present from my friend Gordon. His dad is a gamekeeper near Loch Lomond. Guinea fowl, peacocks, grouse and rare-breed hens peck for grit and grains among rusting MoD miscellanea and abandoned Vespas.

I decide to pluck the feathers first and start with the gent. I keep him in the bin bag to catch his clothes as I strip him. Because he has been hanging for 12 days he's ripe and they come off easily. I try to be gentle. When I'm careless, his skin rips, revealing the yellowy fat underneath. His dignity is plucked until he's naked apart from the feathers around his head. He looks like a murdered gangster, humiliated in death, wearing nothing but his trilby and brilliantine. His bumpy skin is bruised a violent purple from where he was shot. I carve the lead from his wounds. His moll takes less time, as if she doesn't care so much about losing her dowdy dress. As I cut off their heads, they are transformed. They are no longer creatures with a personality. They are meat.

I am embarrassingly squeamish. When I watched Dirty Pretty Things on a flight recently, I passed out during the operation scene and was woken by [bandmate] Nick McCarthy and a steward slapping my face. As I pull the wormy entrails out of the birds, I feel nothing, however. I wonder if it's because I've gutted hundreds of birds before, but it's not. It's because it's no longer a bird. It's now meat and there's no compassion for meat. It scares me when I consider the implications of this, so I don't. I get on with it. I brown the pieces, put them in a casserole dish with some vegetables and herbs then drown them with a bottle of wine. A few hours later, there is a general candle-lit murmuring of "rich", "tender", "gamey" etc. Beautiful feathers lie under peelings and coffee grounds, like a secret between a murderer and his kill.

· Alex Kapranos is the lead singer of Franz Ferdinand

Angry Ankle

2005-12-04T23:29:00.000-08:00

Alex K.

2005-11-29T23:24:00.000-08:00

i want to be cool like alex too. damnit, i need to lose some weight.

new dvd out -- christmas present?

mais qu'est-il y a?

2005-11-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

je decouvre MI AND L'AU et COBRA KILLER. Ce vendredi c'est BRIGHT EYES a Jersey City.

je souffre car je besoin la musique.

je besoin un autre facon pour gagner la vie.

comme ca toujours

2005-11-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

plus de temps pour moi-meme, ha

2005-11-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

DC

2005-11-18T09:56:00.000-08:00

Matisyahu

http://www.hasidicreggae.com/

he's going to be in DC on Christmas at the 9:30 Club. for those reggae-loving Jews. and Brits-deprived chicks. Chicks on Speed this weekend at the Knit.

les pensees d'une libertine

2005-11-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

so here:

last time i smoked a cigarette was 10/17
last time i got DRUNK was 10/16
last time i got laid was 7/4
last time i watched Law and Order was an hour ago
last time i watchd X-Files was 6 am today
last time i drooled over Franz Ferdinand was 15 minutes ago

doing pretty well going into the new year, whew

Timmy and Johnny

2005-11-08T18:14:00.000-08:00

those democrats, Kaine and Corzine

Isn't it pretty low of Forrester to have the ex-wife of his opponent, Corzine, publicly call her ex-husband a cheater, that he "let his family down and he'll probably let New Jersey down too" ?

Isn't it pretty unethical of Kilgore (and i can't believe his last name is KIL-GORE) to have an old man in a commercial call Kaine, pretty much a Hitler-lover for not supporting the death penalty 100%?

Then again, cheating is immoral. People who did heinous crimes should be punished -- no sane adult would doubt that.

I had a conversation with my brother earlier last month, who is a declared Republican, about his new environment at GWU. I asked him how are the girls at GW. He replied, "Jewish and Liberal." I asked him, "but don't you think that Republicans and Democrats are the same thing? They are from the same brotherhood. At the end of they day, they make the same kind of money from the same pot."

He agreed and told me he realized this now that he is studying in DC.

there are so many Op-Eds recently regarding candidates for the election and it really struck me how all of them talk about wanting to vote for someone who believes in what he believes and carries it out through action.

i want to say, "it doesn't matter what they believe in as long as they do what they told us they'll do when they are voted in."

does it matter that Corzine is a cheater? sure, in a sense -- to his wife and family. of course, the man whose son was murdered would feel it important for the murderer to be executed. but shouldn't we look at a bigger picture?

Who would you rather be President --

Clinton or Bush?

Hilary or Condie?

it's not about the ideal candidate. it's about the best candidate and even the best still sucks. who writes the laws? If Henry Hyde did he wouldn't be reading from papers, monotously, in front of the Speaker of the House, denouncing the President of Iraq. Did he even the Agenda for the day before speaking? Sure, after he read all the press-clippings made together in a booklet by his interns. He might not even have seriously considered what he was saying.
Kaine just won and Texas banned gay marriage.

Shocking.

I was applying for a job at an expensive restaurant -- back during my College days. The Owner explained to me that the best employee is one who needs the money because he would always show up and always does his best. He did't hire me because I didn't really need the money. I had another job.

Vote for the one who would be afraid of losing his job, not his paycheck.

les livres pour demain le matin

2005-11-01T21:02:00.000-08:00

beginning Mind Hunter by John Douglas.

i just discovered FabJob guides

http://www.fabjob.com

pretty funny huh?

how to become a professional organizer?
how to become a private investigator?
how to become a romance writer?
how to become a super salesperson?
how to become an Olympic Athlete? (??!!???!?)
how to become a treasure hunter?

i'm thinking of the combination of a bookstore owner who monitors an online political conspiracy newsletter who works at a law firm twice a week and flies to Europe/Africa twice a month for conferences and teaches yoga classes once a week and gets to write fictional novels based on performing autopsies on paranormal-carrion, who also happens to own a gun and a license to kill

les voyages

2005-10-30T08:43:00.000-08:00

i was introduced to two things yesterday, at work:

http://www.skyauction.com

http://www.go-today.com

one of my friends told me to stop working and start traveling. little did he know that that's all i ever wanted. my other colleague informed me of these sites that offer cheap packages to places you never imagine you would go because of expenses, or because, well, you never knew that they existed for the world of tourists. of course, you would want to become a traveler or globe-trotter one day but touring is a good start.

sky auction allows you to bid for packages that are "fam" vacations /familiar -- packages that were intended for the "insiders" (namely, travel agents and their families) who sell them instead of using them.

i mean -- cheap, like, why wouldn't you spend the money on these vacations cheap.

while i was running on the treadmill today, i realized that i can pursuit my legal desire and become a photojournalist slowly and spend the rest of my life traveling and writing and taking pictures. that's after making loads of money first, that, or convincing my poor mother that my brother will take care of the finances rather me.

so uh, yeah, the point of this entry is -- if you want to buy me a present -- you know which site to go to...

:)

clients and the importance of self-sufficiency

2005-10-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

so the utility power to my company went ka-boom 15 minutes before i was suppose to leave work. the phones were out. the web site was out. i'm trying to connect to the server -- not working.

by now, i have all the phone numbers i need in case this ever happens again. the entire company was down. it was worrying but exhilarating. i had to call all these people and while doing so try not to step on anyone's toes because afterall, what am i but an editor who just got promoted because she works harder than she should be.

i decided that i'm going to be a wonderful lawyer, simply wonderful. i like the idea of having clients who would pay you a lot more than "usual" because you do a better job than average.

i like perks.

i like having affairs with myself.

goal in life: be rich and take vacations: be bored and go to bed: be dissatisfied and drink French wine: be alone and move to the French countryside.

i'm going to be an awesome-lly lawful and an awesome mistress.

Profligacy

2005-10-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

i haven't smoked a fag for 12 days, today, and it officially sucks.

while taking a break from reading "40 Ways to Look at Churchill" by Gretchen Rubin, i read up on my horoscope via Villagevoice.com, Robert Brezsny.

Libra:

Though Americans compose five percent of the world's population, they use one-third of its resources and generate half of its hazardous waste. Canadians and Australians are less extravagant, but not so much that they can brag. Profligacy on this scale is not only terrible for the planet and our descendants, but also bad for the perpetrators. Your first assignment this week is to identify ways in which you participate in this excess. Your second assignment is to analyze how it might be damaging to your mental and physical health. Your third task: Do something about it! You now have an unusually high potential for drawing deep satisfaction from simple, inexpensive pleasures. Costume suggestions: monk, nun, garbage collector, Greenpeace activist.

what did i do? profligacy -- sounds familiar, ahh, a word used to describe Churchill at least 4 times up till page 124 in the book i was reading. my immediate profligacy? -- what provisional measures must i take other than stop consuming. yes, the amount of food i had taken in during the past weeks were of incontinence -- of sorts. the result of this led me to be wedded to the treadmill 45-80 minutes per day. not only that, i have taken on too many courses to handle and decided to drop those impertinent to the legal field.

profligacy: stop smoking, stop eating eggs and drinking milk, most importantly, stop obsessing over knowledge. no more "let's learn all of the six official languages." i realized that no man would want to marry a woman who is smarter than he. i shall never marry. still, i do like having blocks of time for bios and Law & Order and Food TV and Sci Fi. oh and yes, i did stop having sex. i shall not elaborate on this unhappy yet healthy affair. insane -- to wait for someone who can only be reached via the Amtrack.

i decided to be a Greenpeace Activist for Halloween.

Churchill for your picking:

"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

"All newborn babies look like me."

"I would rather be right than consistent."

OF US: "Toilet paper too thin! Newspapers too fat!"

"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."

"The socialist dream is no longer Utopia but Queuetopia."

there will be more Churchill invasion on this blog. If anything, he smoked excellent cigars and retained the same sleeping pattern as I retain.

next time: Thoughts on the ICC

2005-10-15T08:20:00.002-07:00

l'espoir

2005-10-15T08:20:00.001-07:00

la tristesse

2005-10-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

un homme comme tous

2005-10-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

le matin

2005-10-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

le chien par le venetre

2005-10-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

le premier soir

2005-10-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

je suis ici

des petites pensees de paris

2005-10-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

i return from Paris to turn 22.

several things came to me during my stay there as while as on the way home.

they shall surface in the following months ending 2005, these among other mental formations.

travel. food. politics. films. theories.