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February 17, 2006

:: who hasn't wanted to dive into their chocolate mousse? ::

This is too good not to share: gorgeous photos of food transformed into landscapes, complete with tiny people (and animals).

Thank heaven for BoingBoing.

February 15, 2006

:: you know it's a bureaucracy when... ::

The office in which I work is probably best described as XTreme Open Plan. It's noisy and really ill-advised for agoraphobics, and can get pretty depressing if you sit toward the middle of the building - while the sky outside the windows is more often than not gray, at least you've got a constant reminder that there is a sky out there, which makes it somehow easier to be indoors. But probably the handiest (and most dangerous) thing about the office design is how easy it is to eavesdrop. Stand around in the right general area long enough and you'll hear all sorts of Secret Stuff. Then again, you'll also hear all sorts of rubbish. So I've learned to tune my ears to pick up only the more-than-marginally interesting or excruciating or absurd. It's the absurd things that stick, usually. Today's gem, which I just heard repeated, increasingly emphatically, about 3 times in a single conversation: "THE PROCESS HAS TO BE SEEN TO BE DONE!"

So there you have it. Does this mean that if I can't see the process, I can't follow it? Or that I have to make an effort to appear as though I'm following it even if I can't see it? Or that I have to be able to see it in order to appear as though I'm following it even when I'm not? No idea. If I want to find out, I'll probably have to fill in a form.

In triplicate.

February 13, 2006

:: maudlin episode successfully avoided ::

In keeping with the ongoing series of nostalgia triggers, while I was digging through old artwork for a piece to adorn the cover of this year's V-Day CD, I stumbled upon a set of photos of myself and the Last Great Love of my life. Of course, I couldn't keep myself from looking. What's odd is that they didn't make me despondent. What's odd is that while I felt a pang - a not inconsiderable one - I feel better than I suspect I would if I hadn't stumbled across them.

I know V-Day is supposed to be the day that I think about how I'm not out with someone I'm in love with, and that I'm supposed to resent all the happy couples in the world... and ok, yeah, I do resent them a little, but what those photos brought back is the memory of what's worth waiting for. The archive was called 'Retardeds' - so named by the friend who took the photos (at mine after dinner one night), because, as he put it, "I've never seen two intelligent people so completely retarded over each other."

And much as there are Sundays when I wish I had someone with me in Columbia Road, and rainy days that fairly beg for curling up on the sofa a deux, it's also good to bear in mind that Retarded doesn't come along very often. And that's what it's all about. That's worth just about any risk (and I say this now even though that breakup put me, quite literally, on the floor) - even just five minutes of that kind of joy is reward enough.

So all you boring people? Y'all can fuck off. And retards, raise your hands.

:: go out and play! ::

Since when is the whole of winter littered with little nostalgia-triggers? Eh? Or is this just a sign I'm getting old? (I'm still not buying that one.)

But shuffling through my RSS subscriptions this morning, I saw the NYT article on the Blizzard of '06 and wished myself there. The last snowfall as big as that one that I can recall (and it might not have even been that big, but I was a lot smaller) was in the 70s, when we were living outside of Detroit. There's something about going out and playing in snow up to your thighs (or big huge piles of leaves) that's oddly comforting - maybe because it evokes those times when you were little, and your mom would put you in your snowsuit and you'd toddle out into the bright white drifts and come back in only hours later when you probably couldn't even feel your legs anymore, and there was a piping hot cup of cocoa and a plate of cookies waiting for you.

So, friends in New York, do me a favour: take the Subway up to Central Park and go play in the snow. Then wander into the Library at the Hudson, or the nearby fire-warmed bar of your choice, and demand a piping hot cup of cocoa. And some brandy. Go on, you know you wanna...

February 12, 2006

:: Not Proper ::

I've recently finished this book, and really enjoyed it. The bit about the white noise at the end of an LP and how when you're with the right person it can go on and on and you just don't care had me welling up with nostalgia and grinning over the memory of dorm rooms and Cocteau Twins records and kissing my first boyfriend back in 1986.

But the entry for 'Common' brought back memories too, what with its slipperiness and ever-shifting quantification - which seemed weird because it wasn't a word that was used in my family vernacular. Lying in bed that night, it occurred to me what it is that's so familiar about it. Unlike most of the American kids I knew, who had things that were Allowed and Not Allowed, generally for either rational or obvious or because-i-said-so reasons, in our house, with my Very Geman mom, there was the deeply opaque concept of Proper. Or, more to the point, Not Proper. It was virtually guaranteed that anything I wanted to do, right up until I moved out of the house permanently (and indeed for some time afterward - I can't quite come up with when it disappeared from common usage) would be Not Proper. This included but was by no means limited to:

• going to unchaperoned parties
• giggle fits
• moving in with my boyfriend after I graduated from university
• befriending people who were Not Proper (which list was something of a moving target itself)
• drinking in the company of my friends, unchaperoned (drinking at family events and dinner parties was all right and Proper)
• smoking
• swearing
• slouching
• being unladylike*
• kissing (until I was about 21, then it just wasn't discussed. I'm assuming it's still unladylike)
• showing off
• writing insincere Thank You notes (or, heaven forbid, not writing them at all)
• being late
• bad table manners
• folding jumpers improperly
• not tidying one's room (and don't even get me started on the concept of tidy)
• seeing films that were Not Proper (which had at least as much to do with personal taste as with MPAA ratings)
• listening (until I was 13 or so) to rock music; after that, a lot of music simply became 'unladylike'
• dishevelment
• sex

* This was an excellent twist - the concept of unladylike could easily have been confused with Not Proper-status (and indeed, everything that was Not Proper was definitely not ladylike either), but there was something else about it - an aesthetic component, governed by my mother's personal preferences. Therefore, most of the haircuts (and a fair few hair colours) I've had for the past 10 years have been unladylike (and by extension Not Proper), as have been many of my favourite clothes, and every pair of platform shoes I ever owned. Though she might have been right about those.

That makes it sound like my childhood was entirely spent struggling to live up to some unattainable standard, sitting in constricting clothing in stiff and straight-backed chairs but I can assure you this is not the case. While Not Proper was a more or less constant presence, it (strangely) didn't all that often lead to proper punishment. It was more a psychological tool, meant to modify behaviour through guilt (a mother's best friend), which only sometimes worked. My friends and I looked on it as a hilarious running joke for the most part, and as such, spent quite a good deal of time coming up with ever more inventive improprieties.

So if you need a way to keep your kids in line and you don't fancy using Common, try Not Proper. With a less extensive history and lower usage, you can probably get away with using it to discourage pretty much anything - and while it might not work, at least it's a new and different approach. Just don't try using it on me.

February 11, 2006

:: reasons to be cheerful, part 1 ::

The Renaissance Monkey wrote something t'other day about things that make one disproportionately happy. It brought a smile to my face so started adding things:

• Strangers who open doors (the real kind, I'm not talking about opportunistic networking)
• A smile (with no nefarious or obscene intent) from a fellow TFL passenger
• Coming in from the cold to a warm smile and a warmer hug (this goes hand in hand with his wet winter's day one, with which I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically agree - only I'll have a nice man, please, to go with my book)
• Chilli Spicy Tuna Maki at Bob San
• When you've got your iPod on shuffle and you're thinking about someone and suddenly a song comes on that always reminds you of that person and you grin like an idiot for a second or ten
• East facing bedroom windows
• A lunchtime visit to see the Dancing Girl
• A freshly sharpened knife for chopping
• Fresh hot ginger tea
• Finding a key on the ground when out for a walk
• The meta-tamarind and similar nonsenses
• Sun on the water
• Exchanging greetings with your favourite vendor in Columbia Road Flower Market
• A compliment when you weren't trying
• Sleeping with Nelson the Dog or the dear, beautiful, departed Kittenhead

But at one point during the listing (the one about compliments, actually, which began as "Encouragement that comes when you need it more than you'd thought", I had to stop myself to and ask, "is that really a small thing? Does that qualify?" And this thought is still circling in my head: why do these count as small things? Is it because they might go unnoticed by others, or by ourselves? Or because they don't cost much? It can't be based on size or time commitment - a diamond is (hopefully) physically small, but to receive one is (hopefully) not a small deal by anyone's measure. A kiss might only take a second, but it can change the whole world for the two who are in it.

I'm not trying to be overly pedantic or willfully obtuse, I promise. But this interests me - why should we classify things as small when they clearly mean a lot to us? Some people I know, some things I love, every time I see them my heart does a little leap. Is that a small thing? To me, it's huge.

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