joy..

dawson wrote the book i am reading today..
it is named -forever ruined for the ordinary-
i feel like i should have read it years ago

today, however is a new day, and required a new book.

more shall be explained of the day and its newness, when it is over..ie, tomorrow..for now, rejoice in the newness of the day...for it is almost june....and birthdays shall then abound......
hurrah

hope you are well

loveanna x x x x x xx x

the smell of spain..

is something like a (bear with me..) mixture of.....

cleaning fluids
really strong cigarettes
cigar smoke
coffee
garlic
fish

put that all together, and you get the smell of spain

i miss it.

we did top five places last night, and i find my eyes wandering today...praza obradoiro....my balconia...celine's room on a rainy day...milk in bags...the naked beach...the red moon...long bus journeys...the tree-house (i can't spell arboritorium....i know, i know that's not the word..what is the word...?) in barcelona...tibidabo....jaume I...calle de los semoleres....the goat on the ladder...all just memories...but save for the goat, and celine, i could see them all if i went back...i could be in them and they could entertain and inspire me....

i think that manchester has been reduced to being entertaining and inspiring only via the people i see in it..and love in it...(again...)

i didn't want this....i wanted to see it behind the people i love here and love it for what it would still be if they weren't here...is that dumb? naive maybe? needless?

it can't be needless, otherwise i'd never -no-one would ever- go anywhere new, unless they were running away....
naive...maybe.....it might not be possible to love a place without it being largely because of its people...not for a friend-need-ful creature like me anyway....

so i'd very much like to love the place itself more for just being itself....i was getting there, i think..a while back.....but without work, its harder to love..not because of money, but because you are disconnected from it, its routines and its pursuits...

i'm not talking about not loving people here anymore! i'm just sayin, you know....how to love manchester? when its so busy not being spain...? people i met while working on peaceweek stuff.....they are sold, sold on manchester...their kids have been shot, cousins killed, but they're not going anywhere....they refuse to give up on the place....they love it like its part of them....and they work their asses off to see it healed and calmed and matured....

there's no way i can dream of doing the course if i can't get that kind of hope for a city...

ready now lord,. come on, hope me up....

subterfuge..i think..

subterfuge is a new word which i just learned from fran.
she's so smart
it means secrecy...or something like being stealthy....so i like it....not that secrecy is particularly great...but stealth..is a grand word..
so anyway...in the words of the gils -a good weekend all round for gloucester and munster, ding dong!-
never a truer word...
indeed, for munster won the heineken cup, and the o'brien boys were all in cardiff to see it, without poor lucy who gave up her chance to go in favour of her nephews..
what a gem...a tiny tiny gem...
i went to doncaster on saturday, which was,.....east...
and then on sunday i went to sally's.....the parsnips were the highlight, for me anyway..although the ballot over which pudding was nailbiting, another highlight...and on the way walking home i realised that sympathy for the devil, on my headphones, could in fact walk me about two-thirds of the way home, its such a comically long song....well done there..

last night (this is where the post actually gets vaguely interesting...promise...)
i went to see jason mraz.....

i'll level with you...he's hot....and funny, and can sing and wear pink and is generally of the lovliness.....his band were brill too, the big djembe guy was back and i've never seen an acoustic bass before, but apparently that's what it was......that was good...he didn't even sing my two favourite songs of his, but the whole darn thing was still wonderous....big hands after with cate and the lovely mattie....joyous days of lounging around with those two are looming...

ooooh the other highlight of the last few days, i watched eight mile....with boys who are faaaaaaaaar to easily influenced and thereafter attempted to have a -battle- of their own in the lounge.....fran and i opted out.....not only of the battle, but the lounge...the house...the neighbourhood.....oh the shame.....

ok i should stop now.....this is still dull.....i just missed blogging though, its been a whole week...sorry....love you

hurrrrumph...

am awake. its two in the stupid morning, and i had a gin too many this evening on an empty stomach, then a pint...went to bed thinking -huh, am slightly squiffy, still had no supper, be snorin in no time-
humph.
hangover hit early due to said lack of food.
ah, age...what a wonderfully debilitating(sp?) thing...
well none of you needed to know any of this, but hey, i haven''t been to sleep yet, which means its technically still tuesday, which technically means.....
three posts in one day...!
who'd have thought the old girl had it in her...?
liz and tim -and probably sal- i now consider myself to have joined the three-in-ones....
still humph though

a murder of one..

crap i forgot..
i have, while home, initiated myself into the canny and all-new world of scrubs...
no, not the wearing of them, the watching of the show
at the behest of nick, iain, and others, i have given in, laughed along, and admitted it is brilliant
this lunchtime's episode just timed itself out with -a murder of one- from august and everything after by the crows...
what a show

ps sal loves zack braff the most...

pps..that aside, the song of my shire holiday so far has been and right now is -banquet- by bloc party..

pps..ok i know i'm pushing it now...but the other song, that i have been mostly listening to, is -she's so high- by blur..from leisure..it is such a good song, and in fact, so good that i described it as -fit- to fiona and she agreed. we love it...get it, you ituners...go on...its -fit-

ruby tuesday..

so since last writing, i have..
{in fact, before i start, may i say that i have just re-read this post through before posting..and concluded that i sound drunk...i would like to assure you i am not...apologies..}
attended and behaved at the family "do" for uncle mike's sixtieth..
managed to avoid (til five minutes ago) my mum finding out that i smoke again sometimes....pesky filters, they get everywhere...
read two blogs that have been showing off about seeing dave matthews (each live and direct at a different location)
found a few more jobs
ooh went out and danced the night away with rob and amy, and their friend hot rod, who was delightful and danced rather like vic reeves, who it turns out i may have always secretly fancied...
oooh! good one: pink has a song out called who knew......
watched an episode of due south
watched an episode of quantum leap
(those damn extra itv channels clearly getting the better of this tv-deprived girl...)

ok bored of the list now....
am enjoying my time away from manchester, but missing it slightly, mainly missing my bed...and lunch club...
but joy!: tomorrow i head for london, and there shall i stay while thursday morning, when i shall head north along with miss mcwatson of the loveliness
and there, on thursday evening,we shall attend the osbourne....any and all takers are most welcome...
having left my staighteners behind, my hair is quite a sight, i can tell you...its about to suffocate me....i am off to calm it...
hasta luego tios, cuidados, y nos vemos pronto..bueno, vale......adios x x x

46, malvern road..

well chaps, i know you haven't exactly been clamouring for the evidence, but i still, after 20 something years of this being my house, find it funny that it is this colour...

there really isn't...

i got back here to the shire earlier...and i am now blogging, simply to say, that i am excited that when i wake in the morning, i can know that when i come downstairs in pyjamas, for tea and toast, i will go out the back door, i will turn around and there i will see my pink house...i will take a picture of its pinkness for you and attempt to put the picture on here...i've never done that before...but, see, i got home in the dark, as i usually do on trips home...and so the pink is lost..til the sun comes up....no-one else i know lives in a pink house...
i win

no place like home..?

last night, girl prayer..
i enjoyed it, a lot.....i love singing with the girls, god came along..there was a lot of love..
post girl prayer, still sitting, still kind of praying....i found myself in a room with the ever-lovely nicole, lady da costa, catelin and emma cowan....
i looked at those last three, those wanderers returned, and marvelled slightly...
and they talked about feeling at home without a home, and i thought about what an amazing idea it is to be found, fully, in jesus, to make your home in him.....they none of them are of a fixed abode right now, and having been there, like most of us have, they talked, we all smiled and nodded, its all kind of familiar...but every time it happens to us, that we aren't very well tethered, we get to choose to burrow into god again and find rest and homelyness and a settled place....and then i realised that we do that settledness for eachother too, that we are part of what is home to eachother...this is all a bit gushy and sounds kind of trite, but its when you realise the truth in these cliched things that you lose a bit more cynicism, i think...so there it is....those three women, travelled the length and width of the world between them in the last year, and now are back with us, and i'm so glad.....welcome home my loves..

on being loved..

in cahoots at the kitchen table with da costa the other day, i realised that i have never really had a time of not knowing i am loved. this is perhaps a strange thing to try and talk about, but you know, i'd kind of like to try,....

we were in one of those days of talking and listening where certain things end up with you getting to the bottom of them, and going huh...who knew.....for me it was the age-old and ninety-five-percent dealt with problems of being unattractive, or my own perceptions of that....its not something i really think or worry about these days, as i mentioned before, its ninety-five percent gone....and i love being free of it....thanks jesus...anywho.....the deal was that i figured out that unlike a lot of people who feel worried or sad that they might never 'meet someone', they fear that they are wholly unloveable, or just unworthy of love...yadda ya....not me, i know i'm loved.....my dad is my greatest fan, he loves and helps me be loved, he compliments without reserve and is the only person i know who makes sure he gets enough hugs in a day, from whoever is nearest. he's always been him, since i was me.....and partly because of him, i don't doubt that i am loved.....my sister too, loves me in her laugh, and in her calling me nana, and in her telling me off...my brother calls me darlin only when he is drunk, and still picks me up sometimes, just because he can....and because i hate it....he lets me ask him questions about him and who he wants to be...i don't think he lets anyone else,....his hugs are magnificent, like being hugged by treebeard himself, only not.....see, even in those first two years of high school, when no-one knows who their friends are, no-one likes themself very much, and certainly feeling loved by friends isn't all that common...i still had these people there all the time....when real and good friends did come along, it was kind of a bonus....and now my real and good friends are as much family to me as those in the shire.........

the five percent that remains is about boys, and me...me and boys....as a few of you know, i've been thinking about guys more in the last six months than never, really...and not in a oh god just let me be married.....way. i hope.....but in a...huh, being in love...interesting....kind of a way...its god's five percent to deal with, but he seems pretty sure that it won't go until the single status is changed....but he's readying me for it to be changed...its hard to feel this stuff without feeling the dread of the five percent.....the dread of being told no, the dread of being laughed at.....the dread of being picked last...of it, in the end, just being true that you really are unattractive.....but do you know, i'm having this thing with god right now where the last few weeks, during which my heart has felt rather full and sometimes horribly heavy, there is a balancing thing happening, where i'm checking in with god every day, and can honestly say, 'te quiero mas hoy que ayer....which kind of means i love you more today than yesterday.....so really, even if all comes crashing down and i get wounded or as the kid in love actually says, i get the shit kicked of me by love, my heart will have grown, and grown towards god.....

in oswald today, he was right for the first time in months, in saying....our reach must always exceed our grasp.....ie, ask for more of god than you already have....it sounds kind of elementary, but its actually a huge push for me, because i want that to keep on being true, i want to keep being able to say te quiero mas hoy que ayer....

this is, as anticipated, a very strange post....i'm not sorry..i think i've become less honest on here so far this year, and for that i'm sorry....this jumble doesn't exactly make up for it, but here it is...