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...

on getting a tan in april..

i am you know..
it just won't stop...yesterday afternoon, heald place...vodka and orange on the doorstep, inhabitants of my house up to high jinx and laughing in the sun....not working sucks...but it has its merits...!
its kind of a needless post, i know...its just been so long since i blogged three days in a row....!
sorry............

dream jobs: the timeline...

ok here follows some home truths about me that even john peel himself may have blushed over...you've guessed it, the definitive list of life-time ambitions, fleeting or fanciful, ridiculous or retarded.....none of them has, as yet, come to pass....but have i really tried? that is, for now, neither here nor there.....

what i am curious about, after a slight epiphany in the job centre this morning, is whether there are any themes emergent from this list, and whether from them i can glean any tiny insights as to what i perhaps ought to be pursuing. ok, here we go..

1985: librarian (seriously..)
1991: un peacekeeping person (this came to an end during latter high school, upon my realising i would have to basically be in the army)
1993: childrens' book writer
: news reader/reporter
1994: lawyer for people on death row (you may want to note the prevalence of john grisham in my reading habits of the day)
1995: teacher of english in spain
(from this point, my obsession with spanish and all things spain takes over to such a degree that all the following, until otherwise stated, are jobs that would, in the mind's eye, be located there..)
1997: music journalist
1998: eu translator
1999: youth worker
: coffee- and book-shop owner
: aid worker
2000: some kind of praying person
2001: coffee- and book-shop owner
: backing singer (for whom? who could say...)
: writer for human rights watch
2002: make-up artist, hairdresser, nail technician
2003: journalist/war-reporter/author/writer of any kind (god used his powers of veto on this one 'unitl i could be trusted with it'.....i think i may still just be holding out for this one to be honest....)
: careers advisor
2004: tefl teacher in spain
(from this point, location is no longer the be all and end all...)
2005: counsellor (post conflict preferably, or with people with eating disorders...or with people who work in financial institutions ie city of london)
: secondary english teacher
2006: human rights lawyer
: community advocate
: (today) travel writer, story-teller....

you'd better put the kettle on...

if you have the time, i've got the story to tell...
go and get your coffee...

ireland is almost invariably good to me, but the north.....i've only been here once before, but i'm fairly sure i could stay...i won't, (yet) but i could....here in the quiet of county tyrone, its kind of like yorkshire moors meets riverful tipperary, and it seems like it's glad i'm here.

we three (barlow, drage and na) arrived on a cold saturday morning, my prayers for sunshine still ringing round my ears...we were met by a giddy emma, who had that look about her of one who has spent a week or two at home: good food, comfy bed, many walks, some hard work pruning. the four of us tramped around belfast for a couple of hours in the tank (not literally a tank, clearly...that would be contraversial....), getting a right luxury tour of the old town. emma has clearly being doing her research lately, and looked surprisingly at home even in her four-by-four....for me, it was all new....the falls, the shankhill, the muralled gables and the painted kerbstones had been mainly myth and legend in my head. my one trip to the north in 1995 had involved a route that bypassed the city (it had however passed almost alongside the cowan family farm as it would happen), and the tyrone towns on that road had shown me the fierceness of flags...but the city itself is something rather diffferent. not myth, the signs of nations and banners and histories, the faces of victims and prisoners and martyrs painted on walls, the slogans and promises of small armies of boys and young men....these are real and rather rife in the cities suburbs. you feel like they're glaring at you saying - do you really expect i'll ever be pulled down? - you can't argue easily with a flag. by the end of our tour i felt like my lungs were being wringed out by some very strong hands. i hadn't cried but i had instead felt just that - like my insides were churning or being kneaded. i didn't want to leave though - it had a strange pull on me that i knew meant until i had got out of the tank and walked around i wouldn't feel everything that there is for me to feel for the place. the walk is for another time.

so we took coffee and raisin bread at common grounds, possibly the most delightful coffee house i have seen for a while - take note rikes, you should come check it out...

then we proceeded to the farm. i'm not sure i know how to describe how homely someone else's house is, but when shown to my room, i felt i could stay a week and not miss anything or want to be anywhere else. emma had left a careful selection of books on my bedside table, and the accuracy of her understanding of my literary requirements was uncanny. seamus heaney awaited me there - the death of a naturalist - which i haven't read since i was about seventeen. he will resurface later in my story. alongside it was silver linings, by martin fletcher, which any of you wishing to know more about this place and why it has been so contested over should probably froogle for. (isbn 0-349-11251-7)

we ate lunch and enjoyed jimmy and rosemary's observation of us, his historical insights and her loving the chat from around the table. we sat around that table for what felt like the whole afternoon, so when we four came to depart for the boat, i felt sure it was nearly evening. emma then told us she had sneakily prayed that the minutes we were all together here would feel like hours...and lo, it was only about half-three....

the drive west across almost as far as enniskillin was for me a bit of a musical journey, through towns and across rivers, whose lovers and legends i had only heard sung about. (mostly by my dad, who i quietly wished was there for that particular leg of the trip). i read with wonder the book of irish history emma had provided for just such a road, and finger-traced our progress across the width of ulster on its map, wondering if one half from the south and half from over the water could ever really know what it means to love this place.

our expectations of 'the barge' came crashing down when we discovered that the cowan family boat was in fact a 'luxury yacht' (so named by the girls who have little concept of boats and less concept of luxury..!) it is moored on the banks of a river heading north from the upper lough erne, in county fermanagh, alongside about a dozen others, most of which are seemingly owned by friends of emma's parents or relations of the butcher from up the road, or so-and-so from james's classes' parents.
we set up house, and then get drunk. we laughed heartily, told some sad stories, some family stories, school stories...and a few about how good god is..tried to make emma say rude words (which, it appears, is probably more tricky than trying to get me to talk about poo....) we ate salmon when already drunk, we drank more wine than i knew we had brought, we smoked cigarettes enroached with rizla-packet-tear-offs, to the point that all that remained was a pile of papers with nowhere to go....we each left drunken messages for poor mr vino, whose impending marriage formed a large part of the evening's conversation...emma and i sang, badly, and not for long.....mostly we laughed. the boat was an instant home to us and we loved it.

when we woke, the hangovers didn't last long....the fruit salad and coffee saw them off for us....but then what do you suppose happened.....?

the sun, the sun came out, and there it stayed. the suntan i jokingly prayed for on the plane....? its here, its on me. i got it.....we sat out on deck, painted our toe-nails and drank more coffee, read our books, wrote our books, and in general were at ease. rosemary and jimmy arrived later, and off we went on a trip down the river to the lough and back again. we moved along the river having types of birds pointed out to us and then argued over like only parents can do.....we drank coke and ate crisps and kind of felt like kids i think. the cowan parents are, it seems, such innately parenty parents that if you are roughly their child's age, they'll adopt you for as long as they can see you. we moored again the other side of several miles of lake and a few islands.....we ate, slept, walked, and the time it just went on and on....it was half four when i thought it surely nearing eight.....madness.....on the way back, we all found our place on the boat. drago of the indoors was reading on the couch......snuggled and warm with a hundred layers over her. she had lamb and the chilli peppers on the laptop and was content, i think....claire and emma huddled like a pair of old washer-women, car blankets round them and sitting at the very front of the boat, headed towards the sun going down and being as close as friends are when they know that one is about to get married and they don't want to miss out on anything that might happen before then.....jimmy and rosemary steered the boat and loved eachother like kids i think..she smoking away, him with his tea and his life-jacket.....me i found a small seat in the corner right at the back......i got my hat and jacket so the wind didn't bother me.....the sunset on the river and through the trees on the islands around us was not even photographable...well, i just mean it was too good for photos....with a cigarette and a cup of tea in one hand, and the - death of a naturalist - in the other, i was as happy as i can remember being.....he is from this way, you see, seamus heaney, and it shows....when i studied this book for gcse english, i realised i could understand poetry by myself. i also realised i was glad to be irish, and didn't need to be proud just to be glad. i became friends with paul f over that book, and also learned to write poetry a bit because of it, i think. punctuation is very important to him. as are all aspects of nature, and ways in which man uses and enjoys nature are kind of themes. it turned out that that dog-earred copy in my lap had been used not only by emma and later her brother james while at school, but also by rosemary, in 1974...reading it was good right then because i saw that i was different from when i last read it...but also the same, i think.

i found one poem in it that i do not ever remember reading before.
rashly or not, i there and then named it my favourite of the book.

and here it is....


scaffolding

masons, when they start upon a building,
are careful to test out the scaffolding;

make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

and yet all this comes down when job's done
showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

so if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
old bridges breaking between you and me

never fear. we may let the scaffolds fall
confident that we have built our wall.


i'd like to know how it feels to build love.

i haven't enjoyed writing for a long time as much as i have this morning.
i still have a few hours left, so i'm off to make soup for the girls for when they return from their walking tour of the county.
if you have got this far, thanks.
back home tonight. love you x

wednesday o' wonder

has replaced the super sal saturday..

yesterday she and i went into town and mooched around. it was surprisingly windy, so we wound up in cafe rouge eating delicious french onion soup.

i didn't make her cry either. we actually just laughed, alot alot, all day. and had ice creams with flakes. and i got new shoes with higher heels than any of you have, i'm sure, ever anticipated seeing me hobble around in. i feel like a real live girl when i wear them...i can't move, but i look hot...

we then watched narnia in the lounge camp with the projector...it is projected onto the white curtain these days, what with the invasion of the wallpaper and all...and i was quite distracted during most of the film, by wondering what it might look like from the outside of the house....does it go through? can you watch narnia, soundlessly and backwards from outside? who knows...i was also rather distracted by the wonderous homemade beefburger that i weas given for supper....

all in all, a lovely day..thanks sal

i got home quite late, and while i was pottering around putting out the trash wearing my new shoes for practice, my phone rang, and as i looked at the screen, i gasped to see the words...calling...caitlin...

and a joyous two hours ensued, of joy and laughing, story-telling and question-asking, grinning and sighing with the sheer relief of being known.....these are happy days indeed...

i still have no job, but its somehow ok...

my kitchen is white. whiter than white. ben helped., i wouldn't have finished it without his help i don't think....thanks ben...

resa and krister are in town for a few days, which is fun...if any of you are in the manchester area, do come to heald tomorrow evening, for hanging out with them and eating cake and hopefully drinking wine and laughing.....anytime in the evening, just bob over...

ok enough news and thank-yous...expect maybe one more, to fran..for the cookies just now...hot, just out of the oven.....as i said..happy days...

in honour of our patron..

today is the birthday of the lovely dr angelou
she is now 78 years old

when i was eleven or twelve, and was a total geek, the school librarian, upon seeing my distress at having no further books left unread in the library, handed me a book named 'i know why the caged bird sings', by said lady

it was the first book i had ever read that made me feel sick, made me laugh, made me cry, made me lose sleep, made me not rest until i had it read, made me want to thank the person who had written it.

if you, dear readers, have come this far in your lives having read none of her books, please come round to my house and borrow one...i have all of them,. they are many. if you live in a foreign country, i will send you one of your very own, should you wish.




i am sorry again for such a lapse in posting..i wish i had been busy doing exciting things and had some thrilling tales to tell you all, alas..they would have to be made-up stories! i am well, unemployed, which is mildly scary, but have been having a lovely few days of no work, learning how to dream and hatch plans again, after the dream amnesty of 2005.

i am not going to be studying the law, god has moved me on from that particular idea..praise him

am learning lots and thinking lots about community advocacy, about the city, about neighbourhoods and the issues facing cities, especially this fine one of ours...

had been thinking through all those things for only about a week, maybe ten days, when i happened upon a course at manchester metropolitan university. it is named MA in European Urban Cultures. it is amazing and i kind of do this strange gasping thing when i read the pages about it. which i do often. its one of those things that you look at and then think, god, god, god, let me pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaassssseeee!!!

it is a rather sharp detour/diverion/something else, from what i have thought of doing before, until you really think about it....

imagine being an advocate for a city, and for cities in general. imagine being someone who in ten years' time can really have knowledge and heart wide and deep enough to be able to speak to those running the great cities of europe, maybe even talk to them about what it means to love the place. to really love it, to give to it, invest in it, and dream for it and with it...


i don't know guys, it doesn't make much sense to me either, and i'm nervous about even writing this much. it sounds dumb. but i'm enjoying the idea, and i'm reading lots...went to urbis today to look and think...felt like a field trip.....am sketching things in my head, rough outlines of what job it could be in the end.....and at the same time, thinking about what job am i going to do next week.......

it will probably all pass, in favour of yet another new idea, almost certainly....i don't want it to this time though.....it such a pretty idea in my head....and i'd get to live in helsinki for three months.....god god god plleeeeeeeeaaaaaseeeeeeeee

peace in my peaceweek

so i have enjoyed peaceweek so far
i went and did some meditation with a load of hilarious old west indian women at our lady's cathlic church in moss side. the hugged me and called me baby and practially ran me over when i was handing out the candles at the end..
i got very lost trying to find the prayer room in longsight, but it meant i walked around longsight for a long time, never finding the church but instead finding longsight, which i've never really done before.
the office is funny, its such a mess, peace fm is on all the time with some crazy guy either instructing people to never trust the police (helpful) or with annoucements for all kinds of wonderful projects and things happening in the area, or adverts each about ten minutes long, all fighting over being the best caribbean take away on the parkway....its funny, i like it. its so far outside of what i normally spend my time listening to, its really good.

so i am still struggling with the lawyer conundrum. you know those times when you have a decision to make, and people pray or whatever and they say oh i just feel like god says you can choose, that either way is good, you jsut decide and he'll give you the grace to do either thing..and you always go, oh no, that sucks, i'd rather he just told me outright what to do. thing is, i know now is one of the times when he will decide, but that's so much harder, because it means i have to be really listening. and i feel this huge pressure in me, that i am putting in myself, to have the best possible listening ears i have ever had, so that i can listen right and make good choices. and i don't, i haven't, i can't
but equally, its blantenly one of those times when he's not gonna tell anyone else.
dammit

sorry that was rambling.

so, my fast is done. forty days was up last night. i ate white chocolate mice. and this is why i am more confused, not the mice, but the fast, because i really prayed god would tell me what to do by the end of it....but then, some people seem to think it often all comes clear in the aftermath. either way i'm a bit scared i think that i might have somehow missed the boat. or maybe the point.....

with reference to the last post, i am still content. but what i have realised in the last couple of days, is that even while i am content, i am not at all satisfied. and (she says quietly) i'm not ever sure i want to be, but with it i just feel so frustrated and reading something in howie's last night about living the life you love.....it kinda made me cry in the bath. i want a job that i love. that's all. and a man, would be nice.

its the european dream

please don't misunderstand me dearest readers...i am not sad, or moaning (for once!)...am just frustrated at not feeling like i'm making progress finding my way. a helpful boy pointed out though that just loving jesus and saying thanks for a while with no questioning would probably be the best way to go.

so the peace parade is this evening. do come if you can.

drago dragonfly i love you

the march family..

i would just like to tell you about my house, and the family that god seems to be growing in it...
i have spent good time with kates the last couple of days, and the more i hang out with her the more i am amused and challenged and encouraged by her. the friendship we have is fast becoming something like those surrogate sisters that only jesus can form in two people, and we are helping one another and laughing together alot.
iain is the man of the house; as he is wont to point out he has been there the longest, and as he is also the self-appointed energy monitor, it kind of makes him the dad by default. the jazz debate seems to have subsided lately, and with him in the house there is always another interesting book half-read on the kitchen table when i come in.
john is the new boy, my anti-nme friend, and he is so funny. i will be sad when he goes away next week. i came down the other day to find him listening to the third or even fourth cake album...who the chuff knew there even were more after fashion nugget..?! so that was good..he humours us when he catches us talking about god, or praying or jeremiah or some such, and wryly smiles like he knows we might have a point but he's not ready to raise his objections to it all with us just yet.

sometimes, and more often lately, i think about haiwaii...or vancouver...or kampala..or matsumoto.......and barcelona, santiago, iceland, georgia, belarus, tarifa, salamanca, san sebastian, venezuela, los picos.....the places i always used to think were necessary to me, dreams that ended up kind of defining me..na who's going to spain...these places held my thoughts and daydreams for years..but now i think i just want to be where god wants me to be, no questions asked, no rueing the day, no what ifs or how comes they get to, no why didn't that work or how long will i have to stay here or shit i haven't been on a plane for nine months...

see even now i'm tempted to express to try and explain it away, or excuse it almost by saying oh i still don't think i'll be staying in manchester forever..i shan't say it...it wouldn't be strictly true, i don't know what i think anymore..i guess i'm learning how to be content...wierd heh.....

would still love to be in minsk right now though....

my name is luka

so i am at home, in the shire, and its lovely and warm in the house and lovely and oldly familiar outside
the new inn last night was fun, got mauled by the now-engaged rob and amy who it seems really do miss me when i'm away, had a lovely time not drinking, a really good time not smoking, and then did sober kareoke....and ended up singing luka as an encore and being thursday's grand finale

so my list of things i must not do last night
smoke
drink alcohol
fancy luke
i acheived not doing them entirely well
hurrah!
smug smug smug
not really
thanks god you are a wonder and a gem
i also laughed alot alot and then me and fi got home and stayed up talking about boys and me being a lawyer and her living by the sea and getting the best room

all in all, a triumph of an evening
loved it
and i would like to take this opportunity to say sal thanks thanks THANKS i love you, and jason mraz here we come baby!!! alright!

how very odd..

lst night, i received two text messages within about half an hour of eachother, saying that these two different people had just been - independently of eachother - waching the film of sense and sensibility, and that it had reminded them of me

i can't think about it for too long because its wierd, but it is wierd, isn't it..?!
needless to say, i shall now be picking up that wonderful book myself this evening to take on my train journey
for i am off to the shire later, to celebrate my irishness in style
and to not smoke
even when in the pub
my favourite pub
with my brother
eeeeek

i made a new friend who knows the nme is wrong

so i watched crash last night
i haven't been got by a film this much for a long time, i just loved it.
i loved everything about it
its certainly the first time that i have loved a film this much that has also won the best picture oscar.
i seem to have lost all sentence-forming ability here don't it?!
sorry
i am well anyway, apologies for my blogslack, thing is, some things are so muddled just now that not even blogging has appealed
muddled, yes
becoming a lawyer...not so sure
some of you may have heard on the eddie grapevine that i am considering with the lord the idea of training in human rights law, taking the bar and then rushing off to save the world.
i can assure you dear reader that my will in this direction has remained at a fairly stable 30% in favour for the last few weeks, without increment.
i have, however, had to learn certain things about myself while thinking about it all, and realised that am l quite a scardy cat, with alarmingly little faith in my own abilities. and, perhaps even sadder than that, surprisingly little faith in you aall, because i didn't want to blog about it cos i thought you would howl with laughter
howl away, my loves, its nowhere near a done deal and i need to be stopped in my tracks if it is, as i suspect, the most woeful carrer idea yet
however if you have anything sensible to add to the debate, that would also be lovely
i go
fyi its peaceweek in like two days' time, the prayer room is open as of sunday, 24 hours a day, at the nazarene church on plymouth grove...go pray good people, go pray
peace fm is 106.5
its interesting

the nicotine factor..

ok, i really do not want mine to become the blog that only ever goes on about smoking and how wierd it is to quit (wierd, more than difficult..) but seriously, check this out for an unprecedented gaunlet of events and experiences that i have run in the miraculous escape from smoking that has been my london experience so far this weekend..
1..a christian conference
2..seeing liv
3..seeing hattie, who, although she has never been a smoker, is every now and again, a very lovely and conspiratorial smoking companion
4..being in london
5..topshop
6..on oxford street
7..on a saturday afternoon
8..in half-term
9..the pimlico balcony
and yet, check me out..still minty and unsmoked..
may the lord be praised.
so i have enjoyed london, which is alarming in itself.....not only that, i have considered, without laughing, the possibility that i could live here one day......i have also realised that all my rage towards the place has been a strange but not unique mixture of fear, lostness, and sheer exhaustion at the speed and busy-ness of the place.....have thereby decided that none of these reasons are good or fully deserved, and that not a one of them proceeeds from grace or jesus rationality in any way...i here would like to say sorry to the old dear for slagging her for so many years and ask if we may from now on be friends..(..providing i can live in pimlico..).....
i would also like to say that manchester from here seems shabby and old...and ever so nice...in a well-worn sofe kind of way....am oddly (although, it is where my cds are, so i guess not..) looking forward to getting back...
the speak day of action is tomorrow...i cannot say i am looking forward to it...am looking forward to being on the A556 though...
loveanna x x x

day twelve in the no-smoking big brother house..

so i think i have past the worst of the rage...
monday was awful, i hated everyone..that was day nine..
tuesday was pretty bad too, i was snappish. all day.
this was my breaking of personal best day.....all previous records now broken..
today i am well and not at all angry with the world. last night at the lovely apollo was tricky, but only in the sense that, like sal says, "the smoke makes me feel sick, but i'd still have one.." its true, i would, but it is gross.
feasting on nuts and vegtables, snacking on fine greenbeans and drinking more water than i had previously thought helpful, the daniel fast is progressing nicely. i am learning a great deal about how incapable i am of being nice without food, unless god is nice for me.
i do not mean, dear reader, to alarm you at my sudden bout of pious behaviour, it will pass..
and no doubt more quickly than it should
but really, its more of an excuse than anything..to explain that i won't go to pub til this thing is done, and i may not even drink after my 21 days are up, if it means i'll want to smoke. so the osborne and i are no more for now, which means i havne't seen matt and fran for weeks it seems....i think northenden has piked my friends...
this week is one of those wierd ones where you're away one weekend and then the following one too, and so feel like you're jsut washing clothes to pack them again, and seeing people just to tell them you won't be seeing them....complexitated...but soundcheck beckons and as much as i am not a woolly-tights-wearing vegetarian, i do have a soft spot for speak, and in particular misses cohen watto and housman ...and, naturellement, mr and mrs brocklehurst.
all this means, though, that london and i, are about to face the very real test of me without smoking. london rage, as many of you know, is a severe and surprising condition who's rapid onset takes no prisoners and leaves behind it no friends..london, in advance, i offer you my apologies.
jason mraz last night was good. his bad songs are so, so bad, but the good ones....oh.....kind of like the 'crows in that respect....zero percent interest with the big black guy on his djembe and singing harmony...that was my anthem of last winter and then last night it was a hundred better even than before...so he was definitely worth even the james blunt episode that followed. having said that...no, don't panic, i'm not converted, but i do think he's a nice chap, with a lovely speaking voice, a (at times) dubious singing voice, but really with songwriting ability, on the days he really means what he's writing about, that is heart-scrapingly good. no bravery is in my opinion the finest anti-war song since dylan and while i know not many have tried it in the interim, it is just a wonderful song.
the whole evening was a winning event though in the category of...watch sal come alive....i enjoyed that the most
it is rainy today
it is in fact, one of those days when manchester is eZackly like people who have never been to manchester imagine that it is like.
well done there
must dash, soup to be had..
sorry for my blogging tardiness...liz don't get so cross, all in good time my girl..

crash landing..

ok so the hysteria of the last post has subsided, and i have emerged from the wreckage feeling a lot more loved and a lot more peaceful. there were more people in my house yesterday probably than there have been at any one time since oria's leaving party, and while i found it odd and rather unsettling, once the praying started, it was just clear that god was there and loving us and we made a bit more headway into being the living, moving, breathing body that we are meant to be together. and it felt like family too, and i've been missing that
i gave up smoking, not going to harp on about it, but i do feel like once again its the chance to start something over, to treat my body better and show it a bit more love.
as for grace, not worried now...i will learn, and in fact have learned more of it since last writing. i hope to carry on learning about it.
thank you for the emails etc, you guys are lush..x
dan, when a ticket is in my hand, i'll let you know..x

tell the truth as if it were lies

i don't know what that means..its the name of a song by kathryn williams
just been thinking about telling the truth.
and about how some people just know the truth about you, just know who you are....just know that you are not ok...
emma cowan came home yesterday...she's been gone three or four months.....she took one look at me and knew that i was not ok.
i talked to watto last night on the phone and before i knew it i was being more honest than i can remember being for years.
she already knew a lot of it i think
the people that really really know me aren't here any more. the people that know me here now, i love them, and they me, i think, but i don't feel very known....this is my fault.
a couple of weeks ago, i spent the evening with someone who i would class among my favourite people. turned out that my last year had almost entirely bypassed this person and they had no idea about what had bene going on since...well, since barcelona really.
the underneath truth of it is that facing up to how shit i feel and how shit things are in a lot of ways and how much i don't understand god and feel disappointed in him...its all so verging on self-pity, and also is horribly reminiscent of being depressed, which is something i have no desire to look into doing again...
the real truth is that i don't believe in god fixing or changing things. i know i believe it in theory, and i know that people have differing levels of believing this at different times....but i just don't. and as watto in all her wisdom cautiously asserted, maybe its a remnant from the catholic genes....? ..that strange mixture of self-reliance and self-doubt... that says - i made the mess, i have to clear it up...i spent the money, i have to pay the debts.....i screwed up the plans, i don't deserve any new ones...other people are always going to get things before you because they are nicer and holier....you'll always be watching people do what they want to do, from your desk with someone else's photocopying on it waiting to get done.
its quite a realisation for a thursday when half an hour before you were at book club with people from work at the rampant lion
i think that there must be a stage of life while in a cocoon, that hurts. where new limbs are growing and the cocoon isn't, or where there just isn't enough room to move around, and the wanting to get out gets worse and leaves the bug feeling suffocated and impatient.
i feel like that. i'm sorry this is all so dramatic, but i also think that wanting to not be emotional or intense so that certain people among my friends would still want to hang out with me, has helped to add to the months of not thinking honestly and clearly.
so....this is the truth for me right now. and god is near, he's at hand and ready to wade in and take over.....i think i just need to quit smoking

like a nineties noah..

i would like to register several pieces of news and or information with you this evening...
1..i am very very glad that emma is coming home in a couple of days' time
2...i am glad i do not live so near jimbo's as fran or i believe i should eat food from there more often than would be advisable
3...iain went for an interview today for a job that would mean he would move out of the house...i can't think of one reason why he wouldn't or shouldn't get it, and so am feeling somewhat glum in advance of his almost certain imminent departure from nuestro hogar
4...i miss cate and ozme alot these days
5...having a new housemate called katie is good. she's lovely and from the west country
6...the garden idea is still there....i've faced up to alot of rolling eyes and yeah na good ones and ok yeahs lately, since voicing the idea to those around me and i have come to realise they have a point and that the whole wanting to be steadfast thing could maybe start with seeing one idea through to some sort of conclusion. i would like some flowers and honeysuckle and nice grass to be this conclusion in a few months' time. people at my work have been practising standing behind doors and fences for when the groundforce people are all waiting for me to come back from the shops to find my garden all done up and lovely, with tommy walsh and all grinning
7...i went for a lovely walk with drago ben and ric on sunday afternoon...something about sunday afternoon walks in fields always makes me feel more settled or just more like i know what i'm about
8...i got the wardrobe into my room that matches everything else and well i just sorted it all out a lot more. i like my room.
9. i miss jorge. i got an email from him which is the first one in about a year or maybe two and well, now i really know i miss him
10...ok i think that's it
no wait
11...i can't believe liz gets hair that good from wash and go....who knew?!

if only there was a keyboard key with a small heart on it

see...i love simon amstell
he is my favourite tv presenter
and in this wonderful article about the sad, sad death of smash hits! magazine, finally, someone else makes the link between the humour found during the late 80's and early 90's in that wonderful publication, and this man who succeeds in making (what should be) one of the worst programmes on television, absolutely hilarious
read this article and then tell me popworld isn't the television equivalent of the rag of all our youths....
if it wasn't the rag of your youth.....ask yourself why...

i should have married tom goode..

i have almost lost friends over how much i love the good life
truth is, i love things that grow, and things that are green, and things that are fresh and that smell like god just that minute made them
there are so many community gardens in manchester....my little thing that i am organishing for peaceweek, my little project, is the idea of peace being gained and sought in community parks and gardens in the middle of stinky moss side and rusholme and longsight.......
i'm excited about it, but i kind of feel like i need to get my own hands dirty if i'm really going to get it myself, and then be even more excited about it. one of the coolest people i know is louise, who i work with at the blood bank. she is a trained horticulture type, who dug for years professionally, and a few months ago cried because her garden spade broke one weekend and she'd had it for about 20 years. i want to love a garden spade.
i know, i know, you all know me, and i won't do it, and i'll harp on about it for a while but then once the actual activity comes along, i will not bother and the idea and the excitement will slope off, entirely beaten by the legendary laziness of na......
please, please, if you love me at all, make me do it.....remind me to plant something, learn something, go, when they invite me to a meeting of the friends of platt fields park....campaign the council for some money and a man to fix up the sorry excuse for a bit of a community garden on my street....buy me a trowel....then i'll have to do it...
do it do it do it
and then maybe i'll give up smoking.....