Heavy Metal Bands

The name of every heavy metal band can be derived from this chart. [Click to enlarge] Seriously. They're not that smart.

Teach Your Children Well

This picture was drawn by a little girl in Baltimore to explain what her mother did for a living and why she admired her.

Mummy works in a hardware store. Last week there was a big snowstorm, and lots of people came into the hardware store to buy shovels to shovel the snow off their driveways.

What do you mean, you thought she was a dancer in a strip club? Shame on you.

Snow forecast here for the weekend; buying in firewood and wine.

Marmite Tattoo

Nothing divides opinion quite like Marmite. I love it. And nothing shows the world where you stand quite like a tattoo. From London Ink (who do it on the Discovery Channel, don'tchaknow.)

John Martyn 1948-2009

They're dropping like flies this winter.

John Martyn was a major part of adolescence for me, and he's dead at sixty. That's bad.

I had a girlfriend who was the same age as John Martyn, once over. (Older woman, sigh...)

Somebody in my family sold him a narrowboat.
(I hope he enjoyed it.)

He was a bad tempered c*** who drank too much. (Let that be a lesson.) He was also the first white man ever signed to Island records.

And this is the song I saw him sing on the Old Grey Whistle Test, long, long ago, before I'd ever had my heart broken, and I shall go to sleep tonight singing it softly, and have a little cry.

May you never lay your head down
Without a hand to hold.
May you never make your bed out in the cold.
May you never lose your temper
If you get hit in a barroom fight.
May you never lose your woman overnight.

Well, you're just like a great, strong sister to me,
And I know that your love is true,
And you hold no blade for to stab me in my back;
I know that there's some that do.

So please, won't you please,
Won't you bear it in mind:
Love is a lesson to learn in our time.
Please, won't you please, bear it in mind for me.

Well, you're just like a great, strong brother to me,
And I know that your love is true,
And you never talk dirty behind my back;
I know that there's some that do.

So please, won't you please,
Won't you bear it in mind:
Love is a lesson to learn in our time.
Please, won't you please, bear it in mind for me.

May you never lay your head down
Without a hand to hold.
May you never make your bed out in the cold.
May you never lose your temper
If you get hit in a barroom fight.
May you never lose your woman overnight.
May you never lose your woman overnight.

Reboot My Talent

I'm declaring today 'Reboot My Talent Day'.

"Any idiot can face a crisis;
it’s day to day living that wears you out"
Chekhov

In an ideal setting, I'd like to do that with a haircut, a pedicure and a smart suit of clothes. As it is, I'm doing it with a shave, a pot of coffee and a Van Morrison CD.


Oh, and I'm having fish for breakfast. Brain food.

Straight Talk, No Chaser

His talent was as natural as the pattern
that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings.
At one time he understood it
no more than the butterfly did
and he did not know when it was brushed or marred.

Later he became conscious
of his damaged wings and their construction
and he learned to think and could not fly any more
because the love of flight was gone
and he could only remember
when it had been effortless.
(Hemingway, on Fitzgerald)

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a self-destructive alcoholic who was dead at forty-four. He also wrote some of the most wonderful novels and short stories I have ever read. That's why I cherish his memory, and seek to follow this piece of advice when it comes to my own talent.

For Mel

Okay.

No messy emotions mixed up with the thoughts now.

Better?

My Travelling Companion

"My travelling companion
is nine years old
He is the child of my first marriage"
(PAUL SIMON)

BarbieBack Mountain

Back in the day, when I were a lad, girls were supposed to play with dolls, and boys were not. My dad once bought me an Action Man, but I didn't have much interest in soldiers. I liked Subbuteo.


The main game you got to play with Action Man was dressing him up in different clothes, which didn't strike me as an important part of war.

(Do you remember that scene in Kelly's Heroes where Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland argue about what shirts they should wear when they ambush the tank? No. Because it didn't fucking happen.)

Girls, of course, had Barbie, and Barbie had a boyfriend Ken.


Now, is it me, or does he look a bit... you know.. gay?

And then there was this fella. Who's he? Is he Barbie's new love interest? Is he there so girls can play "Barbie dumped Ken"?


This is Allen. If you look at the packaging, he's Ken's "buddy".

That's right, they even put it in inverted commas.

And all of Ken's clothes fit him.

I'm not sure I like where this is going....

Oh My God
is nothing sacred!

New Words

BLAMESTORMING : Sitting around in a group, discussing who was responsible.

SALMON DAY : When you spending the entire day swimming upstream, then get screwed.

OHNOSECOND : That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a big mistake. (Like after hitting send on an e-mail)

SITCOM : Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

STRESS PUPPY : A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

MOUSE POTATO : Someone who used to be a couch potato, until they started a blog.

IRRITAINMENT : television progammes that are really annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. Like Big Brother, or anything involving Jonathan Ross or Michael Jackson.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE : The fine art of whacking an electronic device to get it to work again.

404 : Someone who’s clueless. From the error message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested site could not be located.

Thanks to Cap'n Dyke for these.

Something for the Ladies

Nothing brings out my feminine side quite like high heel shoes made of chocolate. Thanks to Lisa Katayama @ Tokyo Mango for this item.

Surf's Up

I don't have much to report this week, apart from the fact that I'm still coughing and making noises like a broken hairdryer, but I seem to be enjoying it more. Oh and I found some really nice coffee for a quid in my local Co-Op, thus proving that socialism isn't all bad.

I've been finishing off a project for a local firm and writing a report for a client up in the Midlands, and have been active on Twitter, trying to pimp my arse to Americans. So I watched the Obama inauguration on teh Interwebs and somebody said Obama was 'our first surfer president', which reminded me of an erudite remark Fathorse made a while back (that's erudite with a capital rude) about what a doss degree subject Surf Science at the University of Plymouth is.

Obama is the first Hawaiian president, and when he flashed a 'shaka' sign during the inauguration ceremony, according to the Honolulu Star Bulletin, " it caused chicken skin to ripple across Hawaii like a tidal wave of, well, rippling chicken skin." Phew, wow.

I have a neighbour who works at Plymouth Uni. He's a senior lecturer in Tourism Management and his specialist subject is social anthropology of surfing. Well, the dude's American, so he's probably an expert.

Except he's from Kansas.

Not noted for the quality of its beaches

Students who are not capable of the rigorous academic standards required of Surf Studies or Tourism Management can now go to Falmouth and do an honours degree in Performance Sportswear Design.

Hard-working students revitalising the SouthWest's economy


Yeah, right

Old Age and Good Living

Vicus Scurra admonished me the other day, for suggesting that the death of John Mortimer made me think about living a more healthy lifestyle. I realised at once that it was a completely inappropriate thing to say.

"An incorrigible bon vivant" - Daily Telegraph

As last night's documentary on BBC4 demonstrated, (it's available on the BBC iPlayer in some parts of the world) the old polymath was seldom seen without a glass in his hand, and had quite a fondness for female company.

Johnny Mortimer was thoroughly liberal in his ethics, his politics, and his practice of the law. The idea that some small group of people might take it upon themselves to tell everybody else what was good and bad for them to read was wholly abhorrent to him.

He was QC for the defence in the Schoolkids' Oz obscenity trial, of whom he said

All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.

Mortimer with Kathy Lette

So, having reflected on the matter, I have decided that I want to take care of my body ,and my chest in particular, so that I can live to a ripe old age, drink fine wine and breathe deeply in the company of beautiful women.

Winter Kills

Too many good people dying this month. I'm sad. And cold. Here's an obscure Yazoo song about the winter. Alison Moyet and Vince Clark always managed to combine clinical coldness with depth of emotion.

After this, I'll probably want to listen to Billy MacKenzie and The Associates singing 'Gloomy Sunday'.

green in your love
on bright days
you grew sunblind
you thought me unkind
To remind you
how winter kills
lost in daydreams
you drove too fast
and got nowhere
you rode on half fare
when you got too scared
how winter kills

tear at me
searching
for weaker seams
pain in your eyes
makes me cruel
makes me spiteful
tears are delightful
welcome your nightfall
how winter kills

I'll tear at you
searching
for weaker seams
ah... winter
ah... winter kills
YAZOO

Cold Showers

I have no hot water this morning.

Can anybody explain why cold showers are supposed to put you off sex? I just had one, and I'm craving warmth and human contact.

Lonely At The Top

Verne Troyer. He makes Terry Christian look sophisticated.

"There is nothing worse for a girl than being with a boy who doesn't know what he is doing in the bedroom.

"But I know exactly how to make a woman feel like a woman. I know the spot, and I've got plenty of inches where it matters. I know what women want and it's me."

Verne Troyer, interviewed in Daily India

I've been around the world
Had my pick of any girl
You'd think I'd be happy
But I'm not
Ev'rybody knows my name
But it's just a crazy game
Oh, it's lonely at the top

Listen to the band, they're playing
Just for me
Listen to the people paying
Just for me
All the applause-all the parades
And all the money I have made
Oh, it's lonely at the top

Listen all you fools out there
Go on and love me
I don't care
Oh, it's lonely at the top
Oh, it's lonely at the top
Words and Music by RANDY NEWMAN

Tony Hart, 1925 - 2009

Tony Hart was a wonderful man who got millions of children interested in drawing and deserves to spend infinity in paradise, if anybody does.

Stop Press! Bonus! The BBC posted this link to Tony Hart's gallery music: Left Bank Two, by the Noveltones.

I Heart Crackheads

I want some of these! Chocolate candy sweeties with caffeine inside. Yummy. Who knows where I can buy them in the UK?

Three Strange Days

I discovered this tune in the bargain bin at Atomic Records some time in the winter of 1991-92, and bought it just for the title, and because it was 25p.

I never regretted it. In fact, if I'd ever had a seriously romatic relationship with myself, this might have been "our tune"....



I lent the CD to some friends of mine, who got married, then divorced, and I don't know which one of them to ask for it back. It's deleted now. I've ordered myself a second hand copy.

When I Googled the band name, I found out the singer died in 2001. Testicular cancer. Age 32. Shit. That's not nice. I've ordered a copy of his solo album, too. I suppose it'll be a disappointment, but it has a nice title: "Inarticulate Nature Boy".

For three strange days
I had no obligations
My mind was a blur
I did not know what to do
And I think I lost myself
When I lost my motivation
Now I'm walking 'round the city
Just waiting to come to
For three strange days

For three strange days
I couldn't put a smile on my face
So they dressed me up in all of their clothes
And took me somewhere else
And Johnny Clueless was there
With his simulated wood grain
So I pulled up a chair
And started drinking by myself
For three strange...

I've got to make it through
No matter what it takes
Oh I've got to make it through
These strange days

I lay down for a while
And I woke up on the ocean
Floating on my back
And staring at the gray
It was completely still
Except the pounding of my heart
Bringing me back to life
From three strange days
Three strange...
Three strange days
Three strange days
SCHOOL OF FISH
Words and Music: Josh Clayton-Felt

Medical Advice

I had a long conversation with the practice nurse at my GP's surgery. She tells me that I have had a viral infection, and a bacterial superinfection; I am not in danger of getting pneumonia or anything worse, but I must drink plenty of fluids, and not so much coffee and alcohol.

I am not infectious at this stage, so I can work and have meetings with people, but be aware that I am weak and still recovering, and can expect to be very tired for a while yet.

I'm reassured that I don't have a dreadful rare tropical Bruce Chatwin disease, and Sigourney Weaver is not about to burst out of my chest. It's the tiredness I don't like.

I struggle with tiredness, and always have done. I feel like a small boy who wants his daddy.

John Mortimer 1923 - 2009

Writer, lawyer, creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, and all round English good egg, John Mortimer died in his sleep yesterday.

I found out from Stephen Fry, on Twitter.

Nothing like seeing some of your childhood TV favourites turn up in the Obituaries column to make you get serious about leading a more healthy lifestyle.

Be Seeing You

Something Following Me

Wednesday's Child

I woke up this morning with a little ditty from the Seventies going around in my head:

"I know that I

Deserve some respect

Especially when I'm wrong..."

Stealer's Wheel
(I think)

Tired Beyond Love

That's how I feel tonight.

Destiny

Why do I let myself talk like this?

I know... it's January. New Year's Res and all that.

Destiny

Who does he think he is?

Christina
bloody
Aguilera?

don't make me larf...

Just want to be rich and famous and happy
and a bit less of a muppet in 2009.
And strong, powerful , loving and good.

Not into feeling ill, bored / boring, or useless.

I lie awake
I've gone to ground
I'm watching porn
In my hotel dressing gown
Now I dream of you
But I still believe
There's only enough for one
In this lonely hotel suite

The journey's long
And it feels so bad
I'm thinking back to the last day we had.
Old moon fades into the new
Soon I know I'll be back with you
I'm nearly with you
I'm nearly with you

When I'm weak ...
I draw strength from you
And when you're lost ...
I know how
To change your mood
And when I'm down ...
You breathe life over me
Even though we're miles apart
We are each other's destiny

On a clear day
I'll fly home to you
I'm bending time getting back to you
Old moon fades into the new
Soon I know I'll be back with you
I'm nearly with you
I'm nearly with you

When I'm weak
I draw strength from you
And when you're lost
I know how to change your mood
And when I'm down
You breathe life over me
Even though we're miles apart
We are each other's destiny

Words and Music: SIA FURLER
Performed by: ZERO 7

Monday Morning

Say it quietly, but I may be getting better.

That nasty taste in my chest that was here yesterday has gone away. I woke when the alarm went off, feeling quite good, and - not exactly full of energy, but with a desire to do something.

It's the last day of my course of penicillin. I'm not going to phone the doctor until tomorrow.

I feel happy. I have a destiny to fulfil.

I shall spit.

Normal

There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world.

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions.

[DOUGLAS ADAMS]

I'm still feeling foul and filthy today, but not downhearted. I am a nice man with dirty things inside of me. I have resolved to call my doctor first thing on Monday morning.

I am ill. It is normal. Six weeks of it. It bores me.

Letting Go

My sleep patterns for the last 72 hours have been 14 hours a night and no more than 6 hours of wakefulness before I crash again. I'm posting this just before I cook lunch and take my medication, so if it kicks off and knocks me out again, you'll have this news to think about.

My lungs were playing chords again in the night, and the sounds reminded me of the the synthesiser noises in the background of this song.



On Thursday afternoon, I stayed alert and had a great discussion with my Local Wise Woman about all the blocked-up, accumulated, unresolved emotions - all the things I need to get off my chest, you see?

Most of these are very, very old, and a lot of them are about birth trauma. That makes sense of all the distress I experience when I'm coughing, and the conviction I have that something is trying to force me out against my will. Because, once upon a time, that's exactly what did happen.

I posted way back about a demon that left my soul. Well, I underestimated the multitude of horrors I've been carrying around. This is illness is turning into a major letting go for me.

When the room is quiet
The daylight almost gone
It seems there's something
I should know
Well I ought to leave
But the rain it never stops
And I've no particular place to go

Just when I think I'm winning
When I've broken every door
The ghosts of my life
Blow wilder than before
Just when I thought
I could not be stopped
When my chance came to be king
The ghosts of my life
Blew wilder than the wind

Well I'm feeling nervous
Now I find myself alone
The simple life's no longer there
Once I was so sure
Now the doubt inside my mind
Comes and goes but leads nowhere

Just when I think I'm winning
When I've broken every door
The ghosts of my life
Blow wilder than before

Just when I thought
I could not be stopped
When my chance came to be king
The ghosts of my life
Blew wilder than the wind
JAPAN

Tired and In Pain

It's a quarter to four in the afternoon, and I am
absolutely shot at. Tired, and in pain.

I hate it when anything attacks my head and lungs.
It feels like a struggle for existence.

How am I supposed not to wish I had never
been born, under the circumstances?

Once again, I'm on the verge of telling you an interesting
story, and I'm going to go to bed instead.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you this amusing word puzzle.

Diseases that would make lovely baby girl's names

Sounding Like Bagpipes

Happy bagpipe noises from Big Country, 1983.
In memory of Stuart Adamson, 1958 - 1991.

Singer and guitar player Stuart Adamson had previously been in The Skids before he founded Big Country in 1982 with his friend Bruce Watson, who cleaned the Royal Navy nuclear submarine fleet at Rosyth naval base.

He gave up drinking the day of Live Aid, and stayed dry for more than ten years. Stuart moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he formed a new band and remarried.

He relapsed after his second marriage broke down, and disappeared in November 2001 after watching Ireland play Iran at soccer, in an Irish bar in Atlanta with his AA sponsor. He was found dead in a hotel room in Honolulu, five weeks later.

I've never seen you look like this
Without a reason
Another promise fallen through,
Another season passes by you
I never took the smile away
From anybody's face
And that's a desperate way to look
For someone who is still a child

In a big country
Dreams
Stay with you
Like a lover's voice
Fires the mountainside
Stay alive

I thought that pain and truth
Were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with
Every single hope you had shattered

I'm not expecting
To grow flowers in the desert
But I can live and breathe
And see the sun in wintertime

In a big country
Dreams
Stay with you
Like a lover's voice
Fires the mountainside
Stay alive

So take that look out of here,
It doesn't fit you
Because it's happened
Doesn't mean you've been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor
Come up screaming
Cry out for everything
You ever might have wanted

I thought that pain and truth
Were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with
Every single hope you had shattered

I'm not expecting
To grow flowers in the desert
But I can live and breathe
And see the sun in wintertime

In a big country
Dreams
Stay with you
Like a lover's voice
Fires the mountainside
Stay alive

I slept oddly. My lungs were playing chords.

I could hear them making sounds, like bagpipes that had been left in a corner, with a dog sitting on them. They don't feel inflamed today. I think this means I am getting better.

I've been spitting. Isn't that a funny thing to feel optimistic about?

I am moving around very slowly, but I want to eat. I'm going to walk to my local shop and buy fresh bread.

For some reason, if you search Google Images for "dog with bagpipes", you get a picture of President Abraham Lincoln.

Local Wise Woman

Yesterday afternoon I paid a visit to my Local Wise Woman (LWW), where I gained some remarkable insights into my relationship to my body, and the relation between my feelings about my current illness and some things that happened to me when I was a small child.

And I came home full of enthusiasm and wanting to blog about it.

But I also felt incredibly tired, so I didn't switch the computer on. I ate some grilled chicken and went to bed at eight o'clock.

Gordie Is Officially Toxic

I went for a walk yesterday morning, then went back to bed at two o'clock and stayed there. When I woke up at 7:00 am, the radio was playing this lovely chilled out tune.



I love Yael Naim's voice, and this is a great song, but I have no patience right now with songs that compare being in love with being ill. Because I do feel really sick right now, and it's not about romance.

Although, of course, it could be about my relationship with myself.

Another lyric that kept coming into my head yesterday was 'Meet Me In The Morning' from Blood on The Tracks

They say the darkest hour
Is right before the dawn

Because I really hope that the drugs my doctor gave me are doing me some good, and the pain I feel right now is them doing their work. But of course, Bob goes and sings:

But you wouldn't know it by me
Every day's been darkness since you been gone.

Well, Dylan is Dylan, and he always writes his best stuff when he's having a hard time with his woman, and his breakup with Sara Lowndes produced two of the greatest albums ever... but c'mon you old genius, there's more to life than cars and girls.

Emotional Weather Report

It's been a long time since I hated myself this much.
(Maybe five or six years.)

Physical pain from my belly button up to my temples.

I can't remember happiness. I hate it when people ask me to remember a time when I felt happy. Actually, I can remember some happiness.

I just answered the door to a meter reader and managed to be polite to him. Maybe there is hope. I'm not opposed to hope.

Can I haz stronger medications, plz?

Update: 10:00 My headache isn't so bad now, but I'm still finding it difficult to think coherently. (I am too dependent on my intellect.)

Late night and early morning
low clouds with a chance of fog
chance of showers into the afternoon
with variable high cloudiness
and gusty winds, gusty winds
at times around the corner of
Sunset and Alvorado
things are tough all over
when the thunder storms start
increasing over the southeast
and south central portions
of my apartment, I get upset
and a line of thunderstorms was
developing in the early morning
ahead of a slow moving cold front
cold blooded
with tornado watches
issued shortly before noon Sunday,
for the areas
including, the western region
of my mental health
and the northern portions of my
ability to deal rationally
with my
disconcerted precarious emotional
situation.

it's cold out there
colder than a ticket taker's smile
at the Ivar Theatre, on a Saturday night
flash flood watches covered the
southern portion of my disposition
there was no severe weather well
into the afternoon,
except for a lone gust of wind in the bedroom
in a high pressure zone, covering the eastern
portion of a small suburban community
with a 103 and millibar high pressure zone
and a weak pressure ridge extending from
my eyes down to my cheeks
cause since you left me baby
and put the vice grips on my mental health
well the extended outlook for an
indefinite period of time
until you come back to me baby
is high tonight
low tomorrow,
and precipitation is expected
TOM WAITS

Update: 10:30 Why do the song lyrics that seem to describe my current mood have to be about bad relationships? That's one dimension of my life where I've quite lucky. Unlike my misogynist heroes, evidently.

Vomit, Damn It!

I used to have a German teacher who thought it was the funniest joke to say the German question and answer

Womit? (What with?)
Damit. (With that.)

as "Vomit! Damn it!" Since he was teaching a class of fifteen year old boys, his sense of humour was pretty much on the ball. ("Womit" is also Derbyshire slang for "go home", which must confuse any German tourists.)


In the nineties, I had a friend who described himself as suffering from Bulimic Amnesia ("I eat too much and then I forget to throw up.")

This thing I have going on in my chest is really challenging me. I have some stuff (some truly unpleasant stuff, actually) inside my lungs, which I need to get rid of. But I'm experiencing my symptoms as something inside me that is trying to drive me out of my own body. I have made a Major Metonymic Mistake. Meh.

I should be thankful I don't have Ariel's problem. The prospect of sex with a new partner makes her throw up. She's married now, so I hope that means the problem has subsided. I recommend her book and website Offbeat Bride, if you're thinking of getting unorthodoxly hitched.

Drinking: nothing at all
Listening: The Simpsons, through the wall.

Went to My Doctor

One night I was layin' down,
I heard mama 'n papa talkin'
I heard papa tell mama,
"You gotta let that boy boogie-woogie,
Cause it's in him, and it 's got to come out."
John Lee Hooker
Boogie Chillen (1948)

I went to see my doctor this morning, because I've spent five weeks struggling with this chest infection, and nothing seems to shift it, and I spent Christmas and New Year in the company of friends who were convinced I had some rare weird Bruce Chatwin disease, and was going to succumb to pneumonia.

The doctor examined my chest very carefully, and gave me some medication and some advice , which I am going to take, and I trust that will sort me out. She also asked me to try going for a walk every day - something I have been avoiding because the damp winter air brings on violent coughing spasms - and stop taking the cough medicine I've been taking.

I need to cough, she says. Even if it means I am on my hands and knees on all fours and in pain. This is very counter-intuitive.


Unlike John Lee Hooker, I do not feel so good, and I am not going to boogie all night long.

Went to my doctor yesterday
She said I seem to be O.K.
She said
"Paul, you better look around
How long you think that you can
Run that body down?
How many nights you think that you can
Do what you been doin'
Who you foolin?"

I came back home and I went to bed
I was resting my head
My wife came in and she said
"What's wrong, sweet boy, what's wrong?"
Ah, I told her what's wrong
I said "Peg, you better look around
How long you think that you can
Run that body down?
How many nights you think that you can
Do what you been doin'
Now, who you foolin?"

Kid, you better look around
How long you think that you can
Run that body down?
How many nights you think that you can
Do what you been doin'
Who you foolin?
PAUL SIMON

America the Beautiful

World's biggest ketchup bottle
Route 159, Collinsville, Illinois

Layers of the Onion

2008 was the year I came home home to myself, finally. This was after two to three years of peeling away the layers of the onion, in the faith that I would find a durable heart.

I didn't always know that it was there to be found. Often I felt that the thin, insubstantial layers of me were all that I had, and I might go on peeling them away forever.

This onion is actually a pad of Post-It notes; a good metaphor for communication, and all the little messages I allowed other people to stick to my forehead over the years. (Thanks to Lisa at Tokyo Mango)

I have lost a few friends in the past year, and will possibly lose a few more. I don't regret that, except a little,and neither do I regret making friends with them.

Drinking: lemon and ginger tea
Listening: Mylo - Valley of the Dolls

Happy New Year

Our deepest fear
is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.


Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that
other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others."

from 'A Return To Love' (1992)
by Marianne Williamson
(thanks to Euan Semple for this)

Happy New Year: It's 2009

And I will never, never, never grow so old again.