interview with leonard cohen

(from the guardian, don't have a date)

g: what do you consider your darkest hour?
lc: well i wouldn't tell you about it if i knew. even to talk about oneself in a time like this is a kind of unwholesome luxury. i don't think i've had a darkest hour compared to the dark hours that so many people are involved in right now. large numbers of people are dodging bombs, having their nails pulled out in dungeons, facing starvation, disease. i mean large numbers of people. so i think that we've really got to be circumspect about how seriously we take our own anxieties today.

remiss

i know.
i've been working.
alot.
and having quality time:



be back soon

this is (part of) what i do for a living

before:


after:

songs loved purely due to particular lines

"i get the news i need from the weather report
oh i get all the news i need from the weather report"
simon and garfunkel, the only living boy in new york

"wearing smells from laboratories..."
hair, let the sunshine in

"i asked hank williams how lonely does it get, but hank williams hasn't answered yet"
leonard cohen, tower of song

"then i'll join in matrimony with the girl who serves spumoni"
louis prima, angelina
(closely followed by an earlier line - "i eat antipasti twice just because she is so nice"

you?

pork chops

i realise equating food with higher philosophical ideals can be problematic - freedom fries or mecca cola, anyone?

but to me, pork chops = freedom.

i mean, OBVIOUSLY (*eye roll*) in a sardonic/ironic white middle class woolly liberal sense.

but also no. also in an uncool un-intelligent-freedom-fries sort of way.

when i went back to university, i'd been sometimes traveling but mostly working for 12 years, and the opportunity to cook food at home, during the day, was intoxicating. when i had the time, i would often cook myself a pork chop - rubbed in a sluice of garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper and olive oil, with a side of sautéed spinach (in butter of course) and new potatoes, crushed with the back of a fork and swathed in butter and lashings of pork-juices.

i would sit at the table and carefully cut up my chop into 3 parts - fat, heart meat, and bone. then i'd settle in, open the newspaper, and munch my way through first the heart meat - tea towel at the ready to swipe fingers and reduce grease marks on the edges of the paper - alternated by scoops of mashed potatoes and spinach - and then, paper down out of respect at this point, full attention to the bone, slurping out all the best bits. the fat cut up for the birds.

i loved those lunches - the first i'd cooked alone, just for me, in years and years. to eat at the table with my fingers, reading a paper - delicious.

tonight n & s are playing at a pub down the road. i'm getting over a cold and i'm working all this weekend and next as well - a 21 day stretch. i've begged off. instead i've spent the evening talking to my mom in canada, and getting to bed early.

and cooking and eating a fat pork chop with a side of spinach and crushed potatoes.

freedom chops

the knitting idiot

the knitting idiot copies the pattern from the net and does not copy the picture. "who needs the picture?" the knitting idiot asks."i know what it looks like."

the knitting idiot feels something may not be quite right. "i will just keep knitting," the knitting idiot says. "it will work out as the pattern progresses."

this knitting idiot did both the above, not noticing the MASSIVE difference between what was coming off the needles and the 281 pictures of the blanket in ravelry until 38 rows of 125 stitches were completed when finally, unable to quell that nascent knitting gut instinct that had been alternating between screaming and whimpering for the past week, finally looked closely at some of those 281 pictures and had to admit that my blanket looked nothing like them.

not that mine looks bad. no. perhaps, i thought, i can just call this a pattern alteration and keep going. but alas, my knitting gut is having none of it. "knit a swatch" it growled. "knit a PROPER swatch."

the proper swatch is much much better.

and now i have to rip it all out and start again. for the second time.

and i have no one to blame but myself.

knitting. isn't it soothing and relaxing!

excuse me while i retrieve my needles from the windowsill where i've violently hurled them in disgust...

almost autumn

it was such a nice afternoon (viewed, from my perspective, longingly, mostly through office and train windows) that upon my return home, we decided to go for a bike ride after we walked sir humph.

we biked up to the shipright arms, and it was glorious.

can you see me?


it's almost-autumn. i'm sure i learned in school that autumn starts on september 21 and spring starts on march 21. they were quite firm on that. wikipedia however insists it is not until the 23rd.

so, technically, this is the almost equinox moon rising



while the sun, nearly exactly opposite, is setting



the light was beautiful - the tide was still going out - near the bottom though. an egret was fishing, mirrored on the wet sand.

the sun set, we suddenly noticed the mosquitoes, and the cold, and biked back into town.

happy (almost) autumn

frogging update

a good decision (for once)

frogged the lot, cast on again (did i mention 125 stitches?!) made a few alterations (improvements) to the pattern, 3 rows in and looking healthy.

and i have a new but very enthusiastic appreciation for stitch markers.

frogging

frog:
v. to unravel a knitted garment. Also frog stitch v., to intentionally rip out a seam, and n., an intentionally ripped seam.

Etymological Note: While it is possible that, as frequently stated, frog does come from the admonishment of “rip it, rip it” that might be given when seams are imperfect, which is similar to an imitation of a croaking frog, it is also possible that an unraveled or undone garment has loops of thread or yarn resembling frogging, which is a looped ornamental braid, or coat fastenings made of cylindrical buttons that go into fabric loops.

i was having a perfectly lovely day (well - apart from the getting up at 20 past 6 in the morning, having to wear a suit, strange woman on the train on the way in clicking gum (how annoying!) new box of muesli that is just odd, and meetings galore) and, on my way home, i knitted, as is my wont.

i messed up. i messed up 8 stitches into a 125-stitch row and did not notice till the end when i had a surprising 8 stitches left instead of 7. argghhhhh.

i tried to fix it by working back, my knitting got tighter and tighter. it was actively fighting me. i missed a stitch. cue bad language (in my head - i am a polite train passenger).

i put it to one side and fumed the rest of the way home, it's one thing to make mistakes. it's another thing entirely to dig oneself into a quagmire trying to remedy the situation. my knitting guru k would have to be called in. she has been relaxing of late, knowing that i have finished the first blanket and not yet aware of the impending doom.

"hmmmmm" she said.

this is k - "don't worry it will block out" - "don't worry no one will be able to tell" - "don't worry little mistakes are what makes hand knits precious"

i'm so glad i have someone to give a second opinion though, because deep in my heart, i knew that baby was going to have to be frogged, but if i'd frogged it on my own, i always would have wondered - couldn't it have been saved?

i sound melodramatic - it was only an inch of knitting (over 125 stitches though!!)

so i shall be frogging this evening.

rip-it

phew

well, reader, i finished it.

last friday, i handed that baby in and washed my hands of it. it will fly, or it will sink. it should definitely earn me an llm (that's a law masters. i know, i didn't know either). i have no faith in it. i have full faith in it. i am not sure i actually care anymore.

when i came home, a big bouquet of flowers was on the table - a beautiful and thoughtful gesture from my parents, with n's collusion.

last weekend was the hop festival in faversham and i partook with gusto. the weather was great, i saw everyone i know in faversham, the music was excellent - especially n's band which played sunday morning. needless to say, i also drank alot of ale.

monday i was so knackered i wasn't sure i was going to make it to work (i did). tuesday too. even wednesday. thursday, after 3 days of not drinking and going to bed at 9pm, slightly better. today - i may live. i think the combination of 2 week-ends of weddings, the relief of finally handing in, and the indulgence of the hop fest nearly put me over the edge! we are not (ahem) as young as we used to be.

do i miss the dissertation? hell no.

it hasn't really hit that it's all done though.