Validation

Another video from "Smart Bitches love Trashy Books," this one is 17 minutes of pure, unadulterated happiness. It's adorable short-filmmaking and i demand you watch it the whole way through at least once!



Don't you feel better now? You. You are great.

Only in Wales...

I just found this video on a blog called "Smart Bitches love Trashy Books," a link i clicked on because i physically couldn't not. The very first thing on the page was this video, which has nothing to do with smart bitches or trashy books, but which is amazing none the less.



Well done Baa Studs, you officially brightened up my rainy friday.

Happy Mother's day.

I've said it before and i'll say it again. My mum is cool.


All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

For once i disagree with Oscar. If i grow up to be like my mum then i will have succeeded in so many ways.
I love her.

Come, my magic stomach...

Yesterday was my lovely big brother's 22nd birthday. I find this unbelievable, since i remember making him a sticker for his 7th birthday with a big number 7 on it, because that seemed like really old to me.


Simon and i are pretty close, i talk to him via text, facebook, msn or phone a couple of times a day, and this weekend i get to shoot him with a paintball gun. He's my big brother and i love him, even though his feet always smell faintly of TCP, and he likes to beat me up in public.




Today was my beautiful and charming Virtual godmother's birthday. She's Simon's actual godmother, but she looks after me and as we talk mainly over the internet, the virtual tag kind of stuck. She tells awesome bedtime stories and is the person who first told me about Phillip Pullman, and Freaks and Geeks, and all kinds of other very cool things.


I love her because she's not just my mum's friend who talks to me when my mum's around, she's my friend, and we talk about stuff that my mum doesn't, like Buffy and Coconut Records. We are friends on our own terms, and i hope that never changes.


I hope they both had lovely birthdays, because they both make my time on earth happier by hanging out in it with me.

When I'm 64...

When i get old i've decided that I'm gonna be like Maud from Harold and Maude, but living in the city, and without the pubescent boy toy. When i'm old, my husband will look and dress like this


and i will still wear high heels and have iron grey hair and we will drink espresso or peroni at sidewalk cafes and we will laugh.

Any Savage can Dance

Yesterday at write club hardly anyone brought anything to read, so we did a writing exercise. Basically we all thought of a theme or sentence, and then wrote about it. The sentence the group came up with was "any savage can dance," a thought expressed by Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. We then had 5 minutes to write something based around that idea. I was pretty pleased with what i came up with, so i thought i'd post it. It's not very long, and completely unedited, so you get to see how my brain works under creative pressure to produce. Hope you like it.

Any Savage Can Dance

Standing on the floor,
Surrounded by amazons in 6 inch stilettos, throbbing drums beating our chests,
We move.
We sway and shake.
We are sexy and we know it and so do they.
We see them moving in, all hair gel and too much lynx, and we move.
We shake and sway away;
And they pursue.
Stalking us across the floor, past herds of copy-cats.
They are on the prowl, the hunt.
Any savage can dance, but we want more.
We shake to the beat of the throbbing drum in skin tight seduction put on to please,
To tease.
We bait the trap and wait for them to bite,
And they always do.
Any savage can dance, but we want more, and so we sway.

It's not really a poem, but it's not really prose. The line breaks are more to do with the speed at which the lines should be read. I was focused more on the rhythm of the words, on alliteration and a little bit of internal rhyme, which i don't normally really consider. I also wanted to get across the idea of people like wild animals, which doesn't come across quite as clearly as i wanted, but i only had 5 minutes, so i can forgive myself that. What do you think?

“Only great minds can afford a simple style.”

So i was on the sartorialist today because i'm sartorially uninspired, and i found this man, who i am now entirely in love with. I shall call him Theo.


Everything about his look works, the matching coat and all stars, the little stripey cardigan, and his adorable little wonky grin. I'm in love. Why don't boys at Sussex dress like this?

Then i saw this photo. I want to be this girl, she looks so cool, but like she's having so much fun. On an odd side note, her name is Clea, the name of the character i played in Black Comedy, which we performed to record breaking audiences this week. Go us! Maybe it's a sign of some sort, telling me to dress better or go to paris or something?


Now i have to go try and find some clothes to wear, and i know i won't look as cool as these guys, so it's hard to find the energy to bother!

The dog was created specially for children. He is a god of frolic. - Henry Ward Beecher

Dad just sent me this poem, and i think it's pretty nice, so i thought i'd share it.

The Power of the Dog

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it's your own affair--
But...you've given your heart for a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!);
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart for the dog to tear.
We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long--
So why in Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

Yeah, Wilf was a god of frolic, no doubt.
Woof.

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

Our difficulties of the moment must always be dealt with somehow, but our permanent difficulties are difficulties of every moment.
T. S. Eliot

So my friend killed himself this weekend, and the day after i found that out, my dog died. It's been a pretty shit week, but i'm getting through with Gatsby, Buffy, lots of green tea and hugs. Last week i watched this amazing film called Wristcutters: a love story, about where people go when they kill themselves. It's a really lovely film, and thinking about it is oddly comforting, because the characters become happier after their deaths, without any of that sitting on a cloud playing a harp type crap.
Anyway, i thought you might want to see the trailer. It's a hard to find film, never got a UK release, but it's amazing and has an awesome soundtrack and has Tom Waits and Will Arnett and Shannyn Sossamon in it. Enjoy.



This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
T. S. Eliot

And just to make you guys smile, here's my favourite photo of wilf.



I hope you're all having a better week than i am.

"God, am I like the rest after all?"

Every year, the thing that i look forward to most about Valentine's Day is the postsecret submissions for that week. There's always at least one that makes me cry, or smile, or both. Here are some of my favourites from this week.



I just found this F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, “I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.”
The man could write love. Don't you wish that was written about you?



There's Part of me that really loves this one, and i know it's the geek part. If you can't tell, it's Oz and Willow from Buffy, and the lines are from the scene where he first asks her out. It's one of the sweetest scenes in the whole 7 series of the show, and it just made me smile.


I'm watching that episode tonight.