January 25, 2005
I want to be ...
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Voters step over the blood to make their mark.
Posted by sniffles at 02:39 PM | Comments (2)Nawar Khadim Ahmed had gone home after seeing the man explode as he raised his arms. By 3pm, he was back to vote, carrying his two-year-old daughter, Noor. "We have to bury this chaos now and form a government," he said. "This is the time that we make a stand."
So like, it's going to be Trout Thursday in three days and I'm completely unprepared.
What's Trout Thursday?
Defined as the Thursday before Groundhog's Day, Trout Thursday is a completely open holiday. There's no religious origins, there's no official ceremony, there's no preconceived notion of what you're supposed to do, feel, be, or say. The only rule is, you have to eat trout. After that, it's up to you.
My first Trout Thursday was celebrated with Tara and Dave in Toronto when I did a flying three-day visit, back in 2003 when I was still drifting between countries. The flavour of the trout fillets we had that evening — stuffed with lemons, fresh thyme and baked en papillote — still lingers on my tongue. Mmm.
C'mon, Montrealers. I'll race you to the poissonnerie on Thursday morn.
Posted by sniffles at 11:13 PM | Comments (5)
One spends time offline, making real life things ...
(Albeit, not necessarily useful.)
Next time someone asks for a website design with "personality", remind them about the paper-clip dude from MS Word.
Posted by sniffles at 09:15 AM | Comments (1)
Now, I just need a band ...
Posted by sniffles at 01:08 PM | Comments (8)My gloves are wearing out. Same spot on either glove — the inner side of the thumb. The thermal lining is showing through what's left of black wool, it feels like I'm peeping at someone's underwear. Being left-handed, the left inner thumb bit is naturally three times more worn than the other; yesterday, the torn bit of wool was shamefully flapping about. Time for new gloves. Damn, I really loved these.
It occurred to me that the problem isn't helped by the number of things I carry in my pockets, where my gloves live when they aren't on my hands. Yesterday's inventory was something like:-
Left pocket: iPod + earphones, pen (sometimes I carry two), lip balm, mini-flashlight, bunch of keys, envelope with shopping list scribbled on it, left glove.
Right pocket: phone, little plastic booklet containing my bus pass (I've just cleaned this out; three days ago, it held bus passes from the last 3 months, a phone card and a folded up ad for a wireless router), packet of tissues, Frisk mints, the last of a tube of Halls, right glove.
I used to carry a notebook in the right pocket too, but I've filled it and decided to buy a bigger notebook to avoid the temptation of slipping it into my pocket — a vain attempt against The Bulging Pocket Syndrome. I'd soon look like Pebble with her cheeks full, except the bulge would be somewhere around my hips. (The notebook now lives in my backpack, whose contents is yet another story by itself.)
But seriously, what with all these "pocket-sized" things they make these days, don't you feel the pressure to fit as much as you can into your pockets too? I mean, 10,000 songs in your pocket! A whole portable virtual privacy machine, in your pocket! Maybe a pocket-sized pump? You never know if you might suddenly need to deal with corrosive liquids whilst on the go ...
Posted by sniffles at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)Chris writes some ultra-cool anagram poetry.
Posted by sniffles at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)I've never been much of a songwriter. It might not be so surprising, but occasionally I wonder why I never tried harder. After all, music fuels my life, and writing music came surprisingly easy to me. (At least, it used to.) Poetry too, at that. I also sing. The only times I remember I haven't yet truly tried my hand at songwriting are the times I've been reminded about the lyrical, rhythmic qualities to my writing — which I simply attributed to having been an almost-musician once upon a time. My conclusion is that there's a switch somewhere in my head; music came first, word-wielding came later, and that while they continually feed off each other, I've never managed to get them to mix.
Anyway, all that to say that whilst digging through some digital archives in the vain effort to recover the text of my thesis, I found one of my more serious lyric-writing attempts. Given that I didn't flinch reading through it last night, I suppose it was probably a passable attempt. Oddly enough, I still have the memory of having written this while sitting cross-legged on my black armchair, thinking about old friends, staring out over the patio at the lemon tree showering bright yellow fruit all over the grass browned by heat, in a house I once owned. It came with a white picket fence, which I kept because I thought it was a good joke.
So, here's the first chorus, for your moaning pleasure.
Ordinary words for an ordinary world
Unordinary sight of an unordinary girl
Bright yellow jacket and a blue denim skirt
So much love in exchange for unspoken hurt
Literary poetry for a three-second whirl
Much, too much rhyme for my taste
Green light swirl and a grey linen skirt
So much heart for so much haste
(I know I probably made up a new word, but 'extraordinary' isn't exactly sing-able and doesn't quite mean the same thing ...)
Posted by sniffles at 01:55 PM | Comments (2)Cos: happy new ear
Me: thanks, happy new ears to you too!
So, every first morning of a new year, it's the question that pops into my head. The date/time on my blog archives are a bit off (I suspect I confused MT given the number of times I've switched timezones), but last year (!!), I asked: "What's the first song you will listen to in the New Year?"
. Then I thought it didn't make sense, because if you happen to be at a party some place where the music is chosen already, you might not necessarily have been paying attention to what was playing. So ... what's the first song or album you put on New Year's morning, after you wake up drowsed from partying?
(O'er here, we have Elliott Smith's "From A Basement on the Hill". )
Posted by sniffles at 11:43 AM | Comments (8)