Stuff

Have you found me yet?

Should I respond the email from the gentle and kind russian girl, Oksana, who is lonely and looking for her heart's desire and wants to send me her picture or should I respond to the sincere, conscientious and rather persistent banker from Burkina Faso who wants to share 7.5 Million dollars worth of gold if only I send a nominal fee to clear the treasure chest through customs. I feel that, at this point of my life, I can only be taken advantage of by one spam scam at a time - should I opt for love or money? sigh.

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What is it about colanders that can evoke such passion?  Yes,  I said colanders.  The bowl thingee with holes in it that you drain pasta with.

While in the midst of dragging boxes back to my house,  a friend mentioned that when she and her ex split, one of the bones of contention in the separation of worldly goods was the 35 year old, ugly green tupperware colander.  She said it was her mother's .... her ex said it was her mother's.  And so the war began.  I started laughing because many many years ago when i moved out of a roommate situation - the metal colander was also a bone of contention. It was my colander. It was actually the first thing I bought for the apartment (odd, yes ... but there you go ... the colander has special meaning to me, even if I don't drain alot of pasta).  My roommate didn't think I used it enough to warrant me taking it with me.  In the end, the colander got packed and I have it still.  I'll be packing it up again in the next few days.  I'm hoping it won't become an issue, perhaps I'll just sneak it in a box without mentioning it.  I think, if ever I enter into another shared living arrangement - I will have a pre-nup drafted to guarantee that I get the colander.  That way I'll be able to sleep easy, knowing that my colander-rights are looked after.

I suppose all this sorting and packing is making me introspective, but I find myself surprised at what objects end up meaning something to me and what things don't.   At certain points I'm convinced that if just grab seven pairs of underwear and my laptop, I'll be good to go.  Or rather - seven pairs of underwear, my laptop and my colander.

When working late in the office, don't sing outloud while listening to MP3 player.  
I'm not sure who was more startled - me or the cleaning crew.   Oddly enough, the guy with the vacuum didn't seem to want to join in on the chorus of  "Take a Chance on Me".  I thought everybody loves Abba songs.

For anyone who has ever owned or touched a computer ...
French and Saunders Computer Trouble
"Is it the carburetor?"



French and Saunders Surfing the Web
"if you just put in an innocuous farmyard word or phrase"

I adore French and Saunders.  

Some time ago, some friends of mine were planning their wedding.  In what amounts to a brief bout of panic, one of them went out and spent the money they had been saving for the wedding on a brand new leather couch. It was gorgeous - but a surprise to her fiance.  We teased her for years about the Wedding Couch.  Seventeen years later, he's gone, but she still has the couch.  Guess it was the better investment.

She and I went shopping over the weekend and I am now the proud owner of a Divorce Couch - a gorgeous leather sofa of my very own.  

I love the couch, but the name makes me a bit sad. 

After 51 days of strike and another week or so of them repairing and recertifying, the buses are back.  So far, so good - both drivers and passengers are polite and civil, no snarkiness or ugly comments that I've heard. Even better, I was stuck on the other side of the street waiting for the light to change and the driver actually waited for me.  Definitely a good start.

Now I have to get used to taking the bus again - which means more time for reading. :) It's nice to have the freedom to get around again. 





 

I've done the worst thing possible and fallen in love with something based solely on the picture. I'm hoping to go see it this weekend or next.  I'm pretty sure I'm buying it.


The table is very narrow ... so having anyone else sitting at it would qualify as an intimate dining experience. :) But it's absolutely gorgeous. 

We stopped off at AfterStonewall this afternoon and I did my best to support the local LGBT bookstore. :) The fact that they had several copies of Haunted Hearths on the shelf made me even more eager to support the store. I wasn't looking for anything in particular (and forgot to bring a list of authors books I've been keeping an eye out for - it never fails, when I walk into a bookstore, my brain goes blank and I tend to wander through the stacks); but, I picked up a few new and used books to add to my growing TBR List.

Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule
I figured it was time to read some classic lesbian literature. I've seen the movie - and adored it. It made a big impact on me at the time I saw it, and I had one heck of a crush on Helen Shaver (though wasn't quite ready to admit it). This is the movie I went searching for after hearing a Siskel and Ebert review and was blushing profusely when the video store clerk took my money (I inadvertently rented Desert Bloom first and was mildly disappointed to find out it was a coming of age story of a young girl in the 50's, it was actually quite a good movie, just no lesbians). I've never heard a bad review of this book, so I'm looking forward to it.

Bending the Landscape: Horror ed Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel
I enjoyed all three of the Bending the Landscape anthologies, but this was my favourite. I bought a copy for myself to make sure it stays on my bookshelf.

Calling the Dead by Ali Vali
I've enjoyed the Devil series (although I am starting to wonder if there are any straight people in New Orleans ... or even any not involved in crime families) and this is the latest. I could have picked it up in e-format, but decided that this one would be good to settle in to read while soaking in the tub on a cold winter night. (soaking in the tub with the e-reader could lead to another expensive replacement)

Dawn of the Dance by Marianne K Martin
A bit of an impulse buy. Someone mentioned that they liked her as an author and it was on the used shelf. Let's see if I agree.

The IHOP Papers by Ali Liebegott
I've heard good things about this one but I can't for the life of me remember where. Another impulse buy. Good thing my impulses are supporting the local LGBT bookstore.

She Walks in Beauty by Nicole Conn
This was a complete impulse buy. I knew nothing of the author, the back blurb sounded interesting enough and it was on the used shelf. The half naked woman on the front had nothing to do with my decision - honest. I googled her when I got home and found out that this author is the one who is responsible for Claire of the Moon - the movie that made me reconsider if I really wanted to be a lesbian after all. (Luckily Desert Hearts made enough of an impact earlier on that I could flush Claire of the Moon from my memory).

In keeping with the holidays, one of my stories, Run Run Rudolph, has been posted at Lorelei Signal. 
It's an angsty/sappy Christmas story with a bit of a twist. 
Hope you enjoy ...

I've always known that I have pathetic eye hand coordination - but this game takes the cake:

http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

The sad thing is, when I try to run in the real world, I have about the same success.




Thanks to vylar_kaftan  for the link.

What do you do when you combine a winter storm warning, 15+ cm of snow, freezing rain and a bus strike? 


Work from home. 

I have no idea if this is going to work but it looks like the opposition has made Harper blink and realize that a minority government isn't the same as a full majority.  Even if Harper backtracks on everything and starts acting like a Minority government leader and working with the other parties, I don't know that he'll ever recover.  The Conservative Bully Boys have lost some face - and thank god the opposition have finally stood up to them.  

 

Most LesFic books have some degree of humour in them – just as they all seem to have some degree of romance.  Humour is subjective, so what I find amusing isn’t likely to be what others do – and sometimes humour is completely situational (for some reason or other, Deuce Bigelow, Male Gigalo makes me giggle like a ten year old boy, even though I probably shouldn’t).  

 

Quite often humour is a delicate balance – whether satire is clever and cutting or  slapstick that is ridiculous and overblown, and when you do write humour, you need to temper it so it doesn’t become mean-spirited or cruel or go completely over the top into absurdity (although, some absurdity can be a good thing).  

 

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I've always been a fan of speculative fiction - fantasy, horror, science fiction and all the sub genres that may end up under that designation. Over the years, I've found very few books in those genres that have lesbian content - most of the lesbian content I found early on were mysteries or romance (most often a combination of both). I'm a fan of mysteries, but eventually, I do get tired of the hardboiled PI/Inspector/Detective (with the exception of Mickey Knight) or the amateur sleuth who finds herself caught up in mystery and mayhem for approximately 250 pages. I'm always on the lookout for decent specfic stories that have lesbian characters - the following are some that I've come across in the last few months. 

 

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Over the past few months I've found myself reading. And reading and reading and reading. Part of the obsession is fueled by my recent aquisition of a Sony eReader. Part of it is likely my kneejerk reaction of avoidance of crappy things going on. Whatever the reason, I'm enjoying it and don't want to fall out of the habit again (which has happened on occasion). At this point, I burning through a book every day or two (have I mentioned that I love my eReader which can hold a hundred books and I can bring anywhere). I also seem to be avoiding mainstream books and focusing on LesFic (Lesbian Fiction), including my new fascination with uber. I'm actually astounded at how many "print" authors of LesFic seemed to start off in fanfic and I'm finding some very interesting and entertaining stories on the net. Besides, at a book a day, free/online fanfic is feeds my obsession without breaking the bank. I suspect that by the new year, I'll be reading less LesFic (because there is a threshold when it comes to sapphic angst) and moving back into mainstream and other genres for my reading material. But for now, I'm having a great time reading my LesFic fluff.

I stumbled upon another review for Garden: A Revised Tale at Two Lips Reviews.  Four and a half lips an the reviewer wishes "there were more stories written like this and that this one had been a bit longer because it ended entirely too soon. Well done!".    This was a very pleasant surprise.

I have an enormously large grin plastered to my face.

Now, if you haven't already,  go out and buy the damn story - I hear it's good.:)

Somebody tell me a joke or post a lolcat picture. After the movie tonight, I need a solid dose of cute and happy.

InsideOut, the LGBT Film Festival, is being held over this weekend and we took in the lesbian feature films for the night.

Congratulations Daisy Graham was the opener - and definitely set the mood for the evening. This is a very moving piece that looks at an older woman who is given some bad news and the decisions she is faced with as a result. The main event was Affinity (based on the Sarah Waters novel). It appears that lesbian authors/filmakers have run out of happy endings.   I actually liked Congratulations Daisy Graham quite a bit - sad and disturbing as it was - it was an extremely effective short that left the audience in silence at the end.  Affinity just didn't work for me- the story was a bit disjointed. The book wasn't one of my favourites, so that didn't help. 

There's a couple more movies in the line up I'd like to see over the weekend - I'm just hoping they have a bit more levity (or at least less death).

Looks like a repeat of last year's winter - first storm will be "wet heavy snow" and "15cm" and its arriving tomorrow afternoon.

On a lighter note, things are getting rather blog-like at Environment Canada's WeatherOffice site - "Humdinger may not be a scientific term but it may very well sum up the weather that mother nature has in store for eastern Ontario." I'm wondering if the next storm will result in the site posting Lolcats: