it kind of crept up on me over the past year, but recently i’m realising i’ve inadvertently become a vegetarian. again.

back when i was first entering high school, in a tiny act of rebellion or parental spite or misguided dieting, i decided to stop eating red meat. in fact, when i first started, i don’t think i had any more high-minded or noble purpose than the vain hope of perhaps losing a few pounds and setting myself apart from the crowd in some way. the only vegetarians i had run into then were the pale, stringy types who idly pushed their stuff around on their plates with a fork and picked gingerly at birdseed, all the while protesting that flesh was “gross”. and (my) flesh did gross me out, so i decided to restrict my dietary intake in a socially acceptable, even lauded way. i sold the idea to my parents by saying i was doing it for “health reasons”, and coming from families chock full of heart disease, (and betting, i’m sure, that the whole phase would last all of 2 weeks) they agreed to let me try.

the funny thing is, i used to love meat. rare, bloody meat. cured, fatty meat. thick, juicy meat. i loved steak. i loved pepperoni. sausages and chops. i used to steal bits of raw ground hamburger out of the frying pan. i used to down raw strips of bacon.

by all rights, this little experiment should have been an utter failure.

but amazingly, stubbornly, i stuck with it. i never lost any weight, of course (and looking back, i didn’t actually need to) but i continued on with it simply to prove that i could. to show my parents i could live the way i wanted. over time, it became a lifestyle by force of habit, and i never really thought much about why i’d started. i even went vegan for two years in college, eating no animal products at all, just to see what it was like. all told, i stuck with it for 14 years.

and then one day in 2000, i made myself a hamburger. and that was that. i ended much like i started – for no really good reason other than a whim.

so it’s pretty clear i was never vegetarian for moral reasons – i think there’s a reason humans are at the top of the food chain and have eaten meat for 2 million years. we’re designed to. i have no compunctions about killing animals for food, or qualms about the idea of eating dead carcass. even as a (not-so-strict) vegetarian i’d had the very rare piece of fish or chicken when at other people’s house. so it didn’t bother me to start suddenly eating meat again.

and i ate meat happily for many years, whenever i felt like it. and then i moved here.

and found out that meat in london is really, *really* expensive. and it doesn’t taste the same. and i don’t really know how to cook it very well. but j, being from south africa, has always been a pretty hefty meat eater. so we were having meat a lot, for quite a while.

and then two things occurred contemporaneously somewhere in 2005: we began saving *hard* for our trip, and i saw a programme on chicken factories. now i’ve always known that animals bred for food are not treated particularly *well*, but what they showed happening at the chicken factory was just beyond the pale. i decided then and there that if i was going to eat meat, i was going to buy only the most ethically sourced meat i could find. to some people that might sound like a silly distinction – after all, the animals end up dead anyway – but to me it was the difference between consciously choosing to support humane farming methods, and just eating whatever happens to be on the shelf in the plastic wrap without looking too closely. i’m lucky enough to have the luxury of deciding what kind of food i want to buy, so i decided that perhaps i should put a little thought into it.

and once that decision was made, meat simply wasn’t in the budget anymore. i wasn’t interested in buying steaks at £10 each when i could buy a week’s worth of tofu products instead. surprisingly, j was in agreement. meat was phased out, soy was phased in. it all happened pretty seamlessly.

and since we’ve been back from our travels, that mentality seems to have stuck, for whatever reason. it’s not with any purposeful intent – we could buy and eat meat if we felt like it. we have lots of fish (yes, i know that’s not truly vegetarian) and beans and quorn. when we go shopping i ask j if he wants anything in particular, and he invariably says no. i think, “oh it’d be nice to make steak tonight”, but then just kind of let the idea drift off. on the rare occasion when we do have meat, it never tastes as good as i think it will. it never seems worth it in the end.

so we’ve become aimless mostly-veggies by default. halfway-sorta-but-not-really on purpose. kind of the way it happened the first time. we could change that – but neither of us truly wants to.

but, damn, i still love me some pepperoni.

the housemartins – me and the farmer

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vegetarianism

Go to Google.com

Click on “Maps”

Click on “get Directions”

From: London, England

To: New York, New York

Click “search”

and why on earth would someone need to cross the channel first? though i shouldn’t complain, since according to these directions, i touch land at long wharf, boston and can stop-off to visit the family after my brisk ocean dip!

(bit of an obvious one, today’s song, but it had to be done!)

ben lee – float on (modest mouse cover)

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boston red sox v. seattle mariners. opening day at fenway park. and i’m watching it!! this nasn (north american sports network) cable channel is worth every penny.

some photos from the last time i was at fenway in 2004.

not as good as being there… but nothing is.

go sox!

and, as history dictates, i bring you…

the standells – dirty water (boston, you’re my home)

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opening day, boston red sox, fenway park

i had more than a few thoughts on the ridiculously sexist way the media sensationalised the woman naval officer who was amongst the recent british hostages in iran, but amity said them far better than I ever could:

To use and exploit motherhood to evoke emotions in the public, emotions everyone thinks are valid and chivalrous, is to further male-dominated agendas and knock women’s lib down a peg or two. The message is clear: the men were brave, the woman was saved. And now that she’s selling her story, insisting that it’s something ‘extraordinary’ when it was her job, what she signed up to do, pisses me off even more. There is nothing extraordinary about being a woman, being a mother, and being in the military. Millions of women do it every day. To pretend otherwise is to confirm what many have known all along — women are still not equal, in the boardroom or in the war zones, both at home and abroad. Turney exemplifies this and willingly makes herself a part of that prejudice.

so go read her post instead.

the decemberists – sixteen military wives

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iran, hostages, uk, faye turney

kalanchoe, variegated coleus, rhododendron, geranium, alyssum, verbena, bromeliad, succulent… the latinate language of music to a frustrated gardener.

since sprouting marigolds in paper cups as a little girl, i’ve loved growing things. my mother’s own enthusiasm for amateur botany was woven through the tapestry of my childhood memories – forest walks spent exploring the hidden life of the undergrowth, the overexuberant vegetable garden in the backyard, the patiently rooted cuttings with their delicate tendrils perpetually on the windowsills, waiting to be gently transplanted into pots. and she loved teaching me the names – identifying well known species aloud, looking the unfamiliar up in reference guides, fostering curiousity, honoring nature.

yet it’s only recently that i’ve begun to recognise the roots of that same affection within myself. moving back to boston in my late twenties was the first time i began to cultivate it – i had just moved into the first floor of a two family house, and was still idly looking for a job, when i began to try to tame the vast overgrowth of my new backyard. pretty soon, i found myself esconced in an old neglected corner plot of the yard, just aching to be renewed and replanted. i spent hours in the springtime muck, excavating thick weeds and wild grasses, hacking away dead vines and old stumps, combing through stones and preparing the beds. after investing so much energy in the preparation, i set out a diagram of vegetables and flowers – that first spring i installed tomatoes, beans, sunflowers, daylilies, basil, snapdragons and daisies. every afternoon that summer, i would come home from work, carefully search out any weeds, attach the hose to the sprinkler, and sit in the sun with a beer and the paper while the plants drank deeply from the soil.

still, it took me by surprise when it happened. under my watchful, industrious care, things actually began to grow. tiny bipalmate shoots emerging from a single seed. fragile roots multiplying and strengthening. stretching upward, gaining height every day. flowering, pollenating, fruiting. it fascinated me as nothing short of miraculous, like one of those time-lapse nature specials unfurling in real time right before my eyes. from nothing to something to abundance. the worms as allies, the bees as guardians.

i became a gardner in earnest. i pruned and mowed and tended that yard with such devotion. i carefully sculpted the old rhododendron back into shape, untangled the surprising grape vines covering the fence, sewed up the gaps of lawn with green, and ruthlessly executed any interloper weeds with the vengeance of a woman possesed. i created a small herb plot full of fresh thyme and rosemary. i cordoned off a large wildflower patch, strewn with poppies, columbine and nasturtium. i barbequed at weekends, gathered fresh bouquets of blooms, and watched the dog roll around in the grass with abandon. i pinched back even when i hated to, fertilised prudently, set out booby-traps for slugs. i dragged out the mower every summer, and stored the hose away every winter. i filled the birdfeeders religiously. i sat on my porch and watched the grass grow with a patience i didn’t know i had.

and even after i left that apartment behind, the garden still grew in my thoughts. i wondered if the bulbs had come up that spring. if the new occupants were tending the perennials, if they’d turned over the topsoil and planted new sprouts early enough in the season. if they’d protected the hydrangeas from frost.

since leaving that apartment, my nurturing instinct has been restricted, restrained. curtailed within the square confines of balconies and windowboxes. pot-bound, coiled in on itself, like the roots of a plant with noplace left to grow. i try still, seeding my energy in small containers of green longing, straining through glass-filtered sun. and there are some small successes – some hardy souls which flourish in spite of the crowding and smog.

and there’s me – still trying like hell to bloom where i’m planted. and if you look closely, some small encouraging shoots of growth, pushing up through thin soil towards the sky.

the youngbloods – sunlight

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spent the afternoon with my friend amity, scarfing lots of really good sushi, then a lazy afternoon floating through the v&a, my favourite museum.

and getting home, i find my beloved red sox on telly *with* the boston announcers! this day just gets better and better.

more photos here

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victoria and albert museum

it’s a friday morning. i woke up at the leisurely hour of 9:00, and am sitting here nursing a giant mug of strong, sweet coffee, getting ready to dive into a book. the flat is flooded with sunlight, the cat is bathing in a small pool of it on the floor, a tantalisingly warm breeze floats through the open window, soaring, swelling strains of opera in the background… and a four day weekend stretching out in front of me.

it doesn’t get any better than this.

Maria Callas – un bel di vedremo (Puccini: Madama Butterfly)

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so it’s that time of year again, when i have to steel my moral backbone to resist caving in and satisfying my intense craving for peeps (which are available at the asda near me – but asda is the uk branch of walmart, which i refuse to patronise)

but my lovely, wonderful, and oh-so-sweet friend stacey has sent me a bumper crop fresh from minnesota!

okay – so it doesn’t *look* like a bumper crop. you’ll just have to believe me when i tell you there were a lot more… originally.

stacey, i’m yours if you’ll have me.

of montreal – spoonful of sugar

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added: oh. my. life – stacey has just clued me into the passover peeps. hilarious. one word: frogs.

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the british soldiers are free to leave iran

exhale.

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It’s a big birthday year for a lot of my friends and family – the momentous 3-0. Kerryn’s already over that hill, Diana follows tomorrow, my sisters and J are right behind.

I remember approaching my thirtieth birthday with such intense, overwhelming anxiety. For the two years leading up to it, it felt like my life was spinning out of control – one long, protracted panic attack of stomach-churning and crushing weight. I was adrift – all the things that I had built my identity around were falling away, and suddenly I was *running*out*of*time*. It was one thing to fuck around in my twenties – ditching jobs, juggling debt, uprooting, making excuses, changing elements of my life as often as i changed my haircolour – because that’s what the twenties are for. But it was quite another to suddenly run up against the end of a decade and have little more to show for it than when I started. When you fuck up in your 20s, you can chalk it up to a learning experience. yet being a fuck up in your thirties… well, people are much more judgemental when you’re beginning the long approach to middle age.

And so I did what any sane person would do: I freaked.

It was like watching a car wreck in slow motion. Suddenly single after a decade long relationship, I threw myself wildly into dating. Sadly, I really sucked at that. Relationships I’m great at – dating, not so much. I tried exploring grad school – only to bomb at that as well. I took the gre and went down in flames of confusion and shattered self-esteem. In desperation, I decided to move to London – only to then have to purge everthing I owned and move back in with my mother. I threw out cappucino makers, juicers, sofas and treadmills, and went to living in a bedroom with two suitcases of clothes and my neice’s hamster. Hardly the life of a responsible adult.

In the weeks before I turned thirty, I was alone, emptyhanded, broke, working at a mindless job, and living with my mother. I was wallowing (drowning?) in self-pity.

And then I actually turned thirty. And suddenly, miraculously, i just stopped caring about what anyone else thought. This giant, bleak cloud of dread and self-loathing that i’d been towing around with me for so goddamned long – it completely disappeared, as if by magic. I spent my thirtieth birthday (christmas day) in new orleans with a friend, getting completely wasted for a week. and even for all the hangovers, it felt like being born again. i was happy and lighthearted and full of excitement and possibility – i couldn’t remember the last time i’d felt so alive. i had a *personality* again. i may have been the world’s most pathetic thirty year old ever, but i really couldn’t give a damn. in a moment of clarity, i realised the the only thing that mattered to me, was that i was *living* my life, on my own terms. seeking out new challenges, trying new things, never growing stagnant. i was doing exactly what i wanted to do, and if i couldn’t be happy about that, then i would never be happy about anything.

and i remember wondering why no one *told me* that that’s what happens. that you come into your own sense of self-assurance. that everything you’ve been through to that point, every miserable experience you survived, was for this – this understanding of what lies at the core of your innermost heart, the things that mattered to your soul, and how they shape your life. how *you* shape your life, because of them. and to their credit, they probably did try to tell me that – but it’s hard to be open to optimism when you’re paralysed by fear. it’s a scary thing, taking charge of your own destiny, deciding to be responsible for your own happiness. because when you take responsibility for your happiness and success, the corollary is that you also have to take responsibility for fear and failure. no more excuses, welcome to adulthood.

but the possibilities for happiness are limitless.

this turning-30 revelation didn’t fix my life (i was still broke, single, etc.) – but it absolutely did change it.

and i know that turning thirty probably doesn’t have that same effect on everyone – i certainly hope not everyone was plagued with existential doubt the way i was. but i do hope that everyone gets a chance to come to that same realisation sooner, rather than later. that they don’t waste years of their life waiting for happiness to land in their lap, but seize it, make it their own, take charge of joy.

that’s my birthday wish for them this year.

res – they say vision

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something i am good at: texas hold ‘em poker (apparently! who knew?!)

something i am not good at: the fine art of drinking on school nights (not feeling like the sharpest tack in the box this morning…)

ghostface killah and method man – the afterparty

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red sox opening day today!!

I love love love my red sox. Love.

The next 6 months are the best part of the year.

Play ball!

dropkick murphys – tessie

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opening day, boston red sox

but is is bad that i want to boil a bunch and try to peel them after watching this?

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i made this mix for a group of friends doing a cd exchange a few months ago, and figured I’d put it out for general consumption for a while, before I take the music down off my website.

it’s 19 songs long, so you’ve been warned (though if you subscribe to the podcast you can pick n’ choose)

MP3 playlist (M3U)

featuring elefant, goldfrapp, the coral sea, the honorary title, lizzie west, the fray, and many more. it’s a boppy, pop-y kinda mix.

here’s the .

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bush ratchets up the rhetoric in the u.k.-hostages-in-iran situation. because *that* will improve things. who took the duct tape off his mouth?

up until now, i had lazily assumed that this scene would play out much along along the lines of the u.s.-hostages-in-china situation a few years back. lots of staunch posturing and a heated war of “he-said/she-said”, but sensible heads eventually prevailing. i’m quickly realising that there are, however, two big differences between that crisis and this one: a) the u.s. had a huge economic incentive to use diplomacy b) neither country really wanted to fight the other (the u.s. with a healthy fear of china’s military might, and china being thoroughly disinterested in swatting at the u.s.)

unfortunately, neither of those constraints are applicable to today’s showdown.

still, if the handling of this impasse had remained squarely in the hands of the u.k., i would have still had relatively strong hopes for a peaceful outcome. but bush just can’t keep his nose out of the u.k.’s business, and it’s become very clear just who will be leading this parade (sorry for the horrible clash of metaphors.) he’s just itching for an excuse to fight, and iran is taunting him – all the while blair under ever increasing pressure to *do something*.

i have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

but before we start blowing things to kingdom come, here’s some food for thought.

let’s hope we’ve learned something from our recent mistakes.

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