i am back off the candy wagon.

i had been doing sooooo well. ever since I got back to london, i had been able to have just a few twizzlers here, a tootsie pop there, a spoonful of marshmallow fluff every so often. and now it has all been blown out of the water, and i blame it on kindereggs.

this week i started buying my kindereggs again, something i had sworn off since my return. i always start out buying just one, savoring the milk and white chocolate shell, delighting in the toy surprise contained within. they pick me up when i am having a hard day, give me something to smile about over my morning coffee. it always starts with just one.

but before you know it, i am buying 3 or 4 over the course of a day, just to “get me through a rough patch”. and i’m too ashamed to buy them all at once. so i vary my shops, nonchalantly adding one to my carton of milk and loaf of bread while standing at the till. casually buying one with my pack of cigarettes. picking one up with my newspaper on the way home. the toys start to disappoint, as i come across duplicates or triplicates of ones already in my collection. and the thin chocolate shell starts to leave me wanting something more substantial. something creamier, or gooier, or longer lasting. so i begin to supplement with rolls of butterscotches, or packets of jellybeans, or a bag of mints. maybe some nougat, or a few winegums, or a toffee bar. and i begin the downward spiral, where nothing ever satisfies the full range of my cravings, and i start to hide my piles of wrappers or dispose of them in public rubbish bins, and begin to manufacture excuses for “just popping round to the shop”.

one is too many, and one hundred is never enough.

and i keep going until i hit bottom, that point where i am ashamed to be seen yet again at the pic-n-mix counter of woolworths, and turn red under the astonished stares of my co-workers as i demolish a full half pound of sweets sitting at my desk, and i no longer even taste the difference between a caramel cream and a liquorice drop, and i am full to bursting, yet seem unable to stop until the last swedish fish and piece of honeycombe are gone, the sugar dusting my keyboard the only remaining evidence.

and i feel ill. i crash, the insulin flooding my bloodstream to try to regulate all that sugar, and my serotonin depleted. the initial high of having a such a delicious variety of tastes and textures to explore, suddenly gone, replaced by the disgust of gluttony and guilt and loss of control.

and i repeat the cycle again and again and again. until i start to realise that i can’t have *any* sugar. not one little jelly tot, not one starburst. and i methodically eliminate all sugar from my coffee, all cookies from my cupboard, all jams and marmalades from my toast. it gets easier and easier each day, and finally i feel as though i have conquered my demons, i have mastered my cravings. i am disciplined and sugar-free.

and it lulls me into a false sense of security, until, in a weak moment i may have a cherry flavoured cough lozenge, or a bit of honey in my tea, and before i know it my willpower evaporates and i fall prey to my addictions again.

so if you see me standing in front of the convenience store, shaking my paper cup, desperation in my eyes, pleading for a bit of change to just get my daily fix of cadburys, my one hit of tic tac…

…have pity on me

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can’t escape it anywhere: the a-rod deal even made it into the papers in london, where they couldn’t care less about baseball. of course, they had to draw parallels to football to explain it…

apparently the riaa’s super-efficient tactic to protect copyrights is to sue file-shares a few hundred at a time. um, yeah. that’ll work. because it makes sooo much more sense than, say, putting time, money and energy into producing music in a format people *want* to legally use.

it’s trying to close the gate after the horse has left the stable and it’s an archaic solution to a 21st century problem. you can’t stop the spread. so instead of trying to dig in your heels, and selectively, punitively litigate a few hundred people who are only guilty of doing the same thing *millions* of others are doing, why not get with the times and spend your resources trying to figure out how to give people what they really want. ‘coz they’re taking it anyway.

the dollar briefly hit $1.91 against £1 today. which is good for me (getting paid in pounds sterling and transferring money back home), good for the US trade deficit, good for stimulating the economy, and sucky for european tourists getting up to hit the shores of america for summer holiday. sorry ’bout that.

in personal news, my kitty hendrix has died back in nyc. wish i had a scanned picture to post, but i don’t. she was just a tiny little kitten when we got her, almost all black with giant ears. she was eleven, and used to walk “tip tip tip tip tip” across the room, rub her head on your bare feet, knead the inside of your elbow, cry like a siamese, like to watch the toilet flush, and enjoy knocking things off of shelves to watch them fall, particularly after 2 am. she will be sadly missed by myself, my ex, my friend shelley, and her brother-cat wamma.

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so i think i finally figured out this fancy external css thing (here’s a hint: this template you are viewing right now is not it) and i can’t check it out because my stupid server is having difficulties. arrgh. did i mention it is 1:00 am?

i’m a loser. i know.

but ha ha ha! i have a pixies ticket!

10:30 – ho hum, bored at work. my work flow could be described as: long streaks of “rushed off my feet”, interspersed with stretches of “twiddling my thumbs”. it’d be really nice to have some consistency, but i don’t forsee that happening.

in the meantime, they are already asking me about doing a service-wide quality assurance post after this integration bit is over. it’d be a nice little pay rise, and a pretty significant amount of responsibility. more money, higher profile, more permanence. however i’m not sure i could deal with the frustration that accompanies it.

working in the council is truly an eye opener into local goverment. think of a snail’s pace. now think of that snail as crippled. now think of the crippled snail as being frozen inside a glacier. that’s about how fast things move, and roughly equivalent to how easy it is to get anything done. you can have initiative and ideas, but by the time you make it through 7 levels of executive groups and sub-committees and stakeholder consultations, you are ready to discard the whole thing completely.

in any case, it could be interesting, so i’ll have to think about it.

observation: this morning at my train station, i saw no fewer than 10 workers installing one cctv camera. apparently 9 were there for moral support…

did i mention i am going to see the pixies?? don’t worry, i’ll only be this annoying about it for the next 4 months.

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been wanting to catch up on my movies, so this weekend was all about dedicating myself to partaking of the best of cinematic offerings and killing time until the superbowl

yesterday’s doublefeature was supposed to “american splendor” followed by “lost in translation”, however due to a cockup in the newspaper, “american splendor” was not being shown at its advertised time. so instead went to see “lost in translation” and “big fish”.

“lost in transation” was… well, close to home. 72 hours in the lives of two disenchanted americans trapped in tokyo, drawn to each other by isolation and the commonality of being two strangers in a strange land, they find solace and escapism in running away from the mundane mediocrity of their lives and the alienation of being alone in the middle of a frenetic city, and when they have to part and return with a bump to the humdrum everyday of disintegrating marriages and terrifyingly unformed futures, it is all the more wrenching for its unexpected depth of emotion.

watching it, i couldn’t help identifying. for all my desire to go places and do things, it often feels like running. escapism in the hope that something better lies ahead, but terrified that i’m leaving the best behind. needing to move because i’m afraid of standing still. leaving before i get left.

no matter how much i may like living here, being an american is britain is both alien and alienating at times. there are surface similarities, but they don’t keep you afloat. in the end, i have few friends here, and no family or partner to be my touchstones, my familiars in a sea of unfamiliarity. being alone over here, i’m really *alone*, and it’s when things become scary or overwhelming that that feeling is most acute. when i was getting kicked out, interrogated by immigration, facing the prospect of never coming back, i’ve never felt more entirely alone in my life. luckily, most of it is not like that. but it’s hard to explain the experience.

today was all about “lord of the rings”, which was simply incredible. mythos of biblical proportions played out in the grandest fashion on screen. for me, the most powerful theme running through it is not “good prevailing in the face of insurmountable evil” (obvious) or even “enduring friendship overcoming all obstacles” (trite), but rather that of “greatness thrust upon the shoulders of the everyman”. because when it comes right down to it, and it feels as though you are beset with turmoil and strife and hardship on all sides, and there is no way to win the fight but you must face it head on with nothing but the courage of your convictions, doesn’t everybody hope that it’s all for the end of some greater purpose, some higher good, like saving the world from destruction?

and now, ladies and gentlemen, it is finally superbowl time. no beer or crisps in the house, so i shall have to make do with vodka and the last of my luckycharms cereal whilst i watch my favorite team wreak havoc and bloodshed upon the pansy asses of the carolina panthers.

as ever, go pats!

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ugh.

i have the dreaded virulent kick-ass flu. that, combined with sleep-deprivation and an exhausting jam-packed-meeting-filled week at work, have kept me achy, feverish, and prone in bed for nearly 24 hours. i wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

however, i am bored to pieces with sleeping, and my eyelids are burning up with reading, so i have dragged my laptop into bed to work on finding a place to transfer my website to. my current server sucks rocks with its majorly annoying ftp, non-intuitive web editor, and it won’t let me upload mp3s. and let’s face it: what’s the point of having a website (however tiny) if you can’t inflict your musical taste on people whilst simultaneously thumbing your nose at the riaa?!? exactly.

things to do while you are inert and sick in bed: stare at the walls, turn yourself 180 degrees and stare out the window instead, stare at the ceiling, sleep, read, sleep, watch dvds on your laptop (just watched “magnolia” again, and “high fidelity” for the 8 millionth time – john cusack is emminently lickable [yes, *lickable*] and makes me all hot and bothered [and no, that's not just the fever talking]).

sad news: captain kangaroo has died. you know you are getting old when all your warm and fuzzy childhood icons start dying off like flies. first mr. rogers, now the captain. generations of children today are growing up in a less kind-and-gentle world. will kids born in the naughties grow up and reminisce fondly about the pivotal developmental influence “the rugrats” or “blue’s clues” had on their lives? somehow, i doubt it. the other day i had to explain to angela why “free to be you and me” with marlo thomas had such a profound impact on me as a young girl growing up at the tail end of the women’s lib movement of the 70s. y’all know what i’m talking about. others may dispute this, but i find it really sad that there is no sense of any sort of similar empowering ideal for today’s children to embrace. britney spears is no gloria steinem.

more sad news: despite my wartime-like rationing, my candy corn is gone and my luckycharms are running perilously low. anyone who wants to prove how much they love and miss me, can send me some from here.

anyway.

back in the gotham jungles of NYC, the city keeps subdividing, and there is no place to hide from the hipsters. jeezus. witness: the birth of loles. the lower-lower east side. where has all the grunge gone? one of the best parts of living there was knowing the tiny seedy neighbourhoods where grime and poverty and the hint of danger all lent themselves to a feeling of inhabiting a different undergound underworld, far from the well-heeled 5th avenue elite. where surviving on mac ‘n cheese, becoming an expert at finding free means of entertainment, and creatively thriving in low-rent/high-crime areas, was an art form? fort greene, williamsburg, red hook, and the meat packing district are all becoming gentrified, even desirable places to live, developing a cachet. places to prove your coolness quotient by going to gallery openings in lofts, drinking in expensive “dive” bars, and paying too much for secondhand designer duds in “thift stores”.

posing poor is the new black. the apocalypse cannot be far away.

in hockey news, congrats to bruins defenseman nick boynton, who was named to the all-star team. he joins perennial fave joe thornton as the b’s only other representative. poor joey is still recovering from face surgery for a broken cheekbone he suffered in a fight with the rangers’ little bitch eric lindros. we still won. then came back the next day and bitch-slapped them again. ha ha. anyway, joe should be good to go for the all star game.

I hate pepsi, but this superbowl ad is kind of tongue-in-cheek cool.

speaking of the superbowl, only 7 days to go! since no one i know here has cable (or cares!) i’ll be going to the pub solo to watch and celebrate into the wee hours of the morning. the only pain will be getting a taxi back home at that hour. not to mention hauling myself in to work on 3 hours sleep! but who care? the pats are gonna be superbowl champions of the world!

i’m babbling on deliriously, now. time for sleep

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