Things I wish I cared about, but don't ...

The American elections: don't live there, don't want to know.



Big Brother: everyone will talk about it, but I haven't watched it since I got over the sexual fantasies about Craig, the builder.



Classical music: I feel like I should have some sort of appreciation for it, but don't.



Organic foods: I'm all about convenience lately. When they package the food in microwaveable containers I might care.



Getting to know the rest of Britain: I've not much desire to see much of it.



Social networks and online communities: everyone I read online is talking about it, but I don't seem to be interested in it.



The direction my life is going in: I lack a goal, a direction, but right now care more about what's happening on EastEnders



Having a cause: I seem to remember having fire and indignation about many things.



Architecture: Shouldn't I know more than I do?

Yesterday I wrote to Kelly that no one seemd very fussed about the fire that destroyed part of Charles Saatchi's collection. I'm not the only one who thought so.

Apparently, Kerry's response to hearing that Bush took a fall from his bicycle was, 'Did the training wheels fall off?' Amusing, if not placed in the larger context of Washington's attitude to the Iraqi self-governing hand-off.

Semiotics in the news. No, really.

Brilliant things

Oyster card. The new swipe-able tube card is a treat. But I recently lost it after buying a month pass. The customer service journey was a bit of a circle (register online to send an email that links to an FAQ online that gives a phone number to call). Their solution is brilliant: they mail a replacement card, move the expiration date forward, and give you a refund for any travel costs incurred while it's being sent.



Sainsbury's coin counting machine.

The curse of living in England is that one tends to have a lot of coins at any given time. It had been piling up at home in a plastic bag. Sunday, I carried it all to Sainsbury's where there's an automated coin counting machine that gives either a voucher for groceries or a charitable donation. I knew I had a lot of coin, but even I was stunned to have had £67.09 in 10s, 5s, and penny coins.

Work in progress

Yes, I know it's not perfect, but I felt like the blog needed a change. I'll keep working, so please be patient.

On having magical powers ...

The other day I willed a book into existence. Moaning about not having anything interesting to read and wishing there was a new A.S. Byatt book. 24 hours and a tirp to Selfridge's later I find The little black book of stories.



Now I wish Jason Merrells would keep me as his sex toy.

The anxiety and elongation

Saw the El Greco exhibition at the National Gallery last night. It was another evening of walking around thinking, 'I should remember more of this than I do.' For some reason, I could remember unprompted that his name was Domenikos Theotocopolous. Ask me to name the centuries he lived or name a painting and I would have been at a loss, but I remembered his name.



It was a lot of religion. Predictably. But at one point I got the message from one of his crucifixion scenes: Jesus waxed his private bits.



The catalogue, which I thumbed, but didn't read, (is it sad that I wondered if 'thumbed' has a sexual connotation?) said that one art historian thinks he may have had a stigmatism that accounted for the elongated figures. I think he was a drunk who rushed through yet another religious commission. Whole areas of the paintings seemed rushed or unfinished. In some of the Temple paintings, for example, a cage of birds and the architectural detail was very fine, but the faces of the figures, including those being flagellated by Jesus, were big blurry blobs of paint. Wildly uneven. That said, there were some charming portraits.



The exhibition seemed fairly inclusive: St. Martin and the Beggar, St. Louis, View of Toledo, but I found it all very unsatisfying. As I so intelligently summed up to Tim, 'I'm not a fan.' I'm an ass. UCDavis should revoke my degree. Six years of higher education and art history classes and my insightful critique was, 'I'm not a fan.'



I spent yesterday feeling wildly anxious about something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It wasn't money worries, or work, or anything I could name. Tim says it was the full moon --having a tidal pull on my emotions. I was worried I had forgotten something, like, oh my god I forgot to pick up the kids at school, or oh my god I left that gas burner on, or oh my god, I'm 35 and forgot to get a man and a career (which is the one true anxiety of the lot, I guess)



Anyway, afterwards I went home and had an anxiety attack. It was the Mt. Everest of anxiety attacks. I used to have them a while ago, through school and whatnot, and once around Organic closing time, but not since really. So today, I'm left exhausted and feeling a bit winded and wondering what that was about.



I need a preoccupation, a hobby. Clearly it's not going to be art history.

Sturm and sturm

It's a very English thing to be constantly talking about the weather, but the weather this weekend was extreme. Sunday, Kirsten, Andrew and I sat in the open window of a French bistro enjoying the sun and warmth and a day later we've got frost, hail, and torrential rain. Wonder what the Summer holds.



Spent the morning judging the website design category of the Student D&AD awards. There weren't many entrants -- I think the brief may have been too specialist, if not generally too difficult (and I authored the brief) but there was a fairly high level of conceptualisation even if the finished products were sometimes rough. Still, it's good for getting one's name out and all that.