Frizz

Just watched the first of a wonderful documentary series on BBC 2 (Monday’s 7-8 pm) looking at ‘the 1970s and 1980s when the extreme left wing came to the political fore’. Fascinating subject and made like documentary’s used to be made with interviews and archive footage… catch it next week if you can.

I love my new bag, because my camera goes everywhere with me now. Hence the picture of Adrienne Rich signing copies of her books after a wonderful reading at the South Bank on Friday. I got my copy of The Fact of a Doorframe signed, I said thank you… twice, she looked at me as if expecting more, but thank you all there was.* If I’d been feeling more confident and articulate and there’d been more time, I’d have explained that what I was thanking her for was for taking the time to come and read to us and how much we all appreciated that (at 76 long distance flying can’t be that much fun), for having a voice and speaking out, for being brave and passionate, for being a role model, because the world needs heroes that reach for the stars.** Because every strong unafraid [Jewish] woman I meet chips a little more away at the ‘keep your head down’ mentality I grew up with. The world needs heroes and we should all be reaching for the stars.

* M said this was better than what happened to a friend of hers when she went up to get a book signed by a well known writer - she asked if they could be pen-pals - the answer was no and the friend couldn’t believe she had actually asked out loud.
** I’m still addicted to The West Wing. Bartlet, series four.

D just told me that his dentist is now offering Botox injections, apparently it’s a natural progression from teeth to face, [doesn’t it want to make you scream].

T and A (sister and niece) made a flying visit this evening. I requested plaits from A and have four cute little ones. T let me copy Patti Smith’s Land album which she says is amazing… I have it playing now. In return we lent them a video recorder so A can record Muse on MTV tomorrow. She’s going on a Geography field trip, which ends with a day at Alton Towers [a theme park], I don’t remember that happening when I was at school. She only half joked that it was the main reason for anyone to take Geography.

Just came back from leafleting the estate; informing residents of the Gangster’s new appeal. It seems to be always an eventful experience. This time I had a lovely chat with a semi-retired biochemist (D I think they are the new winners of the longest residents award) our conversation covered hospital based infectious diseases, overdevelopment of the area, government imposed targets and privatization of the NHS. Then I walked by the new principle of my old school, we met last fall and I was supposed to get in touch and never did (and of course I’ve been feeling bad about it). She does seem like a lovely woman, I am thinking “why wasn’t she principle when I was there”, but then I’m not the same person I was then, so I probably wouldn’t have appreciated her… I wasn’t too good with authority figures. We talked about an experience she’d had on a Christian-Jewish program to Israel and Palestine, which sounded very interesting. I again promised to get in touch, I can’t quite see it, but you never know. She asked for my full name and I cringe imagining her checking out my yearbook page.

You know I also saw my old English teacher at the Opera last week - something is going on here.

Did you see the news that a hot water bottle really does work against menstrual pain and actually acts in the same way as a painkiller.

I watched the Shuttle go up and even though I tried my best to be cynical, I just couldn’t and the wonder of space travel got the better of me. You can see the launch and more at NASA’s site.

Not so wonderful to hear about North Korea’s own launches.

We have a lot of foxes around here. They used to be kinda scruffy and rather sorry looking and you only ever saw them at night. That seems to have all changed and now they are healthy looking, walk around during the day seemingly unafraid and at night hang out together. The other night I watched as five ‘teenage’ foxes played chase. Five is never a good number where friends are concerned, perhaps better than three, but even so. So one somehow got rejected and whilst the others went in one direction she slumped off on her own in another, and I felt kinda sorry for her, because we’ve all been there.

I’m still having trouble with my email… such a pain.

I’m blaming the weather, (an official heat wave*) for my lack of posts, that and the wheat. I finally thought I would have a blood test for some medical legitimacy on the gluten issue. Everywhere I’ve read it says you have to be eating gluten in order for the test to work, so I was dragged kicking and screaming to the bread shop (as if, I couldn’t get there fast enough) for a weeklong festival of wheat. The only trouble is I don’t think a week will do it - I think it needs to be 3 months and a week was all I could manage. I had the blood test on Friday anyway. Just in case you are wondering, I made the most of my week, highlights being; birthday cake and those yummy fairy cakes at R’s party, bravely continued with a pizza (wonderful until it made me feel very ill), I had the most delicious sandwich of melting brie on ciabatta (made even better by being eaten whilst sitting out in the sun), a bagel, and the piece de resistance was a cup cake. Although everything was very tasty, my stomach was not happy, I never thought I would say this, but it was actually a relief to stop on Friday.

* My computer substitutes as a very efficient hot water bottle, in the winter it’s great, in the summer it’s hard going.