Bahasa

For whatever reason, I decided to do some searching on the Malaysian Wikipedia. Yeah, my Bahasa Malaysia is sufficient to maybe get me through a menu, and even that's pushing it.

Check out this page. See how much you can figure out from the various languages you know (and what you know of Wikipedia's general page setup.) One of my faves: Inggeris (sort of what 'English' sounds like phonetically spoken by....someone for whom Inggeris is not a first language. Plus it reminds me of that paean to "innovative" usage of anglais, Engrish.com)

Submerge

On Tuesday, I will post the answers for the remaining 20/20 lyrics.

Since posting my list, I've been thinking of some of my favorite lyrics, one of which happens to be an opening lyric. (I'm not in love, but I'm open to persuasion) I'm kinda, sorta thinking about posting another mini-contest with my favorites, but it would involve some extensive combing through my iPod. Which doesn't it mean it won't happen, I'm all about research sometimes.

I've been using and abusing my library card. The library is only a block away - so convenient! And you can borrow CDs (To think, I may never have been introduced to my new obsession - The Lost in Translation soundtrack!) Because I have such access to music (i.e. without having to do the "is this CD worth the $$" dance), I'm trying out different things - sometimes, I choose CDs simply because the cover interests me, or someone mentioned the artist once at a party. Abbey Lincoln, Manu Chao, Maxwell - they've all come home with me.

..........

oodles, brimful, ads, and J-diddy spent Saturday evening hearing me endlessly quote the hook from Jay-Z's "Change Clothes" as we all attended the 4th Annual Evening of a Thousand Scowls to benefit 826 Valencia. (Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the line-up included Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswald and Al Madrigal.)

The line to get into the middle school venue was a study. As Dolly Parton once said, 'It costs a lot of money to dress trashy." The same could be said for hipsters: a lot of time, money, and energy goes into the carefully, "unstudied" hipster look. Whatever. The nearly-belligerent, appraising looks were nearly as bad as, if not worse than the Marina.

And then we saw some guy carrying a giant cross and being whipped walk up the street.

55 Fiction Friday: Safeway edition

Friday gets some errands done.

Oh, c’mon –she just pulled her checkbook out of her purse? Like she didn’t know she was going to have to pay for the groceries when she got in line. Now that the checker has scanned and totaled everything – now she decides to start filling out her check. More time with the Enquirer, I guess.

20/20

Straight-ripping this from brimful.

I set my iTunes on shuffle and wrote down the first line of the first twenty songs (excluding songs where the initial lyric is, or contains, the title.) There's some embarassing stuff here - but here it is:

1. Take me to heart, and nobody can make me do wrong
2. I never thought you were the letter writing type brimful - "If I Wrote You" - Dar Williams.
3. Tears on the sleeve of a man, I want to be a boy today brimful, encore une fois! "Pretty Good Year" - Tori Amos
4. I'm not talking about a year, nor not three or four - sandhya (the lurker who came to stay ... I hope) "Forever" - Ben Harper
5. I can't hold this day any more
6. Love (love) is a verb, love is a doing word ^* brimful, aka Goddess of Lyrics - "Teardrop" - Massive Attack
7. Love is like a never-ending melody, poets have compared it to a symphony scorps1027 gets very close. "Desafinado" (English lyrics. Many, many recordings. I have Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, and Astrud Gilberto/George Michael versions on my iTunes. Perry Como's version uses the title 'Slightly Out of Tune.')
8. I've got no chauffer to chauffeur me, I've got no servant to serve my tea scorps1027! "Nobody But Me" - Lou Rawls
9. Love - I see you there, adrift on the air
10. Missed the Saturday dance, heard they crowded the floor andrea! "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" (Jazz/swing standard - so recorded by many, many people.)
11. Sit back down and talk to me about how you want to be
12. I told you how I feel, but you don't care
13. The people keep repeating that you'll never fall in love - brian! (There's a first time for everything!) "Let My Love Open the Door" - Pete Townshend
14. I'd say love was a magical thing, I'd say love would keep us from pain -had I been there
15. You're my love, you're my sweetest thing
16. Nicky's in the corner with a black coat on scorps1027 (a rockstar in her own right) "Beautiful Girl - INXS
17. You are far when I could have been your star brimful - "Kissing a Fool" - George Michael (and I ain't ashamed!!)
18. Shattered dreams, worthless years, here am I encased inside a hollow shell - cookiemonsta is close enough: "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will be Forever) - Stevie Wonder
19. You think you gotta keep me iced - you don't andrea (brimful with the assist) - "Love Don't Cost a Thing" - J. to the L-O
20. I was at the mall, sippin' on a milkshake - cookiemonsta! Ladies Love Cool James - "Big Ole Butt"

^* - Initially, I thought this was "Love (love) isn't fair", until I decided to check it against the lyrics as found online. Mmmyeah - more than a few of what I think are the first lines may be mondegreens.

Your assignment: without Googling (or other search engine-ing), name the tunes!

Stay on These Roads

Two good friends are considering a joint trip to l'Espagne (which I recommend to anyone, by the way.) As part of their negotiation process, they have been revealing neurosis in a game of bizarro one-upsmanship.

Recently, I spoke to my favorite Good Ole Boy and encouraged him to come to Ireland with me in August (a law school friend is getting married there.) As much as I'd love to hear the Southern drawl meet the Irish lilt, my spontaneous offer has caused me to think about the things that make me a, um, "more challenging" person to travel with. In no particular order, here's the list:

• I am not a morning person, but I come off like I am. I can't really interact with people in the first 20-30 minutes that I am up (and woe be unto you if you try.) That is very much me time, and I like to spend it quietly. After that, I can be pretty gregarious. Because I tend to wake up way early, things are out of synch: I'm superchatty while the other person is still hatching. Not pretty.
• I am, in some ways, more of a vacationer than a traveler. My father is of the school of thought that if there are 10 things to see in a city and you are there for 1 day, by God(s), you will see them all. I, on the other hand, would rather see 2 in the morning and spend the afternoon in a cafe watching people walk by. This is one reason why I like traveling alone - I went to Paris and skipped the Louvre because the line was too damn long, but spent 5 hours in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. When it's just you, you're all you have to think about.
• I'm randomly neurotic at meals. I can't sit with my back to an open room. I can't stand it when a table is covered in eaten dishes - I have to stack them. Both of these things are true right here at home, and don't change when I'm on the road.
• I'm very laidback, but that can make me resentful. Generally, if someone else has a strong preference for where they want to go for dinner etc., I'll go along with it because it's usually not a big thing for me. BUT, when I'm traveling with someone who is pickier than me, I eventually reach a point where I become enraged. Why should I, by dint of the fact that I'm not that picky, always have to cede? And it's entirely my fault. It's my fault because, of course, I don't have to. If when I push back, the person resists, I really seethe. All me, all me. I know.
• I'm a brazen hussy. Okay, not really - but I am much more forward about meeting people when I'm abroad. If you're a fellow traveller, or staying at the same hostel, or look like you speak English - I'll invite you along. (This isn't so different from what I am like State-side, just ... more so.)
• "Turning Japanese"(as one travel friend calls it. And, yes, I do know what the song is actually about.) I take a lot of pictures, and it's not always obvious what I'm snapping away at. I have a penchant for metalwork, flowers, and food. I have entire trips where I have no pictures of the actual people involved.

Um, so who's up for a road trip????

Step Into a World

I'm number 2...oh no, I lied

I'm numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

-KRS-One

Will I be be lording it over coworkers tomorrow? (Especially the Star, who's a double U-Dub?) That would be an affirmative.

55 Fiction Friday: Doc Marten edition

Freaky Friday:

When did she get so…staid? When did she stop looking at the Manic Panic? When did she start picking up “Jane” instead of the constantly, rotating Indie magazine du jour? Recently, she’d caught herself sniggering at someone’s outfit and referring to it in her head as a “get-up.” “We become what we hate,” she thought grimly.

Bollywood Basics

(in our seats at the Castro last Saturday night to watch "Parineeta," part of the Asian American Film Festival)

Non-desi friend: I'm really looking forward to this movie. I don't know what to expect.
Sobriquette^*: Did you see "Bend it Like Beckham?"
NDF: Oh yeah!! I loved it!!!
Sobriquette: Well, it's nothing like that.
(maisnon's laughter is drowned out by the rising crescendo of organ music and cheering.)



^{* -} formerly known as Nonblogging Friend.

6:05 a.m.

Happy Vernal Equinox, my peoples!

Since Monday, every day I have woken up at exactly the same time. I don't have a clock in my bedroom, so I wake up, walk to the kitchen, and the clock on the oven says 6:05 am. (An argument could be made that I am actually waking up at 6:04 a.m., but I digress.) The internal bodyclock is an amazing, amazing thing.

I've never been much of a sleeper (see numerous sleep/insomnia-themed 55 Fiction Fridays.) One thing I'll say about law school - it taught me how to sleep. It wasn' until my second year of law school that I learned that once you woke up, you could stay in bed and, eventually, you'll fall back asleep. Yes, that's right - at the age of 28, I learned how to sleep in. (To my friends with kids, I should probably just go apologize to my mother right now - I can't imagine that she got much sleep...well, ever... after I was born.)

I'm still not a tremendously good sleeper and you'll never find me in bed past 9 a.m. unless I am (1) sick, (2) fighting off sickness, (3) am operating on less than 4 hours of sleep from the night before, or (4) hardcore procrastinating about something.

So. My daily rhythm cycles with the sun. I'm always up, but I'm much more energetic in the morning during the spring and summer. This morning, I meditated, put together a dresser, and sorted laundry - all before getting ready for work. I arrived at work feeling like I'd already had a productive day. Yesterday, I stopped by the library and picked up books on meditation, crafts, and knitting and spent the evening with visions of placemats and mittens dancing in my head.

Spring is springing - Mr. Soleil says it is, no matter what ideas The Weather has - and I think I am too.

55 Fiction Friday: Wonderland edition

Friday se repose:

The sun set fast, but gloriously. She curled more tightly into the papasan chair and adjusted the blanket around her legs. She closed her eyes briefly. Reaching for her glass of wine, a thought crept into her mind on tiptoe, “I know why the Cheshire cat smiles.” Furtively, the corners of her mouth tugging upward.