My Life As A Desk

On my desk today, you’ll find:

Coffee.  Today’s blend is Columbian Supremo.

2 of 501 pens in the house at any given time.

My perfume.  I’m still working on the same bottle I bought two years ago.  I collect perfume.  I either have too much or not enough, considering bottles last two years.

An eyeglass cloth, perhaps proof that I have one.   My glasses are always smudged, and it would seem I never use it.

Sewing kit.  I never use it.  That would be a disaster.

Chapstick.  It’s never in my bag, because it’s on my desk.

My keys on my Highlander (not that one) key chain.

Extra buttons for my jacket.  Unrelated to the sewing kit, because that would be too easy.  And make sense.

LOVE bookmark.  Found with the rubber chicken on the day I had piles. It isn’t in a book, because I read too quickly to need bookmarks.

(More) Power, juice for my once-hated iphone and ever-loved laptop, which never leaves the house.

Empty Wine Gum bag.  Only sweets I’ll buy on repeat.  Real wine gives me heart burn.

General layer of random receipts.  Let’s just say they’re there so all the other stuff doesn’t ‘scratch my nice glass furniture.’

What does your desk look like right now?

Back-seat Baking: The Cookie Jar

Before

During

After

*Cookies can also be used as spackle, or as door-stops.

Angry Birds Are Good For Your Relationship

I’ve been drinking a lot of tea lately.  I’m still all about the coffee; we got a cafetière at the weekend, so we could try my Dad’s lovely Christmas present from here.  I have to say though; I’ve revised my somewhat scathing opinions of tea since Sarge arrived on the scene.

There are some quite exciting things happening for me, and tea is the only thing that stops my brain from buzzing.  The fact I now ask Sarge to make me tea instead of coffee at night makes me think of other things I’ve changed my mind about over the years.

Sundays – Loved up or not, I hated them until October 2009.  I always read Sunday papers on days that weren’t Sunday and generally pretended there were two Saturdays in my week.  However, Sundays and I are on speaking terms now.

Alan Rickman’s voice – This irrational entry on the List of Stuff that Lorna Doesn’t Like has been corrected by repeat viewings of Dogma and Snow Cake.

Iphones – Mine, specifically.  Before I got it for free, I swore I wouldn’t get one.  That was before GPS saved my nerves and my street cred.  And before Angry Birds added a few more layers to my already solid relationship.  It’s good for communication and problem-solving skills.  ‘Honey, can you beat this stupidly hard level for me?  Thanks, I owe you one. ‘

This stuff is still on the Do Not Like list: discrimination, apathy, vomiting, bad coffee, Neil Diamond and ferrets.  Those are still non-negotiable.

The State Of My Head

Some of you may remember my quest to get back to my natural hair colour before I turn 30…next month.

I went shopping yesterday, something I don’t do very often.  My roots/fake colour in a full-length mirror was a scary sight to behold.  My nick-name lately has been Two-Tone Tessie.  On the way home, I bought some magic in a box.

I used it this morning to ‘blend my roots’.  They blended quite nicely as I watched Judge Judy for half an hour, while trying to keep the gunk on head and the towel on my shoulders.  I apparently can do neither of these things without a general look of mock disdain on my face.

I don’t have any during/blackmail photos, but here is the After shot.  First one off my webcam, too.  Sorry about that.  My camera insisted on taking arty shots of my hand and the floor.  Which is possibly another post.

New/old hair. And butterflies. And penguins and books. And a lava lamp.

100 Books Or Bust: Double Digits

Cover of Aloft

As of this morning, I finished my 11th book of the year.  I’m trying to vary lengths so I don’t ‘cheat’ with short books only.

So far, I’ve read:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – in two days, on an island.

The Lacuna – in a little more than two days, back to reality.

The Slap – I’m still calling this one ‘The Bitch Slap’.

A Very Private Gentleman – quoted here.

I Was Amelia Earhart – which took me a little over an hour here.

Warm Bodies – which resulted in maybe not so weird dreams and prompted another library experiment.

Summer Crossing -  which took me back to my University workshops.

The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas – which sat on my shelf for years, and took two days to read.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective agency – Recommended by my mother, who didn’t tell there were so many cows in the book.  Cows and tea.  And quiet humour.  And no, I have not read Agatha Christie.

The Help – recommended to my by everyone and their sister, which I ended up reading as part of the SITS book group this month.  I rationed my reading of this one, so it would last longer.

Aloft – Perfectly pitched, dry suburban drama set on Long Island.  Made me want to fly.

What’s next?  Any more suggestions?

Back-seat Baking: Chocolate Ginger Cupcakes

Last week I decided that I wanted to actually make something for Sarge for Valentine’s Day.  Or at least watch someone else do it.  Because the last time I tried to make something, the red stuff wasn’t food-colouring.  But it was iron- enriched.

Anyway, I’m looking up baking ideas, and my PA suggests Martha Stewart.  Now, we have a saying in my family that goes something like this:  Molly was Martha Stewart before Martha was Martha Stewart.

Molly was my Nana, and she was an all around amazing baker, cook, beader, knitter, quilter, home-decorator, general ideas woman and creative. Dinner was not complete without six courses, a sweater not ready to wear without beads on the collar.  And everywhere else.

Nana did everything from scratch.  And I watch people make cupcakes from a box.  Maybe it was Nana’s inspiration that made me add stem ginger to the cupcakes that my PA made and froze last week, and iced this morning.

I added ginger because I don’t like it.  And I wanted these especially for Sarge, who does.

If they were coffee cupcakes, that would have been a present for both of us.  Maybe next week.

Photographic evidence:

Behold the butter-cream icing!

Sarge approves!

Our aforementioned sugar-faces stuck to the plate and couldn’t be added to the cupcakes.  CJ ate them instead.

Sugar Is Sweet

Us as sugar, before the cat chomped on my face.

There's a heart in my coffee.

Found Poetry

As  a result of sorting out my piles, I have found a bunch of my old poetry.  Most of it is really bad, and should stay in the drawer.

I wrote a lot of poetry as a teenager, trying to find my voice, and wondering who might hear mine.  Even as an eight year-old I wrote of black roses and thunderstorms and violins at midnight.  Getting older didn’t mean I was any less maudlin.  But I did begin to write about people.

OK, make that one person.  Someone I had yet to meet, someone who I thought of and wished well every day.  Someone who I hoped would not move away or meet someone else before we met.  Most of my poems were letters.  To one person.  As Phoebe from Friends liked to say, ‘He’s her Lobster.’  And I admit, I was writing to mine, wondering when he would show up.

And I’m not just saying this, but I was writing to Sarge.  Reading my writing from back then, it’s very us.  Like I really did know him before we met.  I asked him to keep me in books and stay til the end of the movie.  I asked him to make me laugh, trace my scars and to know what my face means when I mean it.  I asked him to love old movies and love me because I’m a sap.

I was going through one of my many ‘keepsake boxes’ and crumpled up under the tickets and programs, I found this:

Speculative Poetry (that’s the real title there)

Lots of things

I want to do

All the while

Waiting for you

Someone who is

More like me

But different enough

So we’ll have well-adjusted kids

Someday

 

Sarge asked what I’d found, and I said, ‘I found you.’

Speculation over.

100 Books Or Bust: An Unseasonable Read

Cover via Amazon

Rising in Grady was an ungovernable laughter, a joyous agitation which made the white summer stretching before her seem like an unrolling canvas on which she might draw those first rude pure strokes that are free. Then, too, and with a straight face, she was laughing because there was so little they suspected, nothing. The light quivering against the table silver seemed to at once encourage her excitement and to flash a warning signal: careful, dear. But elsewhere something said Grady, be proud, you are tall so fly your pennant high above and in the wind. What could have spoken, the rose? Roses speak, they are the hearts of wisdom, she’d read so somewhere. She looked out the window again; the laughter was flowing up, it was flooding on her lips: what a sparkling sun-slapped day for Grady McNeil and roses that speak!

Summer Crossing, Truman Capote

This book has been collecting five years worth of dust on my shelves.  I sneezed through the whole thing.  It lasted 20 sneezes.

I was about 16 when I saw the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.   I remember being haunted and charmed.  I read the book soon after.  At the time, it was only the second book I got through in one sitting.

I read Mr Capote again in a writing workshop at Uni, studying his short stories.  I quickly developed a writer-crush and thought he was brilliant.

Aside from my favourite quote from the book at the top of this post, Summer Crossing was not so shiny.

I am consoled by the fact that he didn’t expect it to be published.  I feel like reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s again.

Thank You, Muppets!

A little light relief…

 

 

Happy Friday!