are the stars out tonight?

what is this 'blogging' thing of which you speak, it sounds dirty. i have no idea what one of these 'weblogs' might possibly be... is it something to do with spiders? i would never allow myself to be called a 'blogger', nice young ladies shouldn't have to hear such language.

i seem to have accidentally had a blog-holiday. totally avoidable, especially since i have just had a week-long work-holiday, but those are the breaks. still, the old place looks much as it used to, a little dusty from disuse, maybe, but still basically the same.

so... i went to atp last weekend, which was quite very awesome. you can see some pictures i took here, there are a lot of pictures of jess on there, but several of them were taken by her as she forgot to bring her camera - this is the curse of the myspace generation - self-portraits are compulsory at all times.

i had almost escaped the curse, but then about halfway through the week, i had a mental storm, and joined an online dating agency. so i'm trying to make the best of my temporary insanity, and i spent most of yesterday trying to take a picture of myself that didn't make me want to stab my eyes out with a fork. this is what i came up with, i hope you approve.

and now for family lexicon part 3 - you thought i'd forgotten, didn't you?

"chilly willy and the red hots" - is another of my mother's sayings, and is particularly appropriate for today (which is bright but not warm). it's said when it's cold outside, a bit like brass monkeys. it's provenance again is mired in the past, but i can't find any mention of the originaly chilly willy and the red hots, who she claims were a band of some kind. it's entirely plausible that she made it up!

feather boa 12:44 pm

as requested by ms sarah l, the second family saying is this:

"not cheap like a big cigar", deliberately presented there without any punctuation. this is one of my mother's favourite sayings, and i love it because it's totally ambiguous.

the best way to parse it, i think, is "[not cheap] like a big cigar", with the implication being that big cigars are expensive. but you can tcompletely screw with it, if you say it it "not [cheap like a big cigar]", creating the illusion that money means nothing to you, and big cigars are ten a penny.

i'm sure there's a conclusion that i could draw from this, but i can't work out what it would be.

and for added measure: a phrase i believe have borrowed from sarah l: "that sucks goats"

feather boa 11:30 am