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Summer Obsession Update

I believe that I may be – knock wood – slowly emerging out from under last week’s Cloud o’ Calamity. Last Monday’s injury was only the beginning of the deluge (thank you very much for your good wishes), but after this weekend, I have some hope of things starting to turn around (knock wood –…

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Better Living Through Chemistry

I hurt myself on Monday. Quite badly. How doesn’t matter, the real issue is that there has been some pain involved (if by ‘some’ you mean ‘a whole lot’). However, the point of today’s post is not whingeing on about the pain, it’s about an experience directly resulting from the pain. To be specific, it’s…

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Cultural Pursuits

A long time ago, I decide to acquire a cultural veneer. Not actually become cultured, you understand – that might be too much work and then there’s the possibility of becoming insufferable and pompous. No, as far as I was concerned, a thin layer of culture which could be donned at required moments would be…

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The Earth Didn’t Move

Good horror is like good sex. It involves the element of surprise and being taken out of your head into the land of purely visceral response. Added to that should be a nicely escalating excitement, interspersed with lulls in the action to take the edge off, which makes it even more intense when things get…

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A Weekend Miscellany

Having Dinner, Being Dinner. The weekend started early, Thursday evening, to be precise. I am not including it in the weekend because I took Friday off, but for the purposes of being at least mildly entertaining in this post. Ken and I went to dinner and after the kitchen obliterated my grilled salmon into a…

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Books That Changed Who I Am

Updated September 26, 2024 In September of 1973, I was 11 years old and admitted to the only rehab hospital in Denmark that handled kids with arthritis (and kids and adults with any other rehabilitation needs). To say that it was an awful place is an understatement, but there weren’t any other options. I cried…

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Nasty Boys

This past week, I accidentally had myself a small film festival, the theme of which can best described as ‘Nasty Boys’. Something that delicious naturally deserves a review. The Matador. This is Pierce Brosnan’s Anti-Bond, the exact opposite of suave, elegant, principled Good Guy. Brosnan plays a hitman, quickly on his way to a bad…

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I’ll Try To Keep It To A Minimum

In case you’ve missed it (I think I’ve only mentioned it once, maybe twice), Big Brother All-Stars has begun. This means that I have entered into my annual summer obsession with watching complete strangers, about whom I have strong opinions, locked in a hamster cage. A cage that this year looks like a 70s decorating…

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I Can See Clearly Now

I’ve been thinking about writing a post for a while. It was going to go something like this: I feel like I’m two people. One of me is working very hard to become positive, remain open to possibility and look at what I have instead of what I don’t have – after all, the only…

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Reason #547 I Love Living Downtown

On Friday , I was sitting at my desk in front of the open window, enjoying the sounds of early evening – birds, laughing kids, the icecream truck – when I heard the sound of muffled drums. This is not a normal occurrence around here, so I looked out the window. Couldn’t see anything, other…

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Say What?

The first time I tried a voice-activated program to write (dictating instead of typing) was years ago, when Ken – who consistently manages to solve my technological problems before I quite know I have them – gave me a program called VoiceXpress. Learning to use it was a bit of an uphill battle. At the…

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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

I’ve just finished reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (also available in paperback). I read the reviews quite a while ago and was looking forward to reading it, although a bit hesitant as it is almost 800 pages (which translates to over 36 hours in audio format) – that’s a big investment…

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