brooklyn bombshell in waiting.

note to self: trying out for the roller derby when you are without health insurance is a bad, bad idea.

bad idea.

once i have some, however, bet your boots i'll be trying out.

i bring this up because it's almost tryout season at the gotham girls roller derby, and i actually entertained the notion of going out for the team. then i remembered i'm a catastrophe on non-inline roller skates and i am without the means to deal with the hospital bills likely to accompany this endeavor before i've brushed up a little. which basically means that the brooklyn bombshells will have to live without me for another year.

so, you know. despite the disappointment, at least this does give me a chance to think of my derby name. any suggestions? remember: 'butterscotch cripple' and 'ariel assault' are already taken.

alas.

in you go, lawn bowling set!

last night, my guitar shorted out for the entire duration of our rockingest song (thus, its rock factor was diminished a bit), we had some minor bass issues during the same song (our collective bacon was saved by our dynamite keys and drums) and i accidentally got my leg closed in a car door (fortunately, it was a saturn, so the damage was minimal).

when you consider how much of the evening was spent in a paralytic fit of laughter with good company, however, it remains all told a good night.

creeping towards the weekend.

it's nearly 4. we leave for tonight's show around 6:45. in between, i could probably be useful and continue on my uninterrupted streak of working my ass off. or, i could make my run to the bank, come home and flop on the couch with a john le carre book and a glass of root beer.

decisions, decisions...

the return of perryspeak.

it feels so strange to be doing a weekend recap in this space, since it's been so long since i've done anything of note here at all (fortunately, now that it's almost the weekend and this entry therefore nearly a week late, it is in keeping with my general MO), but it's a couple of days i desperately want to remember for as long as possible and i no longer keep a paper diary. so, you lucky lucky thing, you get to hear all about it.

last weekend was the great brooklyn wedding celebration, which really translated into 'no really, there's a really good reason to come to the shivs' show this weekend.' and the reason really WAS good--good enough to get my long-lost cousin J out from Kentucky for a long overdue visit (13 years or more, we'd figured), and a special guest appearance from the much beloved carass. yes, almost the whole thing. that means that eight of my favorite people, my closest friends from high school, hauled themselves out here from points west (california and washington state) to come to the show.

i'm sure you can understand why i was mildly overwhelmed.

there is something amazing about having long swathes of time come between meetings with people you love; once you get over the initial disappointment of having not been there as all these marvelous changes took place, having been absent as they transformed into these amazing creatures, you get to appreciate how much everyone has changed. grown up, if you will. and grown up we all have, more or less. and it's a beautiful thing. and, at risk of sounding patronizing, i'm so proud of my friends; how far we have come from the days of ditching class to go to a'roma's and cursing far too much during concert choir. at last our precocity is paying off.

it's funny--i no longer speak with any of the people who were my "close" friends in college; and yet i still have friends from high school who will cross a country to come to a show. i think that says something quite significant, about a lot of things.

tedium

...is filling out forms in quadruplicate that you've ALREADY filled out in quadruplicate, becuase the machine wants MORE MORE MORE.

snippets.

-charlotte church needs to fire her lyricist but keep the motown hooks.
-i wish i hadn't left my tweezers and green contact lenses in england.
-i am amused that madonna continues to live the life (i.e., family-oriented etc) that her critics accuse her of destroying.
-does anyone have a copy of kitchen confidential that i can borrow?
-i need to make a mix cd. soon.
-latest celebrity crush: alex kapranos from franz ferdinand. though i think he might be gay.
-health insurance. scary stuff. wish i had it.
-i have a blister on the tip of my index finger from playing the bass. it feels odd.
-iTrip: the best invention of the 21st century? the jury is out, but i'm feeling convinced.
-the girl in mirrormask is eerie in her self-possession. but fab.
-snoozing husbands are pretty darn cute.
-the band will be releasing something interesting soon. email the shivs for more details.
- you know, some frozen yogurt would be good now. i think i'll go get some.

We Serve Booze

vacation photos are in! click to see what i failed to describe we saw in our travels.

rain, rain, go away. no really, go away.

it's good to be back. wicked crazy good. so wicked crazy good that one can almost overlook the fact that we're going to need an ark here in new york any second. it's been an interesting week, a whirlwind of friends and hustling for work and just general insanity. but good.

also, wet. have i mentioned the wet? i go for an entire summer in england and the weather is beautiful, and i come home to THIS. clearly floyd, the god of small, angry, weeping clouds is feeling extremely pissy. perhaps he's smarting over his exile from our wedding. or the fact that my hair can no longer be messed up by something so trivial as rain. or the fact that it's now cool enough to wear boots and be denied the lovely sensation of wet, squelching socks when one finds oneself knee deep in a puddle. i'm not sure, but i think it's safe to say that floyd Is Not Amused.

so sayeth the mysterious puddles in my kitchen and bathroom.

one contraption that is clearly relishing the weather, however, is my ipod. since our return to the us of a last week, i've spent a lot of time taking full advantage of our iTrip (possibly the coolest doodad out there for the pod. for reals) and tuning into Radio Free ShivPod for multiple hours in the day. mystifyingly, the beast has thrown forth the most wonderful mix of rainy day music, it's quite uncanny. the tunes range from the sinister (hey man, nice shot by filter) to the melancholy and knowing (coming down by texas) to the just plain mellow (out of time by blur). wholesome goodness, all around. it's marvelous, making the virtual house arrest imposed by the rain almost pleasant, if for no other reason than that it seems that SOMEONE around here is rising to the challenge of the weather without a grimace.

almost. i would probably feel a lot better about life if we had a few dry towels.

on the way!

tomorrow, dom and i hop a plane and decamp once more for the great state of brooklyn. i am thrilled, quite frankly, absolutely over the moon to be heading home. i am mildly apprehensive, however, because there is one thing* that stands in the way of us and a triumphant return: packing. this unnerves me. somewhere along the line this summer, i went from a champion packer to a complete lunatic who doesn't have the faintest idea what to throw in a suitcase.

case in point: the evening of our wedding, we decamped to a hotel for a couple of days, to decompress, have a nice dinner, just relax. what did i forget? clothes, other than a pair of jeans. makeup. a hairbrush. i remembered my toothbrush, but only just.

case in point: when we left for our honeymoon, we wanted to make sure we remembered two things: the ipod charger and the guidebooks. and what did we forget? oh yes.

i don't really understand what happened. is it a manifestation of my growing anxiety regarding flying in general? is it an embodiment of a deep-seated fear of change? or am i just flaky?

*actually, there are two things, the other of which i would rather not talk about, because it might actually make me cry.

in the company of boys.

i've spent the last two days indulging my inner preadolescent boy. activities have included:

-going to see a footie game (wolverhampton vs. burnley. it was rubbish; i am assured that not all footie is quite that rubbish, but i'm not entirely certain i'm convinced.)
-flying a six-foot kite in the cotswolds, getting dragged unceremoniously across the field at one point before figuring out how to make it do daring, ground-skimming loop-de-loops without cursing too much. possibly the most fun i've had ever.
-playing video games (donkey conga? you rock my little world).
-getting quizzed on star wars trivia and mystifying Another Roos with my peculiar ability to out-geek him (i know, shocking!).

other activities included going to see a fantastic gig in birmingham, getting really drunk, playing guitars and hanging out with A.R.'s parents while getting really drunk and eating chinese food.

having just returned home from such a frenzy, i think i need to check my estrogen by taking a bubble bath and giving myself a facial. while eating chocolate. and reading bridget jones. and painting my nails.