We have normality
Feb. 18th, 2006 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bending_sickleWritten February 14, 2006
To all of you happily engaged in partnerships (sentimental, physical or both) with one or more people of the same or opposite* sex, I have this to say:
Happy Valentines, you lucky bastards.
Now that that’s out of the way, my life to date:
Yesterday I had a pretty good day until I spoke with mom who painted me as someone who a) can’t work a washing machine and b) hasn’t done shit.
I, as previously mentioned, finally did my laundry. I never knew a washing machine could have so many dials and symbols. You can pick the length of the program, the speed, the temperature and a whole lot of other itty bitty details.
Mom’s all, “but it’s so simple! All European washing machines are the same.”
To which I respond: “Last time I actually lived full-time in Europe, I was 9. I hope to hell I wasn’t the one doing laundry then.”
I miss the machines with just three buttons: delicates, normal that one I always used for towels and sheets, permanent press.
I can’t iron my stuff (not that I would) because apparently the iron stains, having burnt the blue plastic cover of the ironing board.
Today I walked and walked (this ain’t not ordinary walking, this is heavy-duty) looking for a decent coffee place.** I ended up at Starbucks. I know. I swore I’d never go there because a) bad coffee b) it’s freakin’ Starbucks…but they had nice plush sofas. So I paid three times more than usual for a coffee and read my French novel. And got hit on by the Starbuck’s boy
Then I wandered over to the French library and geeked out by checking out an encyclopedia that focused on world languages (all 3000 of them). It analysed the main trends in grammar, gave the different alphabets and some words in each, told the history, and it even made a list of reasons each language was hard to learn. (Must copy and show to you all.)
1) some languages use the word menaing “slave” for the first person singular
2) the English word “not” comes from the saxon word “neh-a-wit” which means “not a thing”
a. the word “Lord” comes from “loaf-ward”
b. the word “husband” comes from “house-bound” (…*glee*)
3) with the disappearance of Ancient Egyptian, Chinese is the only written language based on an ideographic system
a. a rough system of classification is based on the number of strokes needed to write a character
b. the square is drawn in three strokes, not, as one would think, four
4) India is the country where the greatest number (7) of writing systems coexist
5) The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters, of which only three are vowels (being the long vowel sounds for /a/, /i/ and /u/ (short vowel sounds aren’t written)
a. Thus Mohammed is written as mhmd
6) A Creole phrase, On sac vide pa ka kambe doubout, meaning “an empty bag can’t stand up by itself” (i.e. a man who has nothing to eat can’t work)
7) In Yiddish, kein ein oieh means “may the evil-eye not fall on you”
8) In Breton, Ar jistr zo graet’vit bout evet. Hag at merc’hed’vit bout karet means “Cider is made for drinking. The woman is made to be loved.”
This might be TMI but… I’ve got split ends. Granted, that in itself not amazing, but this is leg hair I’m talking about. What. The. Fu’.
The best thing ever, however, is that finally, after almost two months of zip, I’ve started writing again. Wait. That sounds like it’ll be a trend. Best just to say that I wrote a whole scene Sunday night and Monday night I almost figured out the gaping plot hole.
Weeee!!!
* and why is it “opposite” and not just “the other”?
** Even though there’s been an anti-tabacco law since January, there’s a bloody subclause saying that places smaller than x meters squared can opt to be smoking or non. That means that each and every bar (but 0.01%) allows smoking. Exactly how does this law change things again?
To all of you happily engaged in partnerships (sentimental, physical or both) with one or more people of the same or opposite* sex, I have this to say:
Happy Valentines, you lucky bastards.
Now that that’s out of the way, my life to date:
Yesterday I had a pretty good day until I spoke with mom who painted me as someone who a) can’t work a washing machine and b) hasn’t done shit.
I, as previously mentioned, finally did my laundry. I never knew a washing machine could have so many dials and symbols. You can pick the length of the program, the speed, the temperature and a whole lot of other itty bitty details.
Mom’s all, “but it’s so simple! All European washing machines are the same.”
To which I respond: “Last time I actually lived full-time in Europe, I was 9. I hope to hell I wasn’t the one doing laundry then.”
I miss the machines with just three buttons: delicates, normal that one I always used for towels and sheets, permanent press.
I can’t iron my stuff (not that I would) because apparently the iron stains, having burnt the blue plastic cover of the ironing board.
Today I walked and walked (this ain’t not ordinary walking, this is heavy-duty) looking for a decent coffee place.** I ended up at Starbucks. I know. I swore I’d never go there because a) bad coffee b) it’s freakin’ Starbucks…but they had nice plush sofas. So I paid three times more than usual for a coffee and read my French novel. And got hit on by the Starbuck’s boy
Then I wandered over to the French library and geeked out by checking out an encyclopedia that focused on world languages (all 3000 of them). It analysed the main trends in grammar, gave the different alphabets and some words in each, told the history, and it even made a list of reasons each language was hard to learn. (Must copy and show to you all.)
1) some languages use the word menaing “slave” for the first person singular
2) the English word “not” comes from the saxon word “neh-a-wit” which means “not a thing”
a. the word “Lord” comes from “loaf-ward”
b. the word “husband” comes from “house-bound” (…*glee*)
3) with the disappearance of Ancient Egyptian, Chinese is the only written language based on an ideographic system
a. a rough system of classification is based on the number of strokes needed to write a character
b. the square is drawn in three strokes, not, as one would think, four
4) India is the country where the greatest number (7) of writing systems coexist
5) The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters, of which only three are vowels (being the long vowel sounds for /a/, /i/ and /u/ (short vowel sounds aren’t written)
a. Thus Mohammed is written as mhmd
6) A Creole phrase, On sac vide pa ka kambe doubout, meaning “an empty bag can’t stand up by itself” (i.e. a man who has nothing to eat can’t work)
7) In Yiddish, kein ein oieh means “may the evil-eye not fall on you”
8) In Breton, Ar jistr zo graet’vit bout evet. Hag at merc’hed’vit bout karet means “Cider is made for drinking. The woman is made to be loved.”
This might be TMI but… I’ve got split ends. Granted, that in itself not amazing, but this is leg hair I’m talking about. What. The. Fu’.
The best thing ever, however, is that finally, after almost two months of zip, I’ve started writing again. Wait. That sounds like it’ll be a trend. Best just to say that I wrote a whole scene Sunday night and Monday night I almost figured out the gaping plot hole.
Weeee!!!
* and why is it “opposite” and not just “the other”?
** Even though there’s been an anti-tabacco law since January, there’s a bloody subclause saying that places smaller than x meters squared can opt to be smoking or non. That means that each and every bar (but 0.01%) allows smoking. Exactly how does this law change things again?
