I have a new client. It's always a good thing, so I'm not complaining, but so far she's managed to (1) shave 25% of the project just before we signed the contract (less required than she thought), (2) add a cancellation clause that differs from my regular terms and conditions (requiring a small wrangle), (3) push me on delivery dates but not send me what I require to get started (4) generally piss me off.

It's possible I need a holiday.

I realise that I derive pleasure from the strangest of things, but I have just thermal bound two copies of my final report. Yay.

I know I have better things to do (like a project report to conplete by 4pm) but up until about step five of the Guardian's how to make a paper aeroplane shtick, I was really up for it.

But, really, how much time can you spend procrastinating?

While I would love to be all brotherhood-of-man about this, and dearly wish I had better middos, if my neighbours don't stop DJing so loud on a school night, I may have to... er, do something.

What exactly, I don't know.

It's just that I have to be up at 7am to discuss derivatives, which requires a clear mind at the best of time, and he's offering me the best of descarga, and frankly, my dear, I'm not in the mood.

(written at 5pm in Hampstead Starbux, but I was being good and not online)

I feel dirty.

I’ve done my usual Sunday routine – Costbucks (papers, people watching, writing) but I ran into someone I vaguely know (quelle surprise, Hampstead, after all) and was totally, compellingly, addicted to his conversation with his two buddies.

I’m power-cable chained to the wall with my laptop, and two guys come in and take the comfy chairs. I glance at them (surreptitiously) and immediately clock them as Jewish, north London, thirties. They are not tall. When they sit down, I get a good view of their baldspots.

They look nice enough, actually. The kind of guys I’d run into at a party.

I’m with my writing, but then a guy comes in to meet them who I do properly recognise. I try not to think about it.

Backstory: about five years ago I went to the largest, heavingest party in a flat above East Finchley tube station. Everyone I’d ever met in my life and their friends were there. You couldn’t move. Coincidentally, this was the party where my best friend met her now husband.

I remember what I was wearing (because I always do): a brown Whistles skirt, and a brown velvet shirt over a camisole.

It was really, really hot because there were like three times as many people as should properly have been allowed in the flat, had health and safety rules been observed, which they rarely are, at parties.

I got a bit overwhelmed, and decided to get some fresh air downstairs with my friend F. there were a couple of people milling around outside, too. F and I were chatting, and this guy came up, ignored me, and talked to her. She tried to include me in the conversation, but he was rude: glanced me up and down and returned to her.

After about fifteen minutes (it felt like, could have been less) and taking account of my feeling hot and sweaty and not so in the party mood, I decided not to bother going back upstairs and to leave.

As I walked away, I heard him say to a nearby friend “ugly bitch.”

Now I know that I am of above average attractiveness, and on a good day, I can see forever, but I wasn’t in the mood to debate my good looks or otherwise with this balding, paunchy guy (who little knows that I am – sadly – genetically disposed to finding his characteristics attractive).

But when I see him – which I do about once a year, usually at a party – I’m disinclined to engage with him. I don’t even know if I think he’s physically attractive anymore: his meanness of character is so etched on his face, to me, now, that I sometimes feel slightly nauseous when I see him.

Fast forward to now: he’s sitting there with his buddies, and I can hear them dissecting women like they’re on the biology table in the lab: pretty girl, didn’t fancy her. Blonde or brunette? I only do blonde. Too curvy by half.

“It’s only been two dates for you, but the way she’s been behaving, she’s already made her mind up. Which part of English do you not understand?”

And I realise they’re like modern day explorers: three shortish guys who should be in the gym instead of Starbucks (but then so should I) seeking out the most perfect specimen.

That’s what I call them. Seekers After Perfection. SAPs, for short. People who care more about muscletone than character, people who’ll fine-tune their search requirements on some online dating site, narrowing and narrowing the criteria till there’s no-one left to interview and they can moan to their friends that there’s no-one left.

Here’s my two’pennorth: relationships are risky. If you want to open yourself up to the possibility of love, you have to take the risk of rejection. And by passing over the whole of North London womanhood with a fine-tooth comb and deciding that no-one quite makes the grade, they can be sure that they’ll never be a rejectee, just a rejecter. Which is ultimately less painful, but probably less fun.

They just left. Maybe they can feel the vibe.

Oh, apparently in the UK Buy Nothing Day is November 26th 2005. Tomorrow. Saturday. It's shabbes, I never buy nothing. Anything.

I was just going to go shopping, and then I realised it's Buy Nothing Day.

I really believe in buying/owning less. In a big way. But do you think it's OK to buy food?

So, even though I'm mostly a homeworker, and can theoretically watch as much TV as I like, I rarely do because (a) I have work to do and (b) most daytime TV is crap.

This morning, still feeling slightly cold-y, I tuned into the Jeremy Kyle Show. It's possible that I've never seen this show. I certainly think my life has not been enhanced by hearing Jeremy say things like "get a job mate, and buy some condoms."

Maybe the faux Lemsip (third of the price, in Tesco) had addled my brain, but I don't really get confessional TV shows. Tell me any good reason why you'd want to go on "national TV" (as Jeremy is fond of saying) and tell the nation your troubles. Largely inarticulately.

Seems to be that people don't have community so much anymore - church, extended family etc - but it's a basic human need, so they try and replicate it by being humiliated on "national TV" by someone more polished who thinks faster than they can.

Sad though it is to admit it, I love filing and all things administrative. So when Christian Nellemann from Euroffice emailed me this morning (he feels like a personal friend, I get so much mail from him) telling me that ten-part dividers are down to 35p a set, I got kinda - I shouldn't admit this - excited.

Perhaps I am still in my stationery phase?

I kinda always say that I don't really do Christmas - being Jewish - but I've thought about it more, in the last couple of years. A non-Jewish friend of mine always says, "Limmud, isn't that Yiddish for christmas?"

So for the last ten or whatever years, I've been seqestered away with two thousand other Jews doing all manner of cultural and educational stuff. I think I even felt good that I didn't have to engage with tinsel and goodwill and stuff.

Tonight, I bought satsumas in Tesco, and I realised that they herald the christmas season. And I now, know, that Christmas is a yomtov: whether you're secular or religious, it's a time for family, and broiguses (arguments), thinking of others, hanging out with friends, eating (and drinking). It's just like Rosh Hashanah, or Pesach or Chanukah, but with tinsel and gifts and other xmas minhagim (customs).

I was even kinda quite getting into the idea.

Colleagues always used to ask me what I was doing for xmas, and when I said nothing, I think they felt sorry for me, and then I would just say I was going up to Nottingham to see some (two thousand) friends. I never felt seasonal-disconnectedness, or anything.

Now, I even think that the present thing is OK. Good even: it's a time to be thoughtful about friends and family and really, that can only be a good thing.

I think I might be wittering. I may have overdosed on Lemsip. I have a quiche in the oven (caremalised onion and goats cheese, since you ask).

It's possible I don't get out enough.

Although, often I do.

I have a lot of work on.

And I haven't collected my dry cleaning for three weeks. They might have sold it.

I am wittering. There's nothing worse than hearing someone's interior monologue. Once, I went on a date, and the guy said to me, "what's it like inside a woman's head?" (we were in a coffee shop in South End Green) and I spent twenty minutes telling him everything in my head (she shouldn't be wearing those trousers, does my hair look good, what should I cook for supper, great boots, good hair, bad hair, nice smile, getting cold (this has been censored, slightly)). He looked scared, and ran.

Night, then.

So we've all missed our chance to see the Diamonds exhibition at the Natural History Museum, then. One less thing to do, I guess.

Actually, I think I may be really ill. I feel dizzy when I stand up, and my head's pounding and I have a sore throat.

I'm only posting this because if I had a "real" job I could discuss it with colleagues in the coffee room and they'd tell me to go home and stop infecting them.

Except I am already at home.

As I don't yet have Tivo, or some other Tivo-esque product, I won't be able to watch Death Metal Murders at 9pm tonight, as I'll either be out or asleep.

I have a cold. I know I don't have flu, but I feel quite crap. R gave me homeopathic things last night, but I am not so convinced. A tiny fraction of me thought I might wake up this morning full of the joys of a ... cold snap. But no, I feel achey and tired and all blocked up. I must seek out all manner of Lemsipness and faux-Lemsip. I must get my act together. I must get out of bed...

If I had a job, I'd definitely call in sick, but when you're self employed, it doesn't really work like that. I do think I probably can't go to bookslam tonight, which I was really looking forward to.

Maybe I'll feel better later.

Might just go back to sleep for 5 minutes.

If I wasn't vegetarian, I'd definitely have some chicken soup, although probably not for breakfast.

Weird Yeshivish Subculture

(Cross posted from Jewschool)

I have just discovered this (weird to me) subculture on the recently launched Google Video.

Mobius linked it a short while back, but check out L'Cha by The Chevra (and here was I thinking we were all like one chevra) - it's like thirteen minutes long and it's freaky: these guys don't get out much, there aren't a lot (read: any) women, but they can formation dance, and they've got a thang for faux wet t-shirt competitions. And they've clearly got quite a lot of time on their hands - this one's filmed in three locations.

This one even has a "faux" woman in it.

They all sing like they're singing at their cousin's Barmitzvah.

Jewspotter that I am, so then I did what I always do in these situations: I searched for all the Jewish stuff; it's a veritable cornocopia of chassidische tishes, weddings, breakdancing, cool combinations of the two, visiting graves, turn-of-the-century New York.

Sheesh. Mindblowing.

I love this one: Grand Rebbe Shmuel Halberstam of Sanz-Klausenberg officiating over the Purim tish in his Boro Park shul. Look how they move.

And also, if you play the first one and the Rebbe at the same time (Firefox tabs are your friends), it's like a freaky DJ mix for the post-E generation.

Turns out yeshiva bochrim are not the only all-male groups who get up to the crazy song and dance thang.

Seems like there's a lot of frustrated creative energy out there. Do girls do this?

Thanks to Yoz and assorted J-Geeks for the original link.

Just got back from the Constant Gardener at my local (the Tricycle). Good movie, if slightly over long, but very, very beautiful to look at. Though disturbing.

J told me this: the Rabbi when she was growing up used to make sermons like this:

"God is like a vashing machine. You put the sins in, and he vashes zem out. Now, let me read you some of my poetry..."

I don't know if it was Vogon poetry, but then there was not so many Vogons in North Manchester.

curly hair stuff

curly hair stuff
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk.

I think I bought this comb in Altrincham market in about 1985. It is the absolute perfect thing for my hair (although I realise looks scary to some/most). I ocassionally worry about what will happen if/when I lose it. Hence digital evidence.

nighttime milk

nighttime milk
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk.

I am slightly perturbed by the idea of Night Time Milk. I snapped this in my local Tesco.

Unpack the copy. It's "specially selected." Isn't all milk in these heavily EU regulated times? And "contains natural melatonin" which means, probably, that all milk contains melatonin naturally, but now they're just highlighting it. And anyway, isn't melatonin slightly contentious, and it's FDA or whatever approved in the US, but the UK is not so sure? You certainly can't get it OTC.

Feels to me like marketing taken to the ultimate, wallet-defying extreme. I mean, now we have to have two milks? One for nighttime and one for day time? Or maybe there's breafast milk, and elevenses milk and tea time milk, and they all come in a neat little branded package, or you get a discount for collecting the complete set.

Product diversification has gone too far. I am tired.

Remember cows?

I was reminded of this story at the weekend.

My early pre-teenage years were at the tail end of the Abba era, and we were all "thank you for the music" and flicky hair.

In the last year of junior school, me and my then-best-friend, (whose name I figure I shouldn't publish on the internet, although I did hear an unsubstantiated rumour that she'd had a long standing affair with the managing partner of a top tier law firm), were very into them.

Let's call her Miranda Green. There are two things I remember about her: one, when we were like twelve and her older brother went off to university in Edinburgh, her parents were unphased. He left in October, and sent them a postcard at christmas. They didn't think he was dead or some tragedy had befallen him, they just thought he must be having a good time. Two: her Dad was a QC, and when he got his letter from the Queen he said to us "now, no cutting this up for school projects."

Anyway, Miranda and I bonded over our shared love of all things Swedish, and made each other compilation tapes.

Aside: there was one girl in our class who came in one Monday morning and told us that she'd spent the weekend making "all her tapes blank." Like, recording nothing?

I think she's an investment banker now.

Anyway, we were buddies, and fluffy round the edges, and did formation dancing and singing.

When it got to the (competitive) entrance exam at eleven, we were both hoping to stay on into the senior school (we were at the prep). Both our parents sat us for other schools, including Cheadle Hulme School, a mixed school with a scary green uniform and unfriendly prefects at the exam.

Miranda was more strong-minded than I was (then). She didn't want to go to Cheadle Hulme, and most of the exam was multiple choice (of four, as a I remember), so she just put A B B A all the way through the exam.

She got a reserve place.

There is a full moon. Well, almost. I briefly saw a site this week that showed you all the stages of the moon and I lost it. The ephemeral nature of the web...

I am going to a party. Two, actually. Although not as a werewolf. And neither of them are fancy dress.

I am, however, wearing a lot of black.

Some person (Ruby Wax? Some other unhinged/Jewish commedienne?) said: "how do I manage to look so good? I wear a lot of black."

I do it with burgundy accessories. I think it's slightly less weird/goth.

Waddyu think?