Why I'm not married

I spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to people who feel like they have the right to ask, why I'm not married. Not not married yet, not married.

So I rather enjoyed this article from Jezebel (oh Jezebel, if only you were a little more consistently awesome, rather than so uneven): Ten very good reasons why you're not married.

My particular good reasons are summarised by 'You are focused on your career' and 'You have got a life and friends you are happy with'. And possibly a little of 'You have got standards', but my standard is usually 'hasn't been offered a good enough argument by [Interesting Hypothetical Guy] that changing the way I live my life is worth it'. And it would have to be a super argument. A really good one. With powerpoint slides and maybe a song.

Postcards

I'm thinking about you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
& their tracks; birds & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, it's called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.

Outside the window
they're building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time I saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.
Margaret Atwood

Why do we read blogs, journals, diaries and letters?

Have you ever read the letters of the poet Cowper? He had nothing -- literally nothing -- to tell anyone about; private life in a sleepy country town where Evangelical distrust of "the world" denied him even such miserable society as the place would have afforded. And yet one reads a whole volume of his letters with unfailing interest. How his tooth came loose at dinner, how he made a hutch for a tame hare, what he is doing about his cucumbers -- all this he makes one follow as if the fate of empires hung on it. From The Letters of C.S. Lewis Often, it's not what you write, it's how you write it.

The second book in a trilogy is always the good one

So why doesn't Nora Roberts write FASTER?

Has the curse of the evil housemates finally been lifted?

My housemates have been making garlic bread. I now have a massive craving and will have to go to the shop round the corner and secure some. They have also been having enthusiastic sex all day, but that has thankfully not generated any cravings.
 
My streak of bad luck where housemates are concerned appears to have been broken. The couple I'm sharing with are really nice, friendly, and like to watch over my shoulder as I cook things. We even lend books and DVDs back and forth. It's a nice change.