Slippery slope

Any time a conversation commences with a hesitant, "No offense, but..." or a cautious, "Don't take this the wrong way...", fear rises quickly from the pit of my stomach. I pray nothing is said about my weight, fat moonpie face, or eating habits, knowing that the subsequent shame spiral will put me off running and non dust-based food for the foreseeable future.

Today a colleague busted out the latter phrase, and I knew it wouldn't end well. So the quote makes sense, I was wearing high heeled boots, which is a departure from my standard collection of Rocket Dogs.

Her: "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think when you're tall like today you look like a teenager. When you're short, you just look like a mum."

Those loud sucking and screeching sounds you hear? That's my self-image evaporating and my head being ripped off by winged agents of Satan, intent upon dragging my soul into the depths of Mumsy. Those who know me will know that there are very few things which I would classify as an insult, and telling me I look like a mum is definitely one of those things. Tell me I have a flat ass - fine, I do. Tell me my hair looks like shit - it probably does. Tell me my boobs are too big - they are. Looking like the stereotype of a mother? You might as well hook me up with some high-waisted jeans, a grubby KMart sweatshirt, and a dandy collection of Hummel figurines.

I don't ever deny being a mother, and I'll never be like those post-menopausal ladies who only want their grandchildren to refer to them by first name only. I'm happy to be a mother, but jesus, I'm only 30, surely I have a few good years in me before I look like one. Some of you have met me - I'm not drowning in mummyness, right? RIGHT? I know I'm frumpy as hell, but I'm in metamorphosis at the moment (fat to thin, not cool to mum). Tell me the truth, no wait, no wait, lie if you must. I can only take so much honesty in one day.

My future has been foretold, and it looks a lot like this:



Shit.

(Un)remarkable

"It is funny, but it strikes me that a person without anecdotes that they nurse while they live, and that survive them, are more likely to be utterly lost not only to history but the family following them. Of course this is the fate of most souls, reducing entire lives, no matter how vivid and wonderful, to those sad black names on withering family trees, with half a date dangling after and a question mark."
-from The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry

Five years ago, at my grandfather's memorial, I was treated to a family photo slideshow edited by my redneck twentieth cousin. Most of the pictures of the long-dead I recognised, oddly-dressed people whose images sat on random bookshelves and mantelpieces in my childhood house. Maybe it was because it was my first major loss as an adult, but I found myself with the sudden desire to know more about them - their names, their professions, their history within their families, anything that created a link between who they were, and who I am. It makes you wonder what traits, physical or otherwise, are shared with the anonymous (in a personal sense) faces which litter our histories.

I have family members heavily involved with genealogy, and though I appreciate how much enlightenment is provided by this, it's mostly dry, factual documents which are unearthed. There is no essence of the individual, though I suppose this media-saturated age will solve this problem for future generations seeking the origins of their past. Blogging may be the domain of the closeted self-absorbed, but I've often thought of this as my document of the side of my life which can't be accessed by marriage certificates and passport stamps.

Initially it may seem a morbid subject, pondering your own place in the grand scheme of things. I think too many people get caught up in the notion of major accomplishments, and not so much on the minutiae that actually makes a person interesting. For me, I'd much rather find out my great-great grandmother collected preserved pig fetuses than discover another great-great-something-or-other graduated from Yale and was an early mayor of Boston.

I'm guilty of questioning my place all the time, mainly through blog reading. Certain people are scarcely older than me and publishing novels, or if they aren't yet, soon will be. Some have series of degrees and illustrious academic careers. There is me, a postgrad drop-out living in a diddy flat with a job I fell into, in a largely unimpressive field. However, I recently read an article about a hoarder in the North of England who recently passed away. No one knew much about him, and he didn't leave any family behind when he died. With one swift swipe by Death, a person was erased. Yes, there is this article, but it doesn't answer any questions as to who he was. The writer went so far as to say that the hoarder's life was "unremarkable", a word which leaped from the page when I read it. What makes a life remarkable, and who are we to judge what is classified as remarkable or otherwise?

No doubt by this writer's definition, I lead an unremarkable life. The rest of my time will probably be spent raising my daughter, working like the stiff I am, and enjoying life through what makes me happy. I suppose by the standard interpretation, my life is unremarkable in its ordinariness. Millions of people have the same life structure as me, so apparently you have to stand out in order for your life so as to avoid the dreaded designation of your life as unremarkable.

Delusional as it may be, I hope P, the most immediate source of who may have interest in my life, takes much more joy in what makes me an individual than what would make me "remarkable". She will know that I moved over to the UK at 22, knowing no one except her father and most of my possessions squeezed tightly into a couple of bulky suitcases. She will know that I have an inappropriate and all-consuming love of hip-hop music despite my abiding whiteness (so very, very white) and nerdiness. She will know that I collect old books, decaying letters from previous centuries, and antique art prints of Arthur Rackham illustrations. She will know that I think The Big Lebowski is the funniest movie ever, a fact of which she will be painfully aware as I will be quoting it until they lower me into my grave.

I might be in complete denial, making up for a life not flashy and important enough. Just don't call me unremarkable.

Lay back and think of England

With all of the centuries of British literature, all I could think of for my England-focused post was the above. In my own defense, P has been unwell with a creeping, itchy rash and a swollen, funky foot, so I'm a bit sapped at the moment. Add to this my successful run this evening (5K personal best - 29.16, yay!), my stomach swollen with fresh berries and half fat creme fraiche, and right there is a recipe for forgetfulness and lack of inspiration.

A couple or one asked after my last post why I want to leave the UK. I think I've expanded on it a bit before, but I'm not so keen on trawling my archives so I'll just summarise again. I will always dearly love the UK. I became the person I am today because of how it shaped me, my daughter was conceived in British petri dish and was born here, and there are certain aspects of the UK I think you would be unable to see elsewhere even if you combed the edges of the earth thoroughly.

I was infused with Anglophilia from the time I was a child. Something about the UK just seemed "right" to me, and I was always telling people that I would live here someday. On my first trip to the UK when I was 17 I nearly collapsed in a heap of religious-level supreme ecstasy upon seeing the majesty of York Minster for the first time. It perfectly captured what I perceived the UK to be - stuffed with wonderous, ancient history, each step an echo of a fascinating history extending thousands of years. I still feel this powerfully, and I will never cease to feel the wonder of its history deep within me. There is a castle nearby which I have been to dozens of times, yet standing at the top of its keep and viewing the crumbling stonework below continues to make me emotional.

I think that romantic notion of Great Britain is what makes people Anglophiles in the first place. It's an annoyance of mine that the unintiated only see this side of Britain, and based on that think it must be a wonderful place packed with quaint villages full of thatched roofed houses and reserved people drinking tea, pinkie finger extended. There is plenty of that, yes, and it is such a huge part of why it is such a great place. However, there are flaws, just like any country, but the floaws that I find are just too insurmountable for me at this point in time.

I live in a big city, so I know that any negativity I perceive is enhanced by the claustrophic nature of city living. This is a culture of drinking. People live for the weekend, when the primary objective is to get completely wasted - unabashedly pissing in the streets and vomiting on the sidewalk. On a Monday walk to work I am likely to pass at least 4 splatters of puke, which offsets the numerous expanses of mosaiced window glass from car break-ins quite nicely. I'm all for enjoying life, but is it so hard to pull yourself together and save the release of bodily fluids for the bathroom at home? Lest you think this behaviour is reserved for the dark hours, I only wish it was. I see drunken, loutish idiots clutching cans of beer stumbling down the road at 9am, 1pm, and 5pm on most days. I live on a nice street with a cluster of £500,000 homes (not my flat, I fear), yet still, there is that constant of a slice of life I, let alone my daughter, do not want to see.

I worry taking P up to the shop at the end of our street for a pint of milk. Inevitably, we are surrounded by groups of loud obnoxious kids shouting obscenities at people just walking buy, or drunks whipping out their business so they can relieve themselves on cars. Other than walking to work and running in the evenings, I don't feel comfortable walking on my own. I avoid large groups of chavs (I'm sorry, I know it's painfully politically incorrect, but this is what they are - at work, domain of the polite, we refer to them as "the locals") because they will either shout rude things or ask me to buy them fags.

I am aware that this just sounds like someone complaining about any city's problems, but I think it's a problem endemic within British culture at large, certainly not relegated to big cities. Yes, I could move out of a city into a nice market town, but for the most part I would have to resort to the sex industry as mentioned in my previous post in order to finance this. Moving up North due to its less expensive nature was suggested by more than one person, and it is something we considered in the past. I personally think the gap in cost of living between North and South has narrowed greatly within the past ten years, and it's not the financial cure-all it once was.

In regard to cost of living and what we could afford, it does come back to my own need to live the kind of life which has resided in my brain all of this time. I grew up in a big(ish) house, had a yard over an acre, and miles of nature to explore. I so desperately want this for P. Even up North this is hard to find within our price range combined with an ideal location. I love the space the US affords, and I think regardless where you go in the UK, that inherent sense of claustrophobia exists. I don't doubt that this is my Americanness coming through, but I suppose it's only natural that a shred of it remains.

Those are pretty much the only reasons I want to relocate - no more drunken, destructive chavs, and a nice big house with land. Yes, yes, drunken miscreants exist everywhere, but there is more scope in the US from getting away from all of that if you choose your locations wisely. In my nearly 7 years of living here, I always have the impression that the undesirables are only a street corner away. This is where my snobbiness steps in, because yes, I want to shelter P from all of that. The "real" world is a great place which we need to be aware of, but not in the form of having to grow up too fast if you don't have to. I'm all for shielding her eyes for as long as I can. She will have the rest of her life to realise all of the crazy and disgusting shit that goes on in this world.

Just in case anyone pigeonholes me as an anti-British expat who is socially right of the Daily Mail, my list of things I'll miss vastly outweighs the things I won't. Living here has granted me a world view I wouldn't have gotten any other way. I always thought I was so open-minded and unpatronising until I moved here, when I realised how very wrong I was. I have grown so much, and what I have learned will no doubt remain with me and keep me defined as the Ameribrit I feel I have become even if my location changes.

Much as I love my American television shows, the British do factual, news and original programming like no one else. Even after all of this time I shake my head in amazement at having a primetime show on Baroque art on a main channel, frank news discussions whose aim is to make everyone uncomfortable with the truth, or a hilarious, mostly high-brow quiz show hosted by the world's most brilliant man. Just tonight I have been watching NewsNight Review (which has no US parallel, I'm sorry), followed by Jools Holland, because as you know mama likes her some fresh new music.

I will miss the media here in general. I'm already working on a way to regularly obtain my heart in written form - The Guardian. Some days I lay naked on its newsprint in the hopes I will absorb its amazingness. Nothing yet. I didn't think it was possible to love a newspaper as much as I do this one.

I will miss the people. The non-drunk, criminal ones, that is. I'm much more suited to the reservedness of British culture than the American need to have a constant conversation with everyone you meet. I don't do small talk, so in a country such as this which is a black hole for such trivialities, I'm in heaven. When I'm back in the US I am severely unnerved by fellow patrons in line that talk to me unprovoked. I'm sure I come off as socially retarded or immensely arrogant, but I just cannot cope with that rubbish.

I will miss the weather. Yes, you heard me correctly. The rain, the overcast skies, the wind - I love it all. An ideal meteorological day for me is dark skies, a hint of drizzle, and a temperature of about 48 degrees. Those people who get seasonal affective disorder because of the lack of sun - weirdos. I have the opposite, though I suppose it would still be called the same thing. Too many days of sunshine and warmth and I'm looking for a blackout blind and an ice box.

The most controversial thing I will miss is the NHS. Again, yes, that's what I really said. I think it's brilliant, and all of those American knee-jerkers ranting about an impending socialist society because of Obama's healthcare plans should know of what they speak before they cast judgments. I had to make an appointment last minute this morning for the doctor to prod P's gross foot, and by 11am I had a prescription for an antibiotic and some lotion which cost me absolutely nothing. My crazy pills? They cost me about £8($12)/month. Yes, we all know the problem I had getting those blasted pills in the first place, but that was down to the specific GP's philosophies rather than any fault on behalf of the NHS. My labour and childbirth were amazing and just what I wanted - the only people present in the room were The Dude, a midwife, possibly me, and eventually P.

I'm sure if it wasn't nearly 1am I could come up with more things, but I shall just need to bore you with them another day. My love/hate letter to Britain here is something I have wanted to do for awhile, particularly as the day we leave is drawing nearer and nearer. Well, that is, if my people (ie Americans) can give my ass a j-o-b. My hopefully-not-shit resume was just submitted last night at this time, so fingers crossed kiddos. If I find myself back in PA, I would be lying if I said I wasn't way too excited at the notion of being close to so many much-loved blogging friends of mine. Not Statia though, she swears too much. That's just tasteless.

Wayfaring stranger

Yeah, so not to seem all needy and stuff, but 20 visitors in one day is just shameful. A girl more paranoid and blessed with sufficient sleep would wonder what happened to all of her blogging friends. I know what happened - I got pregnant three years ago and a huge chunk of them jumped ship. Things just ain't like they used to be. Wah wah wah, etc etc.

Ok, I'll try and pull myself together. I'm reading a lot of books lately, so perhaps I shall make them my new friends, harrumph. Please don't remind me that I'm so shit at commenting that most of you probably don't even remember my name - we'll just brush that under the carpet, ok? I'm digressing again, aren't I...I'm going to do a real post, I promise.

Do you recall that we were going to move to Canada? Weeeell, it appears as if that's off the table now. Once we submitted our final paperwork (prior to the required medicals), The Dude started to haunt ex-pat boards and ended up frightening himself out of it. I remained positive for a whole day or two before his negativity made me second guess my own optimism, and now I'm all, "Booo! America's hat wants to keep the non-Canadian down, booo!!" He is of the opinion that Canadian employers are unlikely to hire non-Canadians, and that job security is a foreign concept. I suspect that these perceptions originate from posts on the ex-pat forums from embittered, narrow-minded people with a rigid sense of what they perceive to be "right" or "wrong". Most of the women on my American expats in the UK list are provincial shrews who just cannot bear to accept that life is not the same in the UK as it is in the US. I imagine a lot of British people living in Canada are the same way.

With this recent development, our perspective has shifted and now I am looking at re-patriation. I check a specific job listing site as if that itself is my job, and I may even be applying for a position in my home state within the next couple of days. I'm exceptionally nervous about the prospect, as it dawned on me yesterday that I've never had a "real" job in the US. I have only ever worked a standard Monday through Friday job in the UK. My familiarity is with UK working culture, and it's bizarre to think that I would likely feel like an outsider in my own country's culture.

This isn't just an update about our migration plans. I acknowledge that only a couple of you have been marking my whereabouts with drawing pins connected with string on a large map on the walls of your living rooms. All of this talk of living here, living there, and all points in between makes me worry that I am a bit too migratory for my own good. Will I ever settle down and believe that I want to stay in that place?

I didn't have a transient childhood - we moved to a different local school district when I was 11, and that was it. Due to money issues and my Dad siphoning my college fund to support his drinking and gambling, I had to stay at home while I went to university. Toward the end of my studies I was desperate to the point of insanity to get out of the town in which I grew up, and I moved to the UK after graduation.

In the nearly seven years that we've been here, we've always had this goal of living in our ideal house in the perfect location. In the first couple years that could have been in the UK, until reality set in and it occurred to us that we could never have that life here barring a large financial windfall or 24 hour prostitution. After that, Canada came into the picture. The rambling house on the fringes of suburbia started to take shape, and my chickens called Ted and Dot became a realistic possibility. So much of our lives in the past seven years has been, "When we have our proper house..."

I've reached a point now where I desperately need to get out. I want that life now, in Canada or the US, and though for years I was content to cheerily say, "We'll have that one day!" Polyanna has done packed her bags and hopped on the earliest red-eye. I'm nearly 31 folks, I ain't getting any younger.

Now I'm concerned that this next step, if it takes place, will still not be enough. Am I always chasing a perceived happiness which isn't remotely steeped in reality? I know it's not all about material goods, and honestly, what makes me look forward to this hoped-for future is that P will have a big yard to run around in, trees to climb, outdoor toys to play with, and a house big enough that she isn't always in the same room as her parents. Here she lives on the top floor of our building, has no garden, and can only spend time in one of a few rooms. This poor kid strokes out when a friend of hers produces a bike and rides it around an open space. It's a completely foreign concept for her, the poor mite.

I hope you're still reading a couple of years from now when I'm ensconsed in my nice house, airing my firmly middle class concerns like the irritating prat that I am. I just hope I don't get pregnant before then - my only reader will be my brother. Can you imagine the embarrassment...

Music Monday: Partay

Because there ain't no party like a Scranton party (or in the case of my own geographical origin - Harrisburg), this week I'm talking about the Guardian's list of party music. There will be no Abba or shit like that here - this isn't a hen night at a dodgy pub. Rock on. All summaries are those of The Guardian, not my own. Sadly.

The B-52's: Love Shack

"A seemingly effortless meld of Don Was’s slick big-band production, Fred Schneider’s fairground bark, the piping harmonies of Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson and the dirty blues guitar of Keith Strickland, Love Shack gave the B-52’s their first mainstream hit more than a decade into their career. Inspired by the cabin in Athens, Georgia, where the band wrote their early songs, it was a tribute to original guitarist Ricky Wilson who died of Aids-related illnesses in 1985."



Next was going to be the Beastie Boys' "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)", but it seems YouTube does not think I can watch ANY version of this video. At all. Oh well, you know what this sounds like anyway, right?

David Bowie: Let's Dance

"Few people know more about making people dance than Nile Rodgers. As the guitarist in Chic, he helped write and produce some of the best songs of the disco era, including Everybody Dance, Le Freak and Good Times. No surprise then that when David Bowie asked Rodgers to produce his second album of the 80s, it resulted in a dancefloor gem. The clipped bass, rhythmic guitar chops and rising chants that telegraph the chorus work in any setting, from wedding discos to fashionable east London bars."



Johnny Cash: Cocaine Blues

"If you believe that violent and amoral lyrics were invented by rockers or rappers, this stunning proto-gangsta stomp will be a shock to your system. TJ “Red” Arnall’s 1947 western swing standard is the testimony of Willy Lee, who, high on coke and whiskey, shoots his woman and fails to escape justice. Cash’s Folsom Prison concert version is legendary, but The Man in Black is outdone by one Billy Hughes, whose 1947version is utterly remorseless."



Depeche Mode: Just Can't Get Enough

"No matter how inventive the rearrangement, how annoying the charity cover version or how ubiquitous its appearance in advertising makes it, there’s no escaping the pure pop thrill of new-wave veterans Depeche Mode’s naive, breakthrough single, the final contribution from early songwriter Vince Clarke (before leaving to form Yazoo and later Erasure) and an anthem in British gay clubs ever since."



Ian Dury and the Blockheads: Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick

"Chas Jankel’s musical nous and Ian Dury’s wordsmithery combine to perfection on this blast of brilliant nonsense that sold nearly a million on its initial release. The music is a thick funk gumbo (largely down to Norman Watt-Roy’s heavy, busy bassline) as Dury rhymes the likes of “Borneo” with “Bordeaux”, “Eskimo” with “Arapaho” and “Milan” with “Yucatan” before breaking into the gloriously nutty chorus. Davey Payne’s double saxophone break is manic; the Blockheads never hit these heights again."



Flight of the Conchords: Think About It (What is Wrong With the World Today)

"In which the peerless Kiwi “digi-folk” duo pay homage to a certain strain of “protest song” – the vague, directionless, apolitical soul ballad exemplified by Buffalo Springfield, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, the Stylistics and any number of acid jazz copyists. As FOTC describe an inner-city dystopia where kids are “killing each other with knives and forks” and “getting diseases from monkeys” over the chords from Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), it’s clear that they’re actually rather good blue-eyed soul crooners."



House of Pain: Jump Around

"Irish-American rappers House of Pain always played second fiddle to west-coast contemporaries Cypress Hill, who never fashioned anything as great as Jump Around. From the fanfare that launched a thousand cannabis habits to the squeal that ushers in every jump (sampled from Prince’s Gett Off), it united college halls and rock clubs long after they sank into insignificance."



The Libertines: Can't Stand Me Now

"From a poetic point of view, the release of Can’t Stand Me Now could not have been more perfect. From an intra-band harmony perspective, it couldn’t have been worse. Released just as Pete Doherty and Carl Barât’s tumultuous relationship was beginning to finally fall apart due to Doherty’s drug habit, you can hear the spite in the love me/hate me lyrics. A No 2 hit at the time, it remains the most famous mission statement from the London could-have-beens."



MGMT: Kids

"Brooklyn-based duo MGMT emerged in 2007 with an intoxicating blend of squelching electro-funk, wiggy progisms and 70s pop-rock sensibilities. Produced by Flaming Lips associate Dave Fridmann, Kids remains their signature tune; its mix of gurgling synths, pounding drum machines and make-believe lyrics overcoming hints of hipster irony to rock harder than a Shoreditch warehouse party. Much to the band’s chargrin, the track was recently appropriated by French premier Nicolas Sarkozy for use at political rallies."



Pulp: Sorted for E's and Wizz (if you want to know more about Pulp, come and ask - I'm an expert)

"The ultimate after-the-Britpop-party anthem, as Jarvis Cocker and co steal the melody of Leo Sayer’s Moonlighting and define the dark side of drugs, festivals and coming down. The Mirror got itself in a tizz about the single sleeve that explained how to make a drug wrap, but if they’d listened they would have heard one of the most despairing of all drug anthems, with its pensive acknowledgment that communal highs are always followed by private lows."



Jackie Wilson: Your Love

"Originally unable to nail the vocal track, Wilson was instructed by producer Carl Davis to “jump and go along with the percussion”. It worked a treat. In perhaps the most joyous two and a half minutes ever committed to tape, Wilson – backed by members of the Funk Brothers – builds Higher and Higher up into a crescendo of gospel-inspired ecstasy, capturing the optimism and seemingly endless possibilities of new-found love."



And just for fun...

Cameo: Word Up

A walk in my shoes

I wanted to do a post about serious issues, but this time it's nausea rather than tiredness acting as my foil. I think I'm either pregnant or dying, and as I'm an infertile who doesn't have sex, I think I know which is more likely. Anyway, I swear I have some good posts coming, not that it matters since most of you Bloglines kids haven't been told of my existence in months. Fucking thing.

Today P and I visited friends, and on the way home we passed an old cemetery that I've never actually explored despite my reformed Goth leanings. Fog was settling, so I did what any good ex-Goth would do and whipped out my camera. P was slightly intrigued, but got distracted when I wouldn't keep turning left as per her demands. For your (hopeful) enjoyment, here are some of the photos. Can it get more British than this, I ask you?











And because life knew I had a camera to document this, I present:



Real things soon, I promise.

Time-sinks

Rather than doing something constructive with my much-needed spare internet time such as commenting on your blogs, I have been doing idle, fluffy internet things. I have such grand notions of sitting down at the computer and leisurely strolling through my Google Reader feeds, but I have no coherent thoughts bubbling up in this tiny mind of mine. I can read, but as for coming up with something worthy to say - no chance. The feeds are all there, unread, waiting for me to be inspired at some point.

It seems I am so arrogant as to believe you are hanging on my every word, desperately wanting to find out where I go when I'm avoiding being a good member of blogging society. I'll tell you, because though I have a few posts swimming around in my head, I think all that would come out is a Liz Lemonesque, "BLURGH".

In no particular order:

1) What Would Tyler Durden Do

I happen to think my brother is the blogger behind this hilarious gossip site, so familiar are some of his phrasings. I'm sure some of you would find him crude and most inappropriate, but I myself am often crude and inappropriate.

2) Curious Expeditions

I happened upon this site, perhaps via Molly, when we were looking for library porn. Yes, there is such a thing, and while reading the post I had to change my underwear three times. Please see above, "crude and inappropriate".

This blog isn't usually about libraries - its object is to find the strange and unusual sites in the world, and you wouldn't believe what's out there. Prepare yourselves to get lost in this website for awhile.

3) Craftastrophe

Admittedly, this is a new fixation since I didn't know about this site until they started following me on Twitter. Etsy lovers will probably find it particularly funny. I mean, really (and also because I have always hated the word "moist", particularly in conjunction with "chunks")...

4) Postcards from Yo Momma

I only "found" this site last week, but good god is it funny. Readers submit funny texts/emails/IMs with their mothers, and it has made me realise that there must be a universal motherism because so many of them are totally my own Mom. I'm tempted to submit the conversation I had with my Mom when she told me about a movie she saw the night before - she couldn't remember the title or even what it was about, but she knew she really liked it and that Keri Russell was in it. Yes, it was The Waitress. That being the only thing Keri Russell has really done since Felicity, which my Mom never watched. Somehow she had little recollection of the film she greatly enjoyed, but she did remember the random B (C?) list actress that a lot of people, particularly those of her generation, wouldn't be familiar with at all. Anyway, mothers...comedy fodder for sure.

5) Lovely Listing

Some of you may know of my love of real estate. If I tell you that I can spend three hours on real estate sites no problem, please don't laugh. It's an addiction, and it needs fed. This is why I find Lovely Listing so hilarious. It features reader submissions of photos from real estate websites that perhaps should have never been published. Ever. I have often wondered why, in trying to sell a house, a realtor thinks that showing a photograph of a bloke sitting in a chair, or a cat on a table is in anyway relevant. Prepare yourselves - this one will keep you busy for awhile. Not only are the photos worth a visit, but the write-ups are witty and clever too.

My life is making me feel like road kill on a sweltering day, so I'm going to stop interneting and go to bed. I hope you don't get too carried away with my links as well!