when did i last post?

i'm doing a few too many things.
but got to relax this weekend. food, sleep, smiles, schoolworks.
bike gone, waiting to hear on insurance....
organge dawns and hailstorms
running under glowing clouds, stars twinkling above.

things that made me happy this week

jogging along the river at lunch (x2)
being invited to a big gala 'sustainability awards' ceremony through a work contact
nights with a warm body in bed next to me
starting a tender with a colleague in glasgow
learning about the scottish planning system
listening to 3rd eye blind, underworld and rosencrantz
laughing at our flat dinner (more pears with marscapone)
getting somewhere on three projects at work
hot salt beef sandwich with lots of mustard for lunch

blurring states

is my memory from my dreams or did we talk about it last night?
i remember agreeing to meet in the future, but i don't remember when we agreed it or when we're meeting...
did i dream that yesterday while running or last night?
have we already had this conversation, or did i dream it in advance?

DC likely to go green...

"The District is poised to become the first major city in the country to require that private developers build environmentally friendly projects that incorporate energy-saving measures.
By 2012, most large construction in the city -- commercial and city-funded residential -- would have to meet the standards, if the D.C. Council gives final approval to a new bill next month." (washington post)

laughter for the day

yesterday - bought winter nuts for dinner party
nuts left on table in fruitbowl, ate a few
came home today - found chestnuts and walnuts in my bed
(how much did i drink last night?)
then in my bureau, then in the couch, then in the towels in the bathroom.
yea for squirrels.

ramblings

it's been a long week, with too many nights of sleeping on someone else's couch because I can't be asked to (or just can't) cycle across town home. I went to work drink/networking evening dos , listened to university lectures on pattern lanugage and the parallels between software architecture and urban morphology, been asked to be a blogger on worldchanging.com, had long discussions with my boss about my professional indemnity cover, enjoyed a drunken lunch with a former minor racecar driver, played a hard hour of tennis in the rain at 9pm, wrote a scholarship essay on the interent's potential to revolutionise public participation in planning, and helped ed host the weekly flat thursday dinner party (for 12). and did some work.

Very much looking forward to a friday night alone. I need 4 quiet non-hungover hours of relaxing on my couch with a good book before I can foucs again. Which i'll have to do again tomorrow, as i'm very very far behind on school work. essays on political theory, the reading before i can start writing the essays, graphic layouts in InDesign to illustrate my urban design analysis....

Spending most of today reading the blogs on the US elections. Good, but what small margins...when you're winning representative seats on margins less than 1% it doesn't seem like much of a mandate from the other side of the atlantic. Although some of the analyis about individual races has been fascinating stuff - republicans running big issue campaigns and people voting for their issues but for the democratic candidate. it feels like the GOP has lost it's reputation, and that the democrats have won by default. i really hope they don't start up an inquiry in january.

eating out in london....

(aka why i'm gaining weight despite exercising 5 days a week)
chinese, korean, thai, local organic lentil soup
eggs for breakfast, mouthwatering french steak with truffle mash for dinner
veg makes fresh bread almost daily
tuna chesse bagel melts for breakfast, dinners of ice cream
salami and bananas at 3pm, giant 60a dinners of mostly rice and cadbury's biscuits
work networking lunches of pizza and mozzarella salads
neel's birthday dinner. steak, salad, lots of alcohol,
hangovers which demand lots of carbs. then beer at 4. then dinner at 8.
gillian makes pancakes for breakfast i eat lots of marinated tofu, and then a full english sunday roast in about 30 seconds at 8pm.
dim sum in chinatown for work lunches

writing necessities:

alice deejay, underworld, or similiar 2000-2002 techno trance/house classic
headphones
1/2 a bottle of wine
dinner

essay break

it's a a scholarship competition - assess the potential of the internet to revolutionse public particiaption in planning in the UK. I drag up all the old theorists, plus myspace, secondlife, flanuer, and last week's government publication. more surprised by my ability to concentrate when needed. i forget that's what i do all day at work.

when i arrived home tonight, i saw the broccilli needed eating. so when veg rocked up, I mentioned steaming it with some rice. his idea? grind up ginger with garlic and spices, stir fry that with bacon and onions, add the broccilii and the greens i don't even think about eating. me - boring. veg - inspired. and lip smackingly tasty.

neel's cumpleanos. must praise the gorgeous venue, and one hell of a birthday party. and we all managed to ignore the bar full of tossers with slicked back hair. luckily i had the full on old crowd to party with. sometimes i need other people, even if its only to celebrate my random high, or listen to my drunken ramblings. rai, rishab, and la contessa - we've moved from in sandals and 6 dollar thai dinners in austin to heels and champagne and wiskey in firehouse, but the same laughter is still there.

frost and sunshine

we turned the heating on last night.
it's been blue skies and gorgeous sun for two days now, the weather's good mood is infectious.

sunday afternoon, sitting in the park with gillian greg and veg, the whole park was laughing. sunshine, yellow leaves whirling slowly down, children running around, old grandmothers smiling.

wednesday morning, cycling across the city after the early goodbye to mel at the station, fingers numb in the morning cold, the air sparkled.

yesterday, running along the river at lunch, all the couples were kissing in the wind. scarves flying.

Sarah's turquoise and silver jewelry

Sarah's turquoise and silver jewelry
Originally uploaded by MelT..

Sarah's shoes are here

Sarah's shoes are here
Originally uploaded by MelT..

space

having trouble engaging with the world...