Those punks! Burning Man Set on Fire Early Due to Arson

Whoa, since when could you add video to your blogs? Is this new? There's a new little filmstrip icon next to the photo icon.

Today was lovely. SF rarely gets hot, but today was one of those lovely clear, sunny days that was cold in the shade and warm in the sun. I had a nice big walk around the Loin today and ate at Tommy's Joynt. I had the turkey sloppy joe. It was alright. This place has been around for a while but I feel like that's more of its selling point than the actual food.

I went to the doctor. Among other matters of business, I asked for an HIV test. I'm not concerned that I have HIV, but I felt like I should be tested at least once; I am 27 after all and you just never know. It would truly be a surprise to me if it came back positive.

San Francisco teaches you to be patient with the crazy and the homeless. In San Francisco you can be a professional with hot pink hair and gauged ears and work in an office (like my nurse practitioner). In San Francisco, the sporting goods stores and the army supply stores and the costume stores stock up on EL wire and parachutes and goggles and faux fur and batteries in August because they know that half the population will be preparing for burning man(the other half will be enjoying empty cafes and ample parking space). In San Francisco, I am not only normal, I am pretty average and I like that.
Even now, when I see same sex couples walking around holding hands, my eyes tear because I am so happy that there is a city where they can.

Got most of my burning man shopping done...johnny and I did a big Trader Joe's run last night and I got some "rice lights" today - EL wire's $4.99 cousin. I think I'm good to go. :D

Man, this chick is bitter. I can understand hating stupid, irrisponsible people but why all-burner hate?
Yesterday Johnny and I ran around the city stocking up on camping gear. I finally got my Camelbak :)
I love flying into America - the landscape is so huge. It's easy to imagine there is nothing but desert/farming plains/Rockies out there since it's all the eye can see.
Coming home is always a strange experience. Once I'm doing something familiar, it feels like I never left. Is it possible to leave your heart in two places?

Paisley Gourd Purse

Paisley Gourd Purse
Originally uploaded by Barbali

Check out this woman's gourd creations! One day she discovered a weird vegetable thing growing in her yard and it turned her on to a whole new medium of craft. I'm so impressed.

Going to SF on Thursday! I'm psyched.

Cool; these people make personalized fragrances based on your DNA...I'm not sure how, but the idea of a completely personal scent is very attractive.

Dude. Uh...
I got very drunk last night. And stuff happened.

Dvd.co.uk has really cheap dvds and they ship for free. Dumb and Dumber, Dark City and American Beauty just came in today. YES!

The weather for today, August 18: gray and cloudy. Possibly some rain. Breezy. Ugh. These people have been completely cheated out of a summer.

I finally went to see the Transformers movies. The best summary I can give it is that it would be way better if they turned the sound off. The visuals were pretty good - there were some good robot fight scenes and there were lots of fighter jets and car smashing - but the dialog was atrocious. In addition to cheesy pop-culture one liners, they also squoze in a stupid teenage romance with a "highschooler" that looked about 28, a completely unbelievably hot "geek chick", and lots of orchestral moment-of-truth scenes.
I'm glad I saw it still. It was pretty cool and it made me want to fly a fighter jet.
Also had a Fruli last night at the Kenston Lodge
Tonight I went to the Wellcome Trust collection. It's a medical museum. They have a whale heart and a 1/2 cm vertical slice of a man and all kinds of cool stuff.
Current read: the Zombie Survival Guide. I think it's been making me paranoid. I bought a crowbar today just in case. Here is how it went down:
"Hi, I need a crowbar."
"Okay, here you go."
"No, I need a longer one."
He hands me an 18 incher.

"Ooh, £8.99. That's a little high. I thought I could get one for a fiver."
"Well for most things, the small one is enough." He hands me the 12" crowbar. "You can do everything you need with this one. What do you need it for?"
I looked at him. Dare I confess that it was for zombie defense?
"I just need one."
"Okayyyy."
The old guy running the register is surprisingly supportive. "No one will mess with you with this in your purse!" Indeed, this handy implement lines the bottom of my satchel perfectly...

Check this out! Threadless and this decal company have teamed up to make these effin awesome wall decals out of Threadless shirt designs. I love this one. Be sure to scroll through the filmstrip of pictures for this one. I love all the different ways they've used the same sticker.
They run about $55 to $60. If they were $25, I'd totally get one.
Frack. It looks like stickers are the new thing huh? Awesome. I love stickers.
I remember reading an article the other day about some department store in London (the name of the store was two males names - Henry James? Something.) that was promoting a new fragrance by putting scratch and sniff stickers of it on the glass windows. Genius! Brand new, interactive ways of advertising. I've been waiting for years for smellovision, where your TV has the ability to emit a range of not only light and color, but also smells.

Another hot, hot day. I love it but it does feel weird. It's been a long time since I've been hot and wearing strappy, girly things. Went to Kilburn this morning for a nice breakfast with Z. On the way home ran into a jackpot of free goodies - books and yarn and knitting needles! I'm going to start making socks!
Pooltime later. That was great. It was hot. I got some color. Being in the water is so nice.
There was a version of Austin Powers that I've never seen before on the telly tonight. It basically the first one but with 3 extra scenes I've never seen before. They didn't add to the movie at all (Christian Slater is in one).
I'm going to get a tattoo. I think. I'll probably change my mind tomorrow. A pineapple.
Season 3 of Battlestar Gallactica comes out in 3 weeks... :D
Oh yeah, ale festival yesterday...

Woah, bad episode last night. Feeling better and well rested this morning. I probably don't have severe intimacy issues; I'm just not in the mood for dealing with it right now with any of the current candidates. Phew. Man, I need to take a break. Wonder what's I'm doing tonight.

What am I doing with myself? I have no direction in life. I realize that I am 27 and have my whole life ahead of me, but I feel like the life ahead of me is just blank and more floating. Shouldn't I fill it up with something? Buying a house and finding a life partner would be nice. But I can't do that here; I have to go back to my life in SF. I have a ticket home in November. But I like it here. I'd like to stay another year. But that will defer my plans for another year. Can I deal with not fulfilling myself for another year? What is so great about expensive, gray, cold London? What's so great about expensive, foggy, cold San Francisco? Everything. They are both awesome.
Here are some things really intensely emotional things that have happened in the last week or two:
1) TWO sunny weekends spent with REALLY, REALLY good company. Sunshine is like oxygen to me. It feels like I'm getting my life back when I was finally able to lay in the sun and get HOT. The weather has pretty much been CRAP since November - you don't know what it's been like.
2) getting shagged on a regular basis
3) model went home finally - I don't have to deal with daily potentially heart-attack-inducing intimacy in my own living room anymore. I'm free!
4) work has been very busy and stressful the last couple of weeks and next week will be even worse
5) re-realization that I have severe intimacy issues, this time possibly stemming from the knowledge that I will have to leave sooner or later and can't get too attached here. #3 is probably a sad outcrop of this.
6) chemically induced bonding session with a new friend, who I sincerely believe I have a real-life bond with and respect/affection for - and not freaking out during it which kind of freaks me out
7) Sam's birthday boat was the first time in a good while that I got out of a city and into nature again - beautiful nature. That weekend was some serious soul food.
8) I found out last week that my sister is buying a studio. In San Francisco. She's 24.

I dont' have a plan for anything I do. I just do things day by day. I used to really like this: all the time in the world, living in a new city, doing cool poo all the time, young, healthy, comfortable income, nice shoes.
God I hope this goes away. I want to go back to being happy exactly where I am and looking forward to the next cool prize on the road.
I can't deal with this internal drama. I want to shut it off. Be a hermit. Does this mean then that I am emotionally aloof, or an emotional basketcase? Cold or hot? Both? Do you see what I mean? I am a total mess.

Here is something I've noticed about getting older - a widening of the hips. This isn't necessarily a bad thing...they're curves. It's harder to keep the fat off my belly, but in small amounts, it's quite fetching actually. All in modertion.
The busker is off to Barcelona today. Hmm, I've never been to spain...

You know, I just had the best weekend in a long, long time. SFS, the trifecta to my happiness, was fulfilled this past few days.
On Friday I met up with Eli, whom I met on Sam's boat. The India Week festivities were going on in Trafalgar Square. It was fun. Spent the night in Tuffnel Park.
On Saturday, Fruitstock was happening. During the week Ben implored me to get tickets to this, which I did. It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day. Summer had finally arrived. I hung out with Ben, Kate, Richard, and a really cool friend of Kate's. There were free smoothies galore (from the Innocent smoothie people), and free stuff from Alpro soy, Morris dancers, the Pimm's bus, fresh fruit, ferret racing, and all sorts of nice fete type stuff.
Afterwards, we headed down to the Volunteer for a Fruli. Richard and I decided it was time for some debauchery which lead to a walk from Kensington to my house, late night garden star-gazing, and some very good bonding time. It was great to really get to know a good friend of Ben's.
On Sunday, even more sun, a blanket on the grass in the garden, a braai with the SAns.
More exciting happenings in Tuffnel Park yesterday...
I was just saying to Ben today how great it was to live in the same city as him finally. It's been about 8 years coming. I'm very happy.
Again, life keeps getting better as I get older but will I ever grow up? If growing up means settling down, accepting a steady life at home with a life partner and finally applying the label "woman" to myself...do I want that? It seems very stifling. How do you know when you've reached "womanhood"? I pretty much still feel about 24, which is basically 19, but with a college degree and a couple of years of bill-paying under your belt. I can't imagine giving up pulling cute boys of a Friday, eating pizza for dinner, and going out and doing stupid poo at the drop of a hat in exchange for wiping someone else's ass, spending my money on Spongebob Squarepants bedsheets, and wasting my holidays at Disneyworld. WHY would you make that switch? Are cute boys no longer cute? Is free time no longer a treat, but a curse you must fill up with inanane baby talk and stupid foam shape puzzles? Is Nickelodeon suddenly a worthly cause to give charity to? Is baby poo so much less offensive than grown-up poo?
I really wish I got at least a glimmer of understanding. The hedonist in me is always chasing the greatest joy ever. Unfortunately, I am told time and again that it is watching your offspring grow...

So being the big Fruli fan I am, I went into my spreadsheet this morning to check off the Marquis of Cornwallis as another pub I'd visited that serves Fruli. However, it was not on the list! I promptly alerted the Fruli fan site. Score 4 for Rennie!

Aw, cute. Simpsons Movie soundtrack in donut case...

The other night I was in Sainsbury's picking up a couple of beers in preparation for tonight's burping contest. Did I mention there is a burping contest tonight? It was me vs. Zak but he's chickening out. Now it's me vs. Matt and Zak will ref.
Anyway, the guy carded me. He said I look 17 :(
This is why I wear make up.

Yesterday I wore my BCBG stilettos to work and finally learned how to walk in them. The trick is to hold your upper body straight up and pivot the hips a lot. There is a lot of ass swinging but it's better than the alternative, which looks like you're stomping down the street.

I made cookies last night. Mmm...chocolate chip cookies. Hot out of the oven.

Apparently, I like the smell of old men. At least, that is what my flatmate thinks. Armani Mania, Carolina Hererra 212, Vera Wang for Men...this is the sexy leather-tobacco-cashmere-wood scent of octogenarians he says. Yikes, I hope I don't turn into Anna Nicole.

Saw the Simpsons movie tonight. It wasn't bad. It was a little too neat and commercial, but it was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. Yay.