2004-07-22..4:37 p.m.

Today a shift from my unusual wealth of ARSE news! I've an industry/press pass to get in to see Nemo at Glam-o-rama's Club Bohemia on Saturday, which I'm very excited about. A bit of the old mixing business and pleasure (the bassist is an old lover who I�m still close to, but sometimes closer than others), so I don't mind admitting I'm a tad nervous about how I take to them live. They�re fantastic recorded, and I very much want to do them justice, but have yet to decide if I flatly WILL NOT write something fab if they�re crap. And if they ARE fab, then what if he ends up thinking I�m waxing bias? Such writerly hardships.

I�ve decided to take my recent misfortunes [insert dramatic Scarlet O�Hara sigh here] as a sign that I should be getting some writing done. I got my latest lot of CDs to review in a lovely large package that I had to go all the way out to the post office to collect on Saturday. Five altogether (plus the three I�ve promised to shake together for other bands makes EIGHT! PLUS TWO LIVE REVIEWS! AM I MENTAL?), and of the three I�ve thusly consumed, there is one I�m flopping over. I keep going from being over the moon I have it in my possession if purely for the joy of seeing the horror in other peoples faces when they first hear it, and wishing I could send it back to the Press Office with a sternly worded letter. O Jane, and your intentional omission of a surname a la Madge and Kylie. Jane, what can I say? If it is as I suspect, your album is an hour long on the floor laugh-riot. An abuse beyond belief of drum machines and synth, of Molly Ringwold (circa Breakfast-Club) sashaying and kicky dance moves, of Oprah-endorsed Live the Dream lyrics. If it is not as I suspect, Seedlings is the most brilliant piece of ironic take-the-piss late-80s hair balladry I have ever encountered. I want desperately to give it a bad review, but it really is worth it just for the giggle-fest and general bogglement.

Ms Millikin on the other hand is SHEER FUCKING GENIUS!!!!!! I liked the Guthries, I now LOVE Ruth Millikin. Amazing. So very Canadian too. Embedded in a strong history of storytelling, it drips with the Canadian Gothic, which is so typical of our greatest artists. She is, as her press release claims, very Leonard Cohen. I just wish it were longer, those five songs aren�t enough.

I had to leave the Boy at home this morning, all alone. This is not a particularly unusual course of events. I frequently leave him to drift comfortably back to sleep while I traipse out to make a living. He wakes up with my alarm, lies there listening to me ignore it, before shoving me out of bed to hit the snooze button. He waits for me to shiver back into the crook of his arm after my morning attempt to wash under ice pellets. He watches me prance nakedly, fretting over how far I can tease my *indie* sensibilities into my everyday work attire, fussing over what book I should sneak in to read under my desk, and flying out the door in an uncombed and anxious whirl because I�ve fucking managed to be late again. However this morning, I was also leaving him with slightly wet (ie sodden) pants that I had washed the night before (don�t look at me like that, I offered. I�m not getting all Stepford and 50s housewife)(he�s been at mine since Saturday! There are only so many times you can reverse-wear!), which meant that he had to run to the laundrette across the street to dry them. Except that one of my flatmates has out-of-countriers staying and had given them the spare key, which meant that he had to leave the front door on the latch, and the house empty and unattended. Which meant that most of my morning was spent in a vague sort of worry.

Did he manage to dry his pants? Did the house get burgled? Burnt to a crisp? Gang-banged by local Finsbury Park/Crouch End Hooligans? Invaded by three-foot slightly green Little People in hoisery and lavender tunics? Beamed up Scottie? Generally attune to mayhem and destroyed while he left it unlocked?

(the answers were revealed as Not entirely, no, no, no, no, no, and no. I worry for nothing.)

Last night too I had the loveliest pleasure of getting to hang out with the lovely K who I�ve not seen in almost three whole months. She�s one of those gals I always mean to make plans with and then never do, and yet whenever we hook up it�s like we only saw each other last week. Anyway, we spent about four hours talking music, the gradual realisation of our plans to whore our writerly appetites for money, gothic dreams and their meanings, black liner, bands from Watford, Toronto parks, interview techniques (giving, rather than attending), living situations and Council Tax, Anna Karenina, sex webs and relationships, and pigeons. It was truly delightful.

Do you guzzle water?

Can you eat a whole tomato without chewing it, rather cracking it with your tongue and gradually sucking it dry?

If you cover your eyes and count backwards from 26, do you see stars and stripes spangling once you open them up again?

Do you sometimes look down at your shirt and find you've someone else�s hairs embedded in the collar?

This sounds horrible, but I still reckon hearing one�s got Fuch�s Dystrophy would be a momentary, ahem, mindfuck.

Lunch today consisted fruit and water and a nummy gorgeous packet of Waitrose� �Fruit, Seeds, and Nuts.� I think I ought to eat more, but you know those days when you just can�t be arsed? Today I couldn�t. So hot, so humid, so slothing about and cloudy. I love days like this, for they threaten thunder storms and raindrops the size of acorns to come whizzing and clattering down the slate shingles of my slopey attic roof. On days like this I feel like I�ve a little secret huddled in my chest, a tiny ball of giddy breathless excitement just waiting to go hurtling forth in yelps and crackles at the sight of the slowly building river in the gutter outside my window. It begins to smell like rain. Worm and toads and grass and the wet wet pavement.

I�m turning off the lights and cutting down the lilies and pronouncing the emergence of Stanlee Jane Kitten at your disposal.

****meepily, SJK