This week end I will be sent to York (in Northern England) for work. The deputy editor at my job happens to know the city quite well and gave me touristy recommendations. Seeing that I have a particular affection for Gothic cathedrals, I was excited to learn that York’s Minster cathedral is the biggest one in Northern Europe. I mentioned this to the editor, who replied:

There is a great quote from Heinrich Heine saying we moderns have opinions not convictions, but it takes more than opinions to build a Gothic cathedral.

It reminds me: my friend Boris systematically refuses to enter a cathedral or church, this decision being hugely influenced by his beliefs which, being very socially liberal, contradict those of the Church endlessly. As an atheist despising the official Vatican’s stances I can certainly see where he is coming from, but we nonetheless argued about it countless times: in my view, a church is just a building to marvel at for its architecture, and to appreciate for the sense of peace and quiet one can find inside. Boris is having none of that - which is probably why he’s my best friend (that is up until he betrays us all and decide to vote centre for the upcoming French elections…You traitor!).

A couple of weeks ago I was walking home though Shoreditch when I heard a voice beside me:

“Jess! Heey-ohh Jess!”

I am not used to have my name called in the streets - let alone in London: I usually have my headphones on and I’m quite oblivious of the world surrounding me when I do. And of course, being relatively new to this city (under one year still makes you a newbie, or so I hear) I don’t have many acquaintances. But, being headphone free this day, I quickly turned around and saw my ex colleague/ buddy Anamik:

“This great to see you.” I said. “Especially since I think you’re the first person to ever call my name in London! This feels like a landmark”.

He had some time to kill before going to an exhibition at Rich Mix to see Gavin Hernandez’s cool photographic series, so we decided to have a quick drink in a pub nearby. His friend joined us a couple of minutes later, and he introduced me by pointing out that I had just gained my official Londoner title. The friend, a tall and chatty guy talking quite fast, laughed:

“What a strange coincidence. I usually never see people I know in the street, but I just bumped into my ex-girlfriend before joining you”.

He then told us about the first time he bumped into someone in the capital: like me, almost a decade ago, he had decided to London and had been trying to call London a home for months. One day, and for the first time in his entire life, he decided to enter a sex shop. While reaching for the exist he walked through the gay section of the store, and bumped into one of (gay) his classmate. Apparently the conversation went like this:

“Hey!”

“Hey…”

“Uhm… Weird to see you here… Do you want to go for a drink?”

“Sure”.

And so they left. I must admit I enjoyed the anecdote immensely. From what I gathered from the story, they never mentioned this encounter again, except for a couple of years ago when he threw an allusion in a coversation:

“Hey, do you remember this time….”

“(hastily) Yeah, I remember the time”.

Sometimes big cities are tiny places indeed. I could tell you about the time I bumped into my Canadian friend from Victoria/Toronto in Piccadilly Circus in the middle of summer, and how it turned out that we had rooms on the exact same floor of the same hostel, but I think I already mentioned it elsewhere (very last post on the page - I guess I didn’t know what permalinks were at the time of posting).

For the past week and probably to my boyfriend’s dismay* I’ve suffered a terrible case of PMS syndrom - something I have been quite happy living without for most of my teenager and adult life. Ridiculous mood swings and crying fits - you name it. Should you happen to be blessed with the wonders of a female body, you probably know what I am referring to. If not you can listen to Mary J Blige, who wrote about it (what a really strange topic for a RnB singer. I didn’t listen to anything by her ever since this duet with Method Man [if you know the song you are old school - HOLLA!] so I don’t know the song itself, but I disgress…)

This might explain why I enjoyed this post at Sivacracy, which attacks the faux-caring, paternalist and condescending tone napkin and tampon manufacturers use when adressing their customers. She quotes a letter sent to a manager of a company representative:

… As brand manager in the feminine-hygiene division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers’ monthly visits from Aunt Flo. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend’s testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey’s Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy! The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in capri pants. Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: “Have a Happy Period.”

Are you f***ing kidding me?

I should write infuriated letters like this one more often.

And don’t even get me started on the “flowery scented” pads trend, which I find revolting. Periods are a natural cycle of your body, and pushing women to feel like their body odour when menstruating is wrong really irks me. Now, while I would certainly agree that it’s a “tough time for women”, it’s also one we have to embrace, not detest.

I know some women decide to regulate their cycle by taking Depo Provera which stops mentsruation altogether, but a really interesting post I read today confirmed my fear of such drastic reproductive-options.

Now about those pads? This great company will be the place where I am going to shop next. At least they don’t treat their customers like raving chocolate-eating shopping-addicted morons. And no more chlorin-ified cotton!

*He is a very patient man. Lucky me.

• Newsflash: all American male law school students aren’t enlightenned characters. And while I’m sure the majority of them are great, capable and bright individuals, some are the exact opposite with too much time on their hands (maybe they should read a bit about sexual harrasment law instead of posting on message boards). And to think they will be lawyers soon. I’m still amazed by what people think they are entitled to do just because it’s on “a series of tubes” and they’re hiding behind their screens.

• Today is International Women’s Day. Does it mean that the 364 other days are International Men’s day? Maybe.

• Accurate sexual education for teens in the US. At last, a step in the right direction! Well that’s good news.

“After five years of making it through the House, but getting nowhere in the Senate, the sex ed bill —mandating that sex ed be medically accurate and that abstinence cannot be taught at the exclusion of contraception— passed the state Senate today, 30-19.” (via Josh Feit @ Slog)

I hope it also means that young adults won’t have to hear propaganda such as “abortion is the leading cause of breast cancer” any longer.

Question. You walk to work in the morning minding your own business, absorbed in your thoughts but not really sulking (just slowly waking up). Passing by a couple of professional drivers and courriers, one of then looks stares at you and say “C’mon girl, smile!”. Should you:

A. be annoyed that someone would order you to smile because hell, you don’t feel like being nice and let’s be honest there’s no way in hell I would be ordered to change my facial expressions if I was a 6 ft. pumped male athlete walking the streets?

B. just smile?

This morning I chose both options. I smiled first -the guy was trying to be nice- then got annoyed that I did. But maybe this is just because I’m bitter, miserable and acting like a “real monster” every day of the year from 7 to 11 o’clock.

And well, you might remember that I have a problem with pictures/smiling.

In light of my recent post about Yoshi’s island, Mark pointed me to this piece of news about gaming:

Mark: bet you can’t wait for this game

me: brilliant, and so spot on, after all I knit and bake bread already (1)

Mark: you’re a housewife superstar?

me: well I do have all the qualities don’t i?

A game for girls who want to become Housewives superstars? I suppose the game’s challenge is to bake perfectly little round cakes, clean the kids’ underwear and knit pretty scarves with ribbons intertwined. (I suppose that if there were working-full time housewives characters in this game they would say, hey, “I am enjoying spending an average of 10 hours more than you doing chores even if we both have a full time job and i’m still hitting the glass ceiling. Why’s that, honey?”).

Not that it’s out of the way… From what I gathered learning about games with Mark, Nintendo opened the gaming market to girls by making it accessible (and sadly, by releasing pink Nintendo DS). It also means they release games such as Bratz, which I can only describe as the gaming equivalent of reading Seventeen; Paris Hilton splattered all over the pages and oh don’t-you-wish-you-were-her.

Simple consideration: if there are “games 4 girls” and “games 4 boys”, it makes little doubt that girls are also enjoying playing boy’s games as well. After all, I really enjoy killing my pixelized enemies. And yes, I also understand that some games will be more popular with one sex than the other. But here’s the one million dollar question- why don’t I picture any little boy furiously hitting the start button of his “housewife superstar” game? Damn it, I want to see the “stay at home dad superstar” game out, and soon. Because as long as it’s not about assigning roles to gender but respecting lifestyle choices, there’s nothing wrong with liking housework, or wanting to raise your own children. But Madeleine already explained it better than I could.

(1) Mark and I did it together and to be honest, he knew way more about it than I did. That’s one of the reasons why I love the boy.

After a blog post that amused me a long while ago, an epiphany (spending 6 pounds [12 dollars?]a day on lunches is bad) and an awful lot of public queries, e-mailing Japon, Germany and a hunt trhough e-bay, I finally received what I’ve been purchasing for three months: a Bento box.

Good bye Starbucks! Good bye Pret! Good bye Nusa kitchen! Good bye fries for lunch (an abomination by my french standards). Hello, healthy food! And hey, I’m helping my man Al Gore by reducing carbon dioxide emissions as well (even if my deli.cio.us tag currently suggests that I have a soft spot for Obama rather than the official Climate Change Fighter ™, but we’ll see about that).

I will have to file this under “things I would have never thought to be possible a few months ago”.

I’ve always had a bit of a struggle with wanting to be a tech/blog grrl vs. the mandatory use of video games.

See, I began blogging in 2001. So that makes me “cool” by the blogosphere standards. But I didn’t know the first single thing about HTML until a couple of weeks ago. Which makes me uncool. I know a respectable amount about social networking, and wrote my dissertation about Blogs and the Generation Y. Cool. But my blog never had more than an average of 80 visitors a day. Not cool. I think that more and more I’d like to fancy myself as some kind of geek girl, but never really come around knowing a lot about it. It would probably involve knowing a lot of Php, sQL and Java, which is not going to happen anytime soon (unless someone volunteers to give me lessons?).

Now, knowing my bias and crushes for technology savvy female figures (I am a big fan of GenderIT), you’d think that I would be the kind of person to enjoy playing both online and video games. Truth is I always secretly despised game players, and frankly never made any fierce attempt to understand the appeal of the gaming culture. Too many of game enthusiasts seemed to be glued to their screens 24-7, eating flat Kraft dinners passed through their bedroom doors my worried parents anxious that their son or daughter might die from malnutrition (Microserfs, anyone?).

That was until a cold day of December which found Mark and I walking along an E2 road in East London. Passing by a shop selling video games, he mentioned wanting the Nintendo DS game Yoshi’s planet.

‘Yoshi’s planet?’, I shrugged. ‘Never heard of it’.

I was not really interested.But a couple of weeks later (struck by winter season’s gifts-inspiration related anxiety), I decided to purchase the game for Christmas.

I’ve been hooked ever since. Mind you, nothing like Mark, who recently purchased this legal device which enables you to download every DS games in the world in one chip card (don’t ask). But in “Jessica standards”, I fell quite hard considering my absolute lack of gaming-infatuation pre-Yoshi.

Oh sure, we look like some kind of extreme nerds when playing a wireless Golf match in the underground, but this is really fun. Well, apart from when I start attacking him violently because he’s way better than I am (a decade of game-playing helps, one would suppose) and well, you know me:

I.cannot.stand.losing.