raincitygirl

I'm still in a really weird place regarding replying to comments. I'm not ignoring anybody who's commented on previous posts, I'm just finding my anxiety is spiking very high whenever I go to READ said comments, so mostly I haven't actually read them. Yet. I will get over this and read them (and reply to them) at some point, I promise.

In the meantime, have a really interesting article about a previous FIFA president, Sir Stanley Rous, in Stanley Rous Remembered, Re-Assessed. Rous was not financially corrupt, but he sounds like as big a bastard as his successor Joao Havelange and FIFA's current President-for-Life Sepp Blatter, in his own special way. He went to great lengths to support apartheid South Africa, and as for the Chile business... Well, the Chile business is detailed in the article. One thing it doesn't say in the article is that the National Stadium in Santiago was in active use as a concentration camp for Pinochet's enemies until TWO WEEKS before the exhibition game organized by FIFA. It says that in another article that I unfortunately forgot to bookmark and cannot find now.

And have a really interesting article gakked from sucrelefey about James Rhodes, a concert pianist whose autobiography can only now be published, after legal challenges delayed publication (in fact, they wanted to PREVENT publication altogether) and forced Rhodes not to talk in public about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. Not a particularly graphic article, but trigger-y all the same. The one thing I'm not clear on is why actor Benedict Cumberbatch is also in the photo of Rhodes at the top of the article. A supporter, possibly?

I feel like I should post something cute or funny to counteract these gloomy links. Alas, I got nuthin'. On the bright side, I have successfully persuaded my shrink that the Lyrica is not working on my anxiety AT ALL, and we are finally reducing it. He was convinced we just hadn't hit the right dosage yet. But I convinced him otherwise. Go me! And Young Miss Weaver is being very affectionate. Little does she realize that her veterinary doom has only been postponed, not vanquished altogether. Mwahahahaha! Mine is an evil laugh.

Gawked from twistedchick, Gay and Mennonite by Emma Green of The Atlantic. Essentially there is schism pending amongst Mennonite conferences over whether liberal congregations should be allowed to perform same-sex marriages, etc. Really interesting read.

I am reading the most *interesting* book right now. I should probably wait until I finish it before I rec it, because I'm only a few chapters in, but it's really good so far. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance - a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power, by Danielle L. McGuire. It's a real mouthful of a title, and I had thought it would be a super-depressing read, but it's not so far.

I am also reading Sid Lowe's Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, for a change of pace. Lowe is the Guardian's correspondent on Spanish football, and an entertaining writer (although his writing style is not for everyone). I've also just discovered that one of my absolute favourite Guardian football writers, Barney Ronay, has written a book, The Manager: The Absurd Ascent of the Most Powerful Man in Football, which I am contemplating buying based on how much Ronay's columns make me laugh. Marina Hyde, who writes for the Guardian very entertainingly both about football and about showbiz, has written a book too, but it's sadly out of print, so not available in e-book format. Given how funny her articles are, I may give Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over the World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy give it a shot, and buy it cheaply used.

Um, I might make more progress in books if I picked *one* book to read and read it through to the end, instead of dipping in and out of several books at once. But I am a dipper at heart, I fear. Even if I'm really enjoying a book, after a few chapters, I need a change of pace.

The rain has stopped and I need to go to the hardware store and buy plants (i'm not one of those fancy gardeners like madripoor_rose who garden from seed. I'm a bedding out plants type of person. I already have potting soil courtesy of my mum, so now I need plants to put in it. But I'm finding it difficult to get out of my polar bear pyjamas and get a move on. It's almost 1 pm, for Pete's sake. Time to get up.

Also, it's occurred to me that there may be a *reason* I'm broke all the time: I spend too much money on books.