In honour of this big (painful) day I’m embedding this clip.

(This is from when Cesc still wanted to be our captain.)

And one more thing. These are my very poignant thoughts of the game, written as it happened. Sadly Twitter only worked for half the game, hence the capslock love proclamation. Game was painful, although ended in a draw. 1-1, we so didn’t deserve that.

a) Wilshere has lego hair
b) Is Cesc having a chest infection or a “chest infection”?
c) Kos isn’t injured after all!
d) You can’t add flappy to Almunia’s name. He needs to change it
e) NGOG WTF?
f) Booing as a player goes off on a stretcher = classy
g) Cole is “not that kind of player” says Sky
h) TWITTER I MISSED YOU.
i) We’re fucked
j) Rosicky cut his hair, no longer looks like k.d. lang,
k) People that spells their names without capitals makes me twitch
l) 1-1!!!!
m) Obviously they want me to have a heart attack – waiting to 89:45 to score.

That’s all.

I’m so sad to see Eduardo leave Arsenal. He used to be this razor sharp player. He used to be somebody people looked at and said “he’s going to become something special”. That is, until he had his leg shattered by Martin Taylor from Birmingham City in 2008. The tackle was so horrendous that Sky didn’t show any repeats (sound familiar?), but if you do a Google search on his full name, Eduardo da Silva, you get a thousand hits of it. This pic was on the THIRD PAGE, because it was all injury time. And no, I’m not putting any of those on my blog because it’s nothing for those of you with a weak stomach. Here’s an example, though.. Only look if you can stomach it, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Long story short, he was back last season, but his game had changed for the worst. It looked like he was afraid to throw himself into the game, like he avoided tackles at all costs. And sure, it’s not hard to see why, but it was heartbreaking to see. He’s not gotten better, and you could (and I do) say that the injury ruined his career. It robbed him of his touch, his ability to turn quickly and be that precise, amazing football player he once was. And now it’s offical. He’s moving to Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine, which is a big step down.

It’s so sad, and it makes me hate football. It can be amazing and beautiful and the best sport out there, but the ugly sides are so… ugly. I don’t just mean the injuries. The media plays a big part too, especially when they run about proclaiming over and over that “oh, it wasn’t on purpose, he’s not that kind of player”.

Tough shit. When you ruin another players career this way YOU ARE THAT KIND OF PLAYER. It doesn’t matter if you meant it or not. It’s only in sports that “I didn’t mean to” counts as an excuse. The rest of us grew out of it in middle school. And if you want to know why this sort of media coverage is so hurtful, do read Tansy’s old post on it, written right after another player of ours had HIS leg chopped off. (And there’s that theme again!)

So, yes. I’m incredibly sad to see Eduardo go, but once a gooner always a gooner. I’m pretty sure the only exception to that rule is named Ashley Cole.

Today I have, in addition to the crafty things, done the following:

- Got a hair cut. It’s shorter than ever! If “ever” is code for “eleven years”. This marks my first use of Photobooth on my shiny Macbook, and I’m not even going to tell you how many attempts it took to make me look almost presentable. When my sister saw this pic she said “but don’t you know that you need to take the pic from above and give the camera the emo look?” Sadly I can’t bring myself to flirt with the camera. I tried. I only end up looking like I’m possessed. I’m not even kidding.

- Watched two football games, none which involved RVP, pictured above. He’s just my favourite boy crush. And no, I’m not ashamed. What I did watch was Mexico-South Africa and France-Uruguay. In the former Vela did three ALMOST assists and was pulled off the pitch in the eighty-something-th minute without ever finishing anything up. Game ended 1-1, and I missed Mexico’s goal because I strangely enough got sucked into a hiphop playlist I’m composing… France game ended 0-0 and was immensely boring, but both Gallas and Sagna got hacked down. I think we can safely say that Gallas is just old and squeaky and would snap in half if anyone looked at him for too long, and that Sagna was lucky that he didn’t break his leg. They’re all gonna come back broken. Damn World Cup.

- Been told to hashtag all my football tweets so people can filter them out.

-Did I mention the hiphop playlist? I know. It’s so not my kind of music, but I got this idea that working out will be awesome with music with a nice beat to it. First thing I did was fall in love with Janelle Monáe, who is, um, not hiphop. But she’s brilliant, and I’ve been listening to this song ALL DAY. In short, she’s beautiful, an amazing dancer, her hair defies gravity and in this video everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – wears suits with bowties and cute little black-and-white shoes. It’s quite refreshing, and I can’t watch her dance enough. And I never care about those things. (I found some proper hiphop too, don’t worry.)

- Realised that, yes, my cats sneaks out the window and sits all rolled up on the window sill OUTSIDE my third story window, all calm. The day she sees a bird, however, we’re in trouble. Must be better about closing it all the way.

- Finished reading Valiant, from Holly Black’s Modern Faerie Tale trilogy. I thought it was the second book, but now I’m not so sure, because the first and second had totally different POVs and the main character in the first was only in one scene of the second. I might’ve read the third, or she neatly brings the two of them together in the third book, tying all loose ends up.

There was more, but now I can’t remember. Am so very tired.

I think today’s game (1-1, stupid stupid STUPID Birmingham equalised in the 90th minute, final score 1-1) can be best summed up this way:

Millie (17.39)
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Kaia (17.40)
omg. really?
YAAAAY
do they HAVE to wait to the last ten?

Millie (17.45)
obviously they want to make a point against people leaving early.

Millie (17.48)
damn, arshavin.

Kaia (17.49)
gah
OH MY GOD

Millie (17.50)
oh god.

Kaia (17.51)
oh my fucking god

Millie (17.53)
sigh.

And yes, that was the part of the game when everything remotely interesting happened. We really needed a win as Chelsea beat useless Villa 5-1 and are flyyyyying ahead of us, but… yeah. Theo was the luckiest member of the squad. That says kind of a lot.

But once the game was over I went and made my cheapest trick for dinner, vegan style Pasta Alfredo, which always cheers me up. I have no idea how Alfredo is normally made, but I suspect it’s about 100% more cream and/or eggs, but this one’s just brilliant and easy.

You put some sneaky amount of oil (say two tablespoons) in a pan, sautee a few cloves of garlic and a handful chopped walnuts in it. When fragrant, add the same amount of flour as oil, in this example two tablespoons. Stir and let sautee brieeeeeefly. Then add some milk and spices (I use salt, pepper, chili powder and basil, fresh is better but dried is okay). A cup or so of milk, I guess? I never measure. And then, let it cook on low heat until it thickens.

That is all. So easy yet has a fancy French name (roux).

I’m eating it with pasta and steamed vegetables. I usually make some kind of breaded tofu on the side, but I couldn’t be bothered today (see stupid draw).

I blame Arsenal’s bad luck on me, by the way. In the last two days I’ve run out of yarn fifty separate times, broken a grocery bag as I lifted it out of the trolley, two minutes later flipped said trolley over, nearly emptied a full plate of (very hot) food in my lap, accidentally locked the cat onto the balcony (twice), missed a bus by two seconds and burned a piece of fabric so badly while ironing it that I had to start my project over.

So, yeah. All my fault. Sorry boys.

I have however written a lovely blog post in Swedish about Gabourey Sidibe (and learned how to spell her name!) that I may translate some time, written an OMG REVELATION moment for my forever-in-editing-process-project, beaten my personal best at the gym (yay!), submitted two semi-clothed pics (that sounds a lot more exciting than it really is) to this Swedish BMI project that a lovely blogger has started, and re-learned how to crochet.

Also, I’ve learned about oxford commas, which I use all the time, only I had no idea that it had a term until somebody tweeted it. I thought I was just a punctuation junkie.

Which, actually, I kind of am.

PS. I can no longer defend anything Amanda Palmer says or does. This makes me very, very sad.

Another birthday hoopla today. My dear sister turned 28 which means that it’s only twenty-nine days (um, thirty-one, actually, as her birthday isn’t for another two days) until I turn THIRTY. Thirty people! Who would’ve thought?

It was a rather pleasant affair with lots of food, of which I made this pie (although with regular cheese, will use more spices next time) and marvelled in the idea of shredded potato actually holding together as a crust. I so didn’t believe that beforehand. My mum baked me bread, and it was delicious. Man, I’ve missed bread.

My siblings and cousins went all about on the bibby (BIB = bag in box = three litres of wine in a handy box), mum nervously told them to drink less and we all ignored her. I knitted a lot, watched a game (2-0 with ten men on the pitch, yay us!) and didn’t drink anything stronger than Coke. Suited me just fine.

A few pics, just because I know they’ll hate me for it…

One cousin, one sister.

One brother, who did suit up but forgot to pull his trousers up.

And me, looking disturbingly cheerful about a glass of Coke.

Potato-crust-pie, gluten free bread and baked vegetables.

And meringue cake pavlova.

I think I can add coconut milk to the list of Foods I Can’t Have. I’ve been trying to figure out why, and decided that it’s the E-number-thingy, which is what we use to list preservatives, food colouring, etc. I can’t find any information on what’s in this particular one, but it does say that it’s a thickener, which… usually involves wheat, one way or another. It never even crossed my mind to look for gluten in that, but after three days of… erm, interesting side effects of which the most pleasant was an ability to get out of bed and a brain fog like you wouldn’t believe, I’ll have to ban that too from my diet. Damn it.

Changed my layout. This one is cleaner, but I do miss my old header.

For a few days now I’ve meant to translate the post I did for my HAES blog on International Women’s Day. It’s a link spam with various blog posts and articles about and by women. I just haven’t gotten around to it I guess, but soon. Promise. Not in this one, though, because I feel very, very lazy.

Tansy and I are editing the Blueberry book, which is equal parts fun and frustrating. Mostly I battle with my characters while eyeing hers longingly, wishing my were as even and well-thought-out as hers. Generally my first draft is really, really, REALLY rough, though. I’m not too good at banging out good stuff on the first or even second or third attempt. Still, I am happy with this book and hope we’ll be able to fly through it quickly enough to finish before she has to return to the land of already contracted books.

Still working on Eld. Wondering if my characters even have a voice or if they all sound exactly the same. It kind of feels like it. I suppose that should I ever get to the end of this thing I will need somebody to read through it and tell me the truth. Luckily I have enough good friends willing to humour me to not run out of proof readers any time soon…

Cleaned two rooms. Looked at the other two and wondered when they got messy. They weren’t the last time I checked, I’m sure of it!

Oooh, and Arsenal won 5-0 yesterday! So proud of my boys, even if it was just the group stages of the Champion’s league. Think they’re down to semi quarter finals now, if I understood everything correctly. I had to watch half of it in Portuguese (which I thought was kind of like Spanish, but the two are really not alike at all), because the Porto fan that supplied the feed got cranky and took it down with lots left. Which is just mean.

Also, apparently the sports bar that is in the same building as my gym has Premier League evenings! Saw a sign for the next United game. Must try to figure out if they show Arsenal some time. I mean, my boys, on a REAL TV? Gold.

And I believe that is all for today.

First of all, go read TansyRR’s blog post Ruining young men’s lives, and then Dara O’Briain’s Guardian-article Spare us the sanctimony about Ryan Shawcross being a nice lad. The two very nicely sums up the whole Ramsey-Shawcross-tale in a way I couldn’t. Although the guest at this week’s ArseCast said it rather well too…

In all, it’s very strange to be a woman and a feminist and an avid fan of men’s football, because it’s a sport so full of testosterone and manly manly MANLY antics. There are slurs we would not accept in the real world. There are a lot of… yeah, not so shiny stuff going on, but at the same time the game is so brilliant when it’s being played, so you forget all about it.

But personally I think that I love Up For Grabs (another “I told you so” moment for my friends there) so much is because they don’t do the swearing. Well, they do a bit, but they do stay clear of the c-word for the most part. Instead they dub the players lesbians (we have three of them, Arshavin, Rosicky and Nasri), Tinkerbell, Unlucky and… huh. I can’t remember.

As I said, brain is sleepy. Actually, I didn’t say it before. I thought it though!

Tomorrow morning I’m going to the gym again. It’s not as bad as I feared, really, but I suspect that is because of good music and people leaving me the hell alone, though we’re going earlier tomorrow to beat the weekend crowd.

And the thing I meant to post when I started writing this…

YUMMY YUMMY GRAVY RECIPE (possibly I’m a tad biased cos I usually make it from a mix and it tastes like nothing):

Sautee half an onion in olive oil. When translucent, add in chopped mushrooms. Add 2 dl (200 ml) of milk, a buillion cube, some salt, pepper, sage and thyme, simmer until the spices are blended in. Oh, and soy sauce or tamari, just enough to colour it darker. Possibly cut out the salt and add more soy sauce instead.

Then, if you’re Swedish, add some of the very magical Maizena redning för ljusa såser, and simmer until it thickens. I suppose if you don’t have something like it (do you?) mixing a tablespoon or two of corn starch with equal amount of water and pouring it into the gravy works as well. Might even work better, though too much and it goes gluey. Trust me on this.

I ate it Swedish style, with lentil loaf, potatoes and lingon. And yes, vegetables, but they were not graced with the presence of the gravy, so they barely count…

Ah yes. I think this is as coherent as I will be today. Sorry about that.

APPARENTLY there is wheat in make-up. Like, all the make-up I own. I’ve had notoriously bad skin since I was about twelve years old. I suppose this could be a reason… Or maybe I just have bad genes. Whichever one it is, it’s annoying as hell. Will try to switch to better stuff and hope for the best.

In other not even vaguely interesting news I have been to weaving, it snowed another ten centimetres since this morning and I could be in a bad mood, but I am listening to podcast It’s Up For Grabs Now and they have a guest who won’t watch a game, record a game, listen to the radio or answer texts with game related news. Because he’s supersticious.

That’s worse than me, even.

Knitting Olympics. Not doing too well. Writing is too distracting. Possibly this is a good thing. And with that I shall return to Scrivener.