Dad (Calexico 1)

We arrived in Québec on the last day of the Festival d'été, 11 days of music and street theatre all throughout the city. We settled on one of those days. Actualy we only attended one concert: Calexico. In the afternoon P. noticed they were playing (for free!) and in the evening we were dancing in the crowd to the tunes of Crystal Frontier.
For this set the band had an extra member: a 10 year old girl, probably the daughter of one of the senior band members. She played the shakers and did great. It was fun to see how someone would show her what to do and she'd do it, getting thumbs up at the end of the song. It reminded me of how my dad would show me how his radio or his computer worked and him being proud when I got it. We are so determined by our surroundings. I still want to know what makes my car run.

Dancing (Calexico 2)

Standing in a crowd, listening to music I dance. Where you get lucky and see P.'s head bop a little up and down to the rythm, I give it all. Hips shaking, arms waving... I don't mind that I bump into people: it secures enough breathing space.
I must look silly because from the corner of my eye I notice the cool kids: knodding their heads, tapping their feet, only moving when the music calls for jumping up and down. Other girls dance – a little. I can't help to wonder why they don't dare to shake the hips they were born with.

Extra: I've uploaded Sunken Waltz by Calexico (unfortunately no longer available).
More mp3-stuff can be found on the Calexico website.

Charles Darwin has a posse!

If you wonder what I've been doing since I came home (which you probably don't, but I'll inform you of my goings about anyway) then check out my new layout. I've stuck with the colours I've been using for the last year, so people won't think they ended up on the wrong site, and I kinda like the blue-&-orange-combo. Unfortunately the background picture had to go. I like the new layout the way it is – without the background picture – but still have the feeling something's missing here. Any comments, complaints or suggestions to make it even better are welcome. But please do remember I don't have a paid account and therefore there isn't much I can change!

The reason why I made the new layout wasn't really that I was fed up with the old one, but because I wanted to use the tags. I had to change the style system to be able to use tags, and changing style systems on LJ automatically means changing your style.
The last couple of days I've been doing that and tagging 331 entries – all for the convenience of my readers. I've got loads of different tags (I think I actualy have too many of them) to describe what an entry will be about. If you for instance like to read these little anecdotes and observations I post then you simply can read the entries tagged anecdote/observation. My stories are tagged fiction_by_frances and everything that's related to my personal life is tagged (how original!) personal. (If you follow one of these links it'll take you to a page that only shows my entries with these tags.) Have fun searching through my old entries, using the tags. They are also very useful when you, for instance, don't like to read my ramblings on current events, but prefer the crazy links I provide.

Sorting through my old entries I realised I write more about current events than I thought I did. And I'm very passionate about it*. Hence the new icon: Charles Darwin Has a Posse! More than once I have written about creationism, intelligent design and evolution and more than once I've stated that we cannot take the idea of intelligent design seriously. But since words not always work, I'll go for stickers. I forgot where I found the link to these, but they are a feature on the homepage of Mr Colin Purrington of Swarthmore College. He also has some other neat Evolution Outreach Projects, like the textbook disclaimer stickers. So from now on when you come here you are warned: I'm a one of those boring rationalists. ;-)

*I think I'm sometimes too passionate about it and am very rigid in my thinking. Although I always say I'm openminded this is often not really the case and I'll very well say so when I think I'm right and you're wrong. I like reading other journals for completely the opposite reason. simonf can voice his opinions without hammering them home. They crop up sometimes in between the information he provides, but aren't the main dish. I like that way of working and maybe I should do that more often on my own LJ.