little.red.boat.
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
I'll be back next year.
Have fun until then.
Look after yourselves (wink, point) and each other...
Lying in the back garden in Iona, there's a sack of compast that says;
'With added John Innes!'
Who is this Mr Innes? Is this legal? Not to speak of ethical?
Do you now get a choice between "burial, cremation or Sainsbury's own-brand compost, madam?"
Did Mr Innes know?
Was this his last wish?
Do all the bags have to name their own constituent members individually?
Or are they mushed up too finely to know?
What's going on?
Monday, December 30, 2002
I want to make New Years Resolutions this year but can't be arsed to think of any.
Can I borrow yours?
Seminar professor; . . So, Anna, did you have a chance to read over those plays we were talking about?
Anna; W?... Oh! Yes. I really enjoyed them. A lot.
Seminar professor; . And which do you think you might do for your presentation?
Anna; . Well, they were, of course, all,.. erm.., very, very interesting.
Seminar Professor; . Any in particular?
Anna; Well, I thought they were all interesting. Particularly... erm... (glance down at the back of the book cover)... erm...
Seminar professor; 'The traveller returned'?
Anna; The traveller returned. So I thought I'd do that one. Yes. That one. That was what I thought. Yes. The Traveller, erm, returned. That one.
Seminar Professor; Ooooh. Brave choice. Quite a challenge.
Anna; (squeaks) Is it?I mean, ahem, yes. It is. Well, you know me, I love a challenge...
Challenge is one thing. Obscure plays by eighteenth century American feminists that didn't go down that well the first time around, (that's the plays, you understand, not the feminists. I don't know how the feminists went down...) is beyond challenge.
It's into the territory of myth, of the tasks of Hercules or Jason.
I'd rather kill a dragon than try and research Judith Sargent Murray right now.
I don't suppose anyone out there happens to be an expert, do they?
Anyone know anything about Judith Sargent Murray?
Anyone know anyone that knows anything about Judith Sargent Murray?
Anyone a reincarnation of Judith Sargent Murray?
Anyone good at making up convincing things about 18th century American Feminist dramatists?
Anyone?
help?
The moustachioed princessOnce upon a time, there was a princess who had a big bushy moustache, enourmous, fluffy, well groomed and black. Quite a lot like Saddam Hussain, but a little more feminine. She would be pictured on currency, sitting erect, tiara on head and big moustache sitting proudly right under her nose.I don’t sleep well when I have to share a room with other people.
Over Christmas, I had to share a room most of the time. It doesn’t leave me grumpy, but it does lead to some pretty fantastic dreams.
On boxing day morning I dreamt there was once a princess with a big moustache. I woke up, and asked the other person in my room whether this was true.
“Is there a princess with a big moustache? No? Was there ever?”
Apparently there wasn’t.
So I went back to sleep, and started to dream about the princess as a fairy story, one that I was telling to other people. In my dream, a group of people from Iona, from work, from Uni, were sitting around me, and I was telling them the story of the princess with a big moustache.’Once upon a time, there was a moustachioed princess. Although the moustache was considered slightly unorthadox, the princess loved her moustache, and groomed it daily, making it the shiniest, best groomed moustache in all the land. Where is this story going?”I woke up. And thought about it.
Now, if the princess is happy with her moustache to begin with, the story has nowhere to go, so we have to start with her not being, right? I dozed back to sleep. We’d shifted location, and some of the people listening had changed, but I was, again, telling a story…”Alright, there was a curse set upon a princess when she was a girl, that although she may be the most beautiful girl in the world, she would have a moustache to make up for it. When she grew up, a handsome prince fell madly in love with her…”I woke up, thinking hard.
Why would a prince fall in love with her? She had a moustache. That doesn’t seem a likely way to make handsome princes fall in love with you.
Maybe…..
I drifted back into sleep…”The princess only had a moustache sometimes, like every other month or after dusk…”’Now let’s see. What if the prince loved her anyway, loved everything else about her, loved her moustache or no, and she could only rid herself of the curse once she’d accepted that the prince loved her with a moustache and life with a moustache wasn’t necessarily a cursed life at all, maybe then…’
One of my listeners cut in – “This is far too much like Shrek!”
“You’re right” I said, and woke myself up again…
I drifted back to sleep.
And so I went on for three hours or so, telling the story in my dream, waking up, editing, re-editing, going back to sleep, telling the story again, until I’d got it to a point where I considered it a good story.
There were even romantic and action subplots in the dream parts, but I can’t remember those. Shame.
But I’m well impressed with that. The conscious and subconscious minds working in tandem to create,… what?
Well, now I look back on it, I’m not sure I can make ‘the tale of the moustachioed princess’ fly, but as a method of writing, it sure beats sitting in a cold study, staring at a blank screen.
If only all writing could be done like that…
Sunday, December 29, 2002
I believe that on the 25th of December, I stretched the walls of my stomach to 14 times their previous size.
Where previously my appetite was contented by a couple of small meals, a self-enforced breakfast and some coffee, on the 25th of December the perameters shifted and nothing will ever be the same again.
On the 25th of December, as far as I can remember I ate more than my collective meals of the last three months.
Since then, my stomach cannot be contented with less food.
And, if possible, it needs more.
Yesterday, I ate two bowls of cereal, a cow, four houses and a primary school.
I am turning into the fifty-foot woman.
Thank you for not going away while I've been quiet.
Unfortunately, now I'll have to eat you.
I got a webcam for christmas.
I look forward to eating it.
I mean using it.
Other than that being 50 foot and rising, that and the Seasonal affectedness, I'm fine and dandy.
How are you?
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Just about starting to come to after last week.
I've begun trying to work out how many hours I spent working, how many reading, how many sleeping, eating, flirting and whinging.
And how many I spent sober.
Funnily enough, they don't seem to compute.
Still, after eight days of not knowing where I was, where I was supposed to be, whether where I was was where I was supposed to be and what day I was supposed to be where I was on was the day I was there, supposing where I was was where I was supposed to be in the first place, which I usually was, but when it wasn't I couldn't tell,...
Where was I?
No idea.
Obviously not quite out of that zone yet then.
Couple more hours sleep should do it.
Did I say hours, I meant months.
Anyway.
I'm thinking and collecting things to post about, but the internet connection sucks shit and the storms promise maybe a little bit of power cuttage.
Have a happy Christmas, if I don't speak to you before then.
There's good stuff on tis.
When should you open your presents?...
Happy Christmas, every one.
Sunday, December 22, 2002
Between finishing the term and working a bunch, waiting for hours at airports, packing, filing, running around like a chicken with no head and 14 legs, I have neglected my boat.
And now I'm going back to Iona.
And hoping to hell that there's a computer I can use...
Oh, and that guy I mentioned?
Married.
Well, one of them is. Shame.
There's something about married men insisting on chatting you up that sullies everyone's reputation. Theirs, yours, their wives, everyone they've ever met.
Why do they do that though?
Married men.
Why do they do that?
Why they chat you up? Is it me?
God I'm tired.
Please excuse me. Not terribly coherent. I need a holiday.
The train's in two hours...
Saturday, December 21, 2002
Tis, yesterday...
Stockings. What's the deal with them, then? Why do I always get a satsuma? I hate satsumas. Does Santa hate me?
I know you've reminded me before, but remind me again again.
Bloke makes conversation in pub, you consider cute.
Bloke smiles some days later, you smile back.
Bloke keeps catching your eye, you the same.
Remind me again, how does the next bit go?
Friday, December 20, 2002
Things which should be banned, 1;
cash machines that offer whimsical proverbs or opinion
So, after waiting the conventional 15 minutes in the line for the cash machine next to the library, I finally get to the front.
I've remembered my card, which is unusual, and I take it out of my purse, and insert it into the machine.
"Please enter your pin code" says the machine.
Certainly. Beep, beep, beep, beep.
The machine thinks about it for a second.
While it's thinking, it flashes up a default screen with the banks' cheery new motto.
"Suddenly, anything is possible..." It says. Then...
"Which service do you require?"
Cash. Please. 10 pounds.
It thinks about this. While it is thinking, it tells me,
"Suddenly, anything is possible..."
and then...
"I'm sorry, I haven't got any ten pound notes. We suggest you withdraw 20 pounds instead."
Alright then. Can I have 20 pounds please?
"Suddenly, anything is possible..."
"No. You have not got enough funds to withdraw this amount. Funds available... 10 pounds"
But you just said that you haven't got any ten pound notes.
"Suddenly, anything is possible..."
Anything is possible?
Anything, that is, apart from you giving me money.
"That's right. Please take your card. And piss off."
"Suddenly, anything is possible..."
I take my card and wander off to find a less sarcastic cash machine.
As I walk away, I swear I hear it sniggering behind me.
Thursday, December 19, 2002
woohoo.
This is the noise I am making as I finish, print out and collate a pack of 7 essays that have been hanging over my head for ages and ages, ready to hand in as the last act before the holidays.
woohoo.
Sorry, what A.M.?
2?
2 AM?
oh.
woo.
woo.
This is my new sound.
It is the noise I make when I am tired and stressed and sad and busy and stretched and tired.
It is not one half of 'woohoo', it is much smaller and tirder and sadder than that.
It is like a tiny injured cow.
"woo."
Today on 'tis the season
My girlfriend and I are saving up for a deposit on a flat. To save money, this year we've pledged to give each other only token presents. Does she actually mean it, or am I going to look like a completely thoughtless cheapskate bastard on Christmas morning?
And my sister (who rocks) being not only funny, but informative to boot.
Rah.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Argh.
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Yesterday's 'Tis;
What are the odds on a white christmas? Why does it matter so damned much, anyway?
In which I ramble on for a while about snow.
I quite like it actually.
I really like 'Tis.
The things my life is composed of at the moment
or
excuses, excuses...;Work. I have watched the same show in the same theatre 16 times now. You have no idea how dull that is. But it's giving me enough money to go home for Christmas, so we like it.
But oh, if I could put a directors hat on for just a minute. Seeing the show so many times I learn which jokes work and which don't, which lines you can cut without harm and which you can't.
I could really help the comedy potential of the show if allowed into a directorial or dramaturgical position...
Shame I'm only employed to show people to their seats and sell ice cream then.Essays.
Things I was supposed to write for a few weeks ago that have turned into big monsters and things that I'm supposed to write for this week that were big monsters to begin with. Why am I doing this?Social life.
Because the more time I spend with people, the more I like them and want to spend time with them, and the less I see other people, the more I need to see them.
This takes up a fuckload of time.Actually, the thing taking up a lot of my usual blogging time is a very positive thing...
'Tis the season, where I'm doing some of my best writing for ages.
And I'm getting to work with my sister.
Who rocks.
I keep thinking of things to write here...
But 'Tis is a little bit of a priority - I mean, there are only 9 more reading days til Christmas.
It's a bit easier to write too. Because there are questions.
Questions make it easy to write under pressure.
If anyone has any questions, anything to clear up, explain, elaborate on, anything you think you'd like me to write on, I'll probably find it easier to answer them than think for myself right now.
I'm still experiencing life, but storing it up until I have anough spare minutes to phrase it right.
Does anyone have any questions?
Anyone?
Yes, you at the back there...
Monday, December 16, 2002
bisy. backson.
Sunday, December 15, 2002
'Tis Sunday the 15th of december, and the question is...
I'm single and looking for love. If I tape mistletoe to my face, am I sending out the wrong signals?
When did sundays become 15 times longer than any other day?
Yesterday on 'Tis;
What happens when you ask a post-grad theatre student about pantomimes?
Go and see;
'I can't say two words about Christmas to my British friends without them throwing in the word Pantomime. You British people are always banging on about pantomimes. What the hell is a pantomime?'
But for God's sake make sure you're sitting comfortably before you begin...
I request that there be no loud noises in my vicinity.
Or I will be sick.
Ooh, my Head.
Something I'd always intended to say to someone but finally got around to saying at work this aftnoon;
Me (with a big customer service sincere smile): "Hello, sir, may I ask; are you an actor?"
Random relaxed & cocky audience member on the first row: "No"
Me (smile shifted slightly into snarl....): "Then get your feet off the damn stage. Sir."
"Thank you. Sir"
I love calling people "sir" and "madam".
Seriously. I do actually love doing customer service jobs. I like working with people, I like giving people what they're asking for, I like making people happy that way.
But there's a certain satisfation in calling people 'sir' and 'madam'.
When people are complaining, it puts them off; the more you're polite, the less the manage to hold their righteous anger.
Small children get a week-long buzz out of being addressed as 'Sir' or 'Madam',
People feel it settles them into their role as customer, patron or consumer, and it pacifys them.
And there's a certain tone you can put on a 'Sir' or a 'Madam', that says -
"I'm giving you the respect of my paid position, which is, by the way, poorly paid, although I have a life beyond it. Do you?"
I'm a little more alcohol to blood than I should be.
I shall go and see if sleep will deal with this.
g'night.
Saturday, December 14, 2002
Always the last to know...
Did You know that if you had a mobile phone for a couple of years you could swop it for a new one for free?
That people would just give you a phone? For Free?
Did Everybody know that apart from me?
A mad hair day.
No matter how frail my mental health may become - and it's fine at the moment, don't get me wrong, but who knows what the future holds... - please tell me that if I don't manage to keep any other of my faculties, I at least continue to have 'sane person hair'.
For some reason, in losing your reason, the haircare seems to be the first thing to go.
It happened on a train this evening, I got on, noticed some guy who had either treated the back of his head with Yacht Varnish or hadn't seen a hairbrush since the cold war, and I thought
'Right-ho, shan't sit next to this chap - he's clearly...'
(sorry, I'm just trying to work out why I'm trying to pretend that when I talk to myself in my head I sound like a 1950's BBC announcer, because I don't think I do.
I don't, Do I?
Why am I asking you? How would you know?
Where was I?...)
'Right-ho, shan't sit next to this chap - he's clearly one cucumber sandwich short of a picnic luncheon....'
And I wasn't anywhere near enough to see the far away look in his eyes, or smell the 'madn'shouty' smell, but sure enough, two minutes after I chose to sit at the other end of the carriage he started shouting and gesturing in a reassuringly mad fashion.
Reassuring because I was right, you understand, not reassuring for the snogging couple who'd decided to sit beside him.
Ha.
How could they sit next to him and not know?...
He had the hair. The sticking up where it just shouldn't,as if rolling in treacle was the traditional last thing to do before stepping out of the door, type hair.
It's the mad hair.
Or is it?
Actually, I don't think its to do with mental health at all.
It's to do with shouting on public transport.
People who shout on public transport tend to have bad hair.
Whatever their reason: Mental instability, alcohol, drugs, mental instability, mobile phones, alcohol, psychosis, sleeptalking, mental instability, paranoia, performance art, alcohol, criminality, mental instability or alcohol;
people who act weirdly on public transport almost invariably have bad hair.
Perhaps we can take this a step of logic further;
'People who have bad hair will almost invariably act weirdly on public transport.'
would be the next possible logical step.
Therefore the only thing we have to do, in order to ensure complete sanity on public transport, is to prescribe salon hair treatment for every citizen, absolutely free.
Because people with nice hair are generally well-behaved.
On public transport.
Not anywhere else. But on public transport they are.
And that's the issue we're dealing with right now.
"Good hair for all public transport users."
I'm starting a campaign.
Vote for me?
Friday, December 13, 2002
I have no shame.
You know, I was going to find some shoddy excuse post a link here to my wishlist, seeing as it's coming up to Christmas and all, and that seeming the apposite time to own a wishlist, and everything, in the vain hope that people who already have far too many presents to buy for people they actually know will buy you something as well...
What a silly thought.
Anyway, so.
I was going to post a link to my wishlist,
but after careful consideration and internal argument about artistic integrity and the nature of creation and publication, respect, dignity, shame and self-worth,
I have decided not to.
The concept of making your pet poop to order.
I just found a link to a book called;
You Can Teach Your Dog to Eliminate on Command
At first I thought it was 'eliminate' as in kill, but it it's eliminate as in poo. I have to admit, it was an easy mistake to make on my part, as I can't say I've ever used that word in that particular context myself ("Do excuse me, I must go to the powder room and eliminate")
The idea is that you train your dog to... ahem... eliminate whenever it hears a certain word or phrase.
[How you do that is explained on this site , if anyone gives an elimination.]
Anyway, the thing that was making me laugh, apart from the fact that a simple word or phrase could empty the bowels, and wondering if the same thing could happen with people (actually, the phrase 'letter from the bank' has a similar effect on me...)
was the fact that in the reviews of the book on Amazon, one otherwise satisfied customer bemoans the fact that it was several weeks and several applications of carpet shampoo before he realised that his 'magic elimination phrase' was also used in the opening theme tune to Ally Macbeal, so everytime Vonda started singing and the Approach of Ms Macbeal became immenent, his dog would ... ahem eliminate all over the carpet.
Which seems a fair reaction.
I mean, no offence to Ally fans, the programme once had some class, but could hardly in its later series be called anything more than a big steaming pile of eliminations.
[original link from linkdump]
I'm really confused by a pamphlet that was pushed through our door.
On the front, it says something about Jesus, with a picture of a candle, or something.
But inside, inside is what confuses me the most, which would seem to be a problem if anyone was trying to convert me;"There is something special about Christmas, but however much you look forward to it, it's never as good as it used to be. There are hours of TV to watch, presents galore to unwrap and much overindulgence on food and drink. The contrast between what you hope for and what you experience seems disappointing!Help me out here...
Maybe you are missing out on the real reason for all the blah blah blah etc etc
In this negative picture of Christmas being painted, this unhappy norm that I should want to go to church to avoid, we have;
Hours of TV to watch - This is fine.
Presents Galore - That's really nice.
Plenty of food and drink - Yum.
So what is it I'm supposed to be missing here? I seem to be having a very happy Christmas according to your checklist, with no discrepancy between what I've hoped for and got, whatsoever.
What else should I hope for?
Strange people.
Thursday, December 12, 2002
'Tis thursday...
Putting small coins in Chrismas pudding. Quaint tradition or a really stupid idea?
The sky is too cold to be cloudy in the city right now.
For the last few nights the nights have been full of stars and it feels almost like Iona again.
Again I can recognise constellations, again I can see by moonlight, again I can wish on the evening star.
"Sausage and chips? I shall call the police!"
The following quote is from an article for one of my classes about how society views the body of a performer, while in performance.
It's an extract about which I think I can say much. but I'm not sure that I'll need to......this is the hidden structure underlying the narratives of Romantic ballets.Is it undoing a century of feminist struggle to say that this particular 'scholar' could do with a damn good shag?
In these, the ballerina is a 'giant dancing phallus, crowned by a tiara', and the pas de deux signifies male masturbation. The ballerina's pointe work turns her into a phallic fetish: her leg is stiff, her feet end in firm pink points, and the muscles in the whole leg are expanded, hard and firm [needless & overexcited repetition here, on behalf of the scholar, 'hard' and 'firm' having the same meaning in her context.]. The male partner holds and moves her lovingly as if she were a penis[?!]. Thus, they argue, the death of the ballerina in so many Romantic stories is 'the point when she at last goes limp, being the orgasm of the phallus that she represents in the fantasy of the hero'.
You get the feeling that no matter what everyday life situation this scholar is presented with, they see it as a phallic threat.
Cereal? No! I would have to eat cereal with a spoon! And that is like invading my mouth with a morning-metal-cereal-bearing-phallus!
No!
Is that my mail? No! I will not take it! Mail entering a mailbox is like multiple thin phalluses pushing their way into a private residence, or house, or person.
No!
Take an underground train? No! With all those tunnels and their phallic connotations?
No!
Use a pen? No! Shaped as it is precisely like a phallus?
No!
Flush the toilet? That flush handle looks something like a phallus.
Wash? No! The tap is in the shape of a bendy phallus.
Watch television? No, the remote control feels like a phallus.
Eat? I cannot, I shall not, everything is phallus -shaped.
Oh, for goodness sake.
I call myself a feminist, but this shit?
Oh, for goodness sake.
I recieved my first Christmas present!
Thank you, whoever sent me something heavy from my wishlist!
I don't know what it is yet, and I don't know who sent it, there was no name, but I'm really, really touched, and very excited. Thank you.
That makes me much happier.
Thank you very much, who ever you are and whatever it is.
That's really really lovely.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
15 words or phrases I am using in the very boring but thankfully short essay I am writing at the moment by way of explaining why am not writing much in my blog.Methodology. Ethnography. Contextualisation. Ephemeral. Gestural Analysis. Semiological. Mise en Scène. Cultural relevancy Discrepancies Dramaturgy Literaryness Examplification Intendentional Perfomancitation Horseshit.
If the barman gives you the wrong change, and you notice at the time but you don't tell him, and you walk away and you keep it and you're happy;
how much of a bad person are you?
'Tis Monday....
Christmas cards. Do I have to give them to everybody?
Monday, December 09, 2002
Did you know, it takes seven minutes to kill yourself by inhaling helium?
This is a fact I learnt from Natalie Haynes, the fabulous comedienne I went to see last night.
Which is all very well and good, but as she pointed out, what would it be like to get interrupted halfway through?
The thought of shouting 'I can't take it anymore' in a perfect Mickey Mouse voice kind of removes all the possibility of a 'dignified death'.
How extremely fucking depressing.
I'm going to sleep now, because I'm tired, but I've piled all the books I need to at least look at when I wake up extra early in the morning.
The pile of books reaches the level of my bed.
I used to believe, when I was younger, that if you placed a book under your pillow then the knowledge would soak into your head during the night. It depresses me to think that if I did that tonight, placed the books under my pillow, then I would be sitting-up in bed, waiting for the knowledge to drain.
More than that, I'd be sitting up, forced to the other end of the bed by the sheer volume of books, basically sitting at my computer, in which case what's the point of going to sleep.
I've decided that when I finally have any money, which I don't at the moment, I have nothing, I'm going to pay a small team of elves to read books for ma and whisper them into my ears as I sleep.
At the moment, I only have the kittens, and I have to teach them to read first.
Now both of the kittens have developed a puppyesque fixation with my slippers.
Slippers?
Slipper.
One slipper. The left one.
Two weeks ago it held no fascination for them whatsoever, and now, suddenly, it's all they can talk about.
If they could talk, which of course they can't. I'm not mad.
As if the slipper had been dipped in kitten-Crack, they're all over it, when they can find it, and hunting it madly when they can't, missing their fix. I managed to quell their desire for a while by actually wearing it, but then they found it, and chewed it in situ.
So I took it off, and now they're chewing my toes.
In other news, I have to find a playwright on whom to do a presentation. At the moment I'm veering toward Fanny Burny, but I'm not sure I can, in all conscience.
The bad Thrush gags are too tempting, and I really shouldn't, not at school.
One day I'm going to try stand up comedy.
One day I am, I swear.
I'm going to.
Sunday, December 08, 2002
15 thingsBad Coffee. Human rights lawyers with bongo drums. Cash machines that say "no". Long lie-ins. Ladders in tights. Sweetie wrappers and melted ice-cream. Purring kittens. The importance of being Earnest. People who have girlfriends but pretend that they don't. Lucky necklaces. Smudged Mascara. Ennui. Ill-fitting shoes. Beautiful songs on the radio. Darkness mid-afternoon.
Saturday, December 07, 2002
On 'Tis today...
Why do we have to have turkey for Christmas? I hate turkey. Turkey sucks. Fucking Turkey. We Always have stinky turkey. Can’t we have something else? What is it with the big Turkey thing?
You can shove your expensive education up your arse
Students from fee-paying schools more likely to get bad degrees.
Hahahahahaha
Friday, December 06, 2002
The Stupidest cat I ever had.
Of the two I'm living with now, one is easier to trick than the other.
They have a stick with feathers on, a toy, and while one is happier to sit and watch it get moved around the floor, it's pretty simple to get the other running round in circles until he gets dizzy and falls over.
It's very funny.
Not as funny as the cat my family had though, a long while ago.
He was very stupid.
Cute, but really, really stupid. His name was Bobbins, for flatulent reasons, but that's another story.
Usually they were fed pretty run of the mill food, dry food actually, in an attempt to stop Bobbins getting any more obese than he already was.
Of course, Bobbins was getting fat mainly because he was eating at every other house in the road as well as our own, but we didn't know that at the time, so we carried on feeding him diet pussy food, in the hope that he'd get thinner.
Occasionally, however, for a treat, we'd boil up some cheap fish, and they'd have a little bit at a time, to go with the diet food, which let's face it, must have been horrible, as all diet food is.
Now, bobbins could smell the fish boiling away, as could the other ('clever') cat, Poppy. But while Poppy would sit quietly, waiting, Bobbins would make your life hell until he got his fish.
While it was boiling away, in the pan, and while it was sitting in a sieve, cooling down, he'd spring from chair to chair, leap up onto your shoulders, find a place of reasonable height to stand and catch you with his claws every time you wandered past, wander along any shelves he could reach, swing on the door handle, break stuff and fart.
The fish took about 20 minutes to cool to a cat-edible standard.
There was no way Bobbins was waiting 20 minutes.
After about five he would annoy you so much that you'd cave in.
"Alright," you'd say. "I'll give you some fish, but I'm telling you, Cat, it's hot. You don't want it now, you want to wait. You just don't know it. Alright. Yes, I'm fetching it. Get your claws out of my arm. Now, or there'll be no fish. Stupid Mog."
Then you'd put the bowl on the floor, after mashing it with a spoon to try and cool it, and you'd retreat to the stairs, sit down and watch.
Bobbins would rush at the bowl, open his mouth, just get his little cat lips around the steaming fish, and then spring backwards, in suprise. He would look around the kitchen, suspiciously, and his gaze would rest on you. He'd trot over.
paddapaddapaddapaddapadda.
"This fish is Hot!" he would say, "You have given me hot fish! Why?"
"Look, Bobbins!" You would say, and point - "Fish!"
And he would turn around and look where you were pointing. "Oooh!" the cat would say, racing over to his bowl, "Someone's given me fish, yum yum yum yum... Ouch!"
And with his little puss lips almost around the pile of steaming fish, he'd jump backwards, then look around the room suspiciously.
His gaze would settle on you, and he'd come trotting over.
paddapaddapaddapaddapadda
"Excuse me" He would say, "This fish is hot! You have given me hot fish! Why?"
"Look Bobbins," You'd say, and point, "Fish!"
"Oooh" said Kitty, "Someone's given me fish, must eat the nice fish, yum yum yum yum... Ouch!"
suspicious look.
paddapaddapaddapaddapaddapadda.
"This fish is Hot!"
"Look, Bobbins, Fish!"
"Ooooh!"
padapadapadapadapada, head down, jump back, suspicious look.
paddapaddapaddapaddapaddapadda.
"This fish is hot!"
"Look, Bobbins, Fish!"
"Ooh!"... etc etc.
Once we did it 12 times before the fish cooled down enough to eat.
Dumb Cat.
'... But it really makes things easier to do a little wondering, I mean, if you're once interested in a thing it makes it seem less real. That's not the right word though.'From 'The Nine Tailors', by Dorothy L Sayers.
'Less personal?'
'Yes; that's what I mean. You begin to imagine how it all happened, and gradually it gets to feel more like something you've made up.'
'H'm!' said Wimsey. 'If that's the way your mind works, you'll be a writer one day.'
'Do you think so? How funny! That's what I want to be. But why?'
'Because you have a creative imagination, which works outwards, till finally you will be able to stand outside your own experience and see it as something you have made, existing independently of yourself. You're Lucky.'
'Do you really think so?' Hilary looked excited.
'Yes - but your luck will come more at the end of life than at the beginning, because the other sort of people won't understand the way your mind works. They will start by thinking you dreamy and romantic, and then they'll be suprised to discover that you are really hard and heartless. They'll be quite wrong both times - but they won't ever know it, and you won't know it at first, and it will worry you.'
'But that's just what the girls say at school. How did you know?... Though they're all idiots - mostly that is.'
'Most people are,' said Wimsey, gravely, 'but it isn't kind to tell them so. I expect you do tell them so. Have a heart; they can't help it...'
Will you look at that - this week I've learnt more from my murder mystery bedtime reading than I did from all my textbooks.
Interesting.
'Tis the season question of the day...
Last Christmas, I gave her my heart, but the very next day, she gave it away.
This year, to save me from tears, I'd like to give the bitch something cheaper.
And related question here...
Someone broke your heart, if you could give them anything for christmas, something obviously presenty but not nice, what would you give?
Oh, and more, in the Christmas vein, Robins are ickle.
By your own little red occasional ickle correspondant.
Thursday, December 05, 2002
Incidentally, Tis the Season fucking rocks today,
if only because Meg and I spent a long time individually planning what we were going to write and being too busy to write it, so didn't get to post it til evening...
I'm particularly proud of my potted history of mid winter celebration, and Meg rocks too.
So go and read it.
Now.
(please)
The parable of the lost sheep
I've just come in from class and discovered that my flock has been scattered.
You see, something I've not mentioned, because it sounds quite soppy, is that to remind me of Iona, I have a flock of sheep sitting on top of my computer monitor.
Not a real flock of sheep, that would be stupid.
My monitor may be big, it's not that big.
When I left Iona I was gifted an amount of money to spend in the shop there. Not knowing what else to buy, and running out of time, I bought nine miniature sheep (tiny! cute!) which individually look quite twee, but look fab en masse.
Well, I don't know if 9 counts as 'en masse', but they looked like a tiny flock, and I liked them, milling about in a static kind of way on top of my computer.
I think that cat jumped on top of my computer. Again.
And now I can only find two.
And two isn't a flock.
*sulk*
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
It may be your ideal life partner, but it's a fucking cat, at the end of the day.
I'm trying to work out which of the two kittens is the most stupid.
I like cats, I love them, but I'm not one of these 'cats are cleverer than people' people.
Because those people are quite clearly insane.
Because cats are not cleverer than people.
They only have little brains.
If they were cleverer than people they would sort out the situation in the Middle East and find ways to run cars and industries from clean and sustainable materials and write decent situation comedies for British television, but they don't do that.
They sit and purr and eat and look cute.
I know some cat lovers would argue that cats are too clever to do these former, clever things, that cats see the futility in external action, that cats are clever enough to see what is right and what is fated, and that cats are, therefore, cleverer than people.
Some cat-lovers may argue that cats see the importance in basic things, in giving and recieving affection, and are clever enough to live a simple life.
I would argue with those cat-lovers.
I would argue that it is quite obvious to rational people that cats are not cleverer than people, having smaller brains, the inability to communicate coherently and no opposable thumbs. I would argue that the cat lovers were being slightly naiive, supposing that people, with their much larger brains, hadn't the capacity to enjoy all those other simple things too, as well as attempt social change, action, and sitcom writing.
The cat-lover would then argue that I did not understand the nature of cats, that in their loving yet independent spirit and dedication to stripping life to the essentials, they were a role model for humanity.
I would tell the cat-lover that they were clearly investing way too much energy in what is, after all a Cat.
A Cat.
Not a super-powerful-version 5.0-big-brained cat, but a cat. An expensive ball of fluff.
An expensive, - albeit cute - pile of fluff that occasionally decides to sit on your knee, makes your friends sneeze, and sometimes pukes in your shoes.
The Cat-Lover would then smile benignly and tell me that what I needed was some cat therapy.
Then I would hit them around the head with a spade.
I'm sorry, this was meant to be a whole different story.
I do love cats, you know. I just hate big soppy cat lovers.
People who say that 'cats are cleverer than people', because, let's face it, they're just...
Sorry.
'Tis the season.
Hate Christmas but will be disowned if you miss it?
Thank you. My headache is gone.
It was one of those 'room too warm, draught through window (opened because room too warm) chilling back of the neck, bad sleep, complete unwillingness to get up' headaches.
My mother would have called it 'I-don't-want-to-go-to-school-itis', which is what the GP diagnosed it as when I was taken to the surgery for the fourth time in a month, aged eight or so, with a sad and mournful look in the eye and well-practiced cough, but no other discernable symptoms.
Anyway, it's gone now.
And it wasn't a hangover, before anyone else asks, thank you very much.
I'm being very very good.
I have a headache.
Tuesday, December 03, 2002
'Tis the season;
Christmas shopping.
So there are two kittens.
Two members of the species 'cute', living in my house.
One will play for a while, then, when he gets tired, determinedly move up to his specially constructed treehouse, curl up on the dedicated kitten rug therein, and say
'I am all in my place. I will sleep here.'
The other will play, seemingly forever, and then, suddenly, sit down where he is, and say
'This is all my place, where I am. I will sleep here. So fuck you.'
Whether it be a pillow, or a piece of carpet, or a doorway, or half-hidden on a stair, or on somebody's feet, or on a windowsill, a hob, a vacuum cleaner, or the keyboard of my computer, or the tumble dryer, he will fall asleep, and if you lift him and try to shift him, he will hiss and attempt to nip you.
I was going to say at this point that I don't know with which kitten I identify more, but of course that's shite.
Do I not play until I fall over?
Yes, I do. Or at least, I did, in the old days when I was fun and didn't read books.
If I'm tired, will I not sleep as soon physically possible?
well, deh...
If you tried to lift me from where I was sleeping, wouldn't I bite you?
Of course I would.
I used to think I liked cats more than dogs, but I realise now I was wrong.
I like some cats more than dogs.
I've more in common with a cat than a dog, certainly.
But I've more in common with a polar bear than both.
It's an age old question, 'are you you a dog-person or a cat-person', but you can answer that if you like.
Alternatively, you can tell me the more interesting thing. Are you a cat or a dog? What kind of dog? Or are you a polar bear? Or a sparrow?
If you were anything else, you would be a...
Am I supposed to write long things, or short things?
Which are better to read?
There's no point in me practicing writing here if I don't know...
So?
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyondFor no reason, other than 'because it is wonderful'.
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
e. e. cummings
Monday, December 02, 2002
I don't know.
You teach your kitten to fetch, and two days later he's chewing your slippers to bits and peeing on the carpet, one leg in the air.
I 've heard of gender confusion, but species confusion?
Anyway, puppies and kitties are the same species aren't they?
The 'cute' species.
With koala bears and seal cubs.
Is 'cute' a species?
For all your Christmas, needs, Meg and Anna are this season providing
'Tis the season
Today on 'Tis, Trees!
And it's better than that makes it sound.
Damn. I should rethink that plug.
I'll get back to you.
"Un Sac de Voyage?!"
Sitting on the Sofa for three hours this evening, after I'd finally got through putting other people's children to bed.
Sitting on the sofa for three hours, wrestling with Oscar Wilde.
And he's a big fucker, too.
I mean, you'd think if I was going to pick a classic playwright to tussle with, I could at least have picked someone like Samuel Beckett, who was old and thin and weak and would have been out after a couple of crap girly punches in the face.
Or George Bernard Shaw, who had a beard that you could grab onto while you were kicking him in the nuts.
But no, not on the reading list for next week. So Wilde it was.
And I'm having to research a play I really love; 'The Importance of being Earnest', which is great.
But for some reason, it took me 3 hours to get through 6 pages of it.
For some reason.
Or perhaps 'some reasons'.
I was watching television. That was one reason. And then I had to change a fuse, and get a sandwich. And a cup of coffee.
And play with the kittens, and then one of the girls woke up. And then something good came on television.
And then I had a sudden compulsion to use the phone.
And then the toilet. And then the phone again. And then there was something else on the television.
And I have the concentration span of a carton of Orange Juice.
Those were some reasons.
And it was in French.
That was the over-riding reason.
It was, well, it is, in French. It's sitting there, on my bedside table, glaring at me. In French.
And I don't read french. I don't speak French, I did 4 years of French 10 years ago, and recieved quite poor marks for it.
(see footnote 1)
Anyway. something deep in me seems to believe strongly that I know how to read French.
This is the second time that I've borrowed a script from the Library in French, and I've no idea why I do it.
When I pick it up, it seems like the best idea in the world, and I go, I check it out at the desk,
and it's only when I'm outside, walking away from the library that I realise.
Je ne parle pas français.
Footnote 1;
Get this; they gave us a French writing exam with corresponded in no way to any other mark we'd get for anything. We were told, basically, that we had to sit this exam, but it counted toward nothing and would basically be thrown away after reading if they bothered to read it at all.
I believe that I and my friends did more studying for that exam than any other, just so we could go into the exam, and, as we had been advised that we would probably need to do, write a letter to our exchange-pal Francois, telling him what he'd need to bring on his forthcoming visit to England.
And what he'd need to bring, amongst other things were, between my friends, 2000 duty free cigarettes, old lady porn, inflatable sheep, stolen videos, televisions, as much, and as smelly, cheese as he could physically carry, glue, a horse, 15 chickens, trees of his native village, his record collection, parents, furniture, money, Eiffel Tower, pens.
I can't remember what mark I got. It was bad.
Worse than my Oral exam, but I had cheated on that.
Not on pupose.
Sunday, December 01, 2002
So, for the run-up to Christmas, there's a new thing, just for fun.
Like an advent calendar.
Except with writing, not chocolates.
It's a question and answer affair.
notsosoft and littleredboat, in a joint venture, present to you
'Tis the season.
I know everyone's probably aware of this link already, but you know I'm slow with these things.
But thanks to Tristan, and the reviews of this album , I've just laughed so much I want to be sick.
The song 'Hot shot City' is particularly good.
I was just doing some research into something.
Not personal research, writing research.
You'll see.
But I was really glad to see that the official Herpes information page will soon be running a dating service.
I think that's really nice.
And not funny at all.
It's just really nice.
Honestly.
a weblog by anna pickard
(adrift in a sea of commuters)
(adrift in a sea of commuters)
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