Via Miramar Mike:
1. Sad little bird….for Sarah, 2. Avocado Eyes (Day 307), 3. Chris at PNGHS, 4. “Norouz” is coming!…, 5. Cake or Death?, 6. vintage tea set with cupcake, 7. Without a Clue!, 8. Untitled, 9. Watering the Wall of Indifference, 10. Tree of Light, 11. Halloween Party, 12. Its a bit harsh to call Posh a twat, if you ask me.
I adore the lazy-arsedness of memes.
A face is a terrible thing to have. There was a woman on my bus this morning who didn’t just have bitch-face, she had gormless-bitch-face. And she was probably a very nice chap.
It did prompt me to wonder, though, do you grow into your face or does your face grow into you?
So after reading Martha’s comment on Pretty Pretty Pretty about her magic cream with “rice scrubby things”, I thought to myself, “I’ve got rice. And I’ve got a blender. Magic rice scrubby cream here I come!”.
I don’t think my blend was quite as fine as it could be–it would be fair to say there were chunks–and when added to my cleanser it did a kind of gloopy rice puddingish thing. But it smelt good and it made my face soft and smooth and–if I do say so myself–blindingly gorgeous. I reckon with a few refinements and maybe a coffee grinder, I could totally find myself in the Estee Lauder league.
Bus etiquette: when sharing a seat on a crowded bus and many of the passengers get off, do you move to a vacated seat?
I say yes. Because if you don’t you could be blocking a certain wee lass in, causing her to stress out about bell pinging access. Obviously the chap sitting next to me thought no. Or was too lazy to move his camo-panted arse. Thoughts?
Thanks to an invitation from the lovely Sue Tyler, Peter and I escaped Boganville on Saturday night for a trip into The Big City and dinner with Sue, Rebecca, Kathy, Stephen, Brock, Andy, and Tantek*.
Now if there are two things I’m crap at–and, sadly, there are vastly more than two–they would be a. people, and b. noise. Dinner in The Big City with people I haven’t met serves up large portions of both.
The trouble with people is that they put out way too much information for my brain to cope with. So it shuts down. Which doesn’t really work in a social setting. The whole sitting staring blankly into space thing just isn’t valued the way it should be.
Something as seemingly simple as making eye contact can cause a complete neurological short-circuit. Generally when I need to speak to someone I find a blank area to look at while I’m talking. That way, my own thoughts don’t get swamped by the stream of incoming information. But, as strategies go, that one doesn’t work particularly well when you’re attempting to initiate a conversation. Making eye contact is the standard human method for letting someone know you’re talking to them and not the tabletop. So I need to get the thing I want to say completely prepared in my brain before making eye contact, taking a deep breath, and hoping all the words make it out in a non-scrambled form.
Of course, in the ensuing eons the prospective conversationee has generally been engaged by someone with fewer I/O bugs.
Sound is another area where my brain works sub-optimally. Noise that other people consider reasonable I find physically painful. And if the noise is at all complex my hearing just turns off. It’s like switching the mute button on the world. I can look at things and know that, logically, they are producing sound but I just cannot hear it.
But Saturday was nice (despite incredibly rude maître d’/glorified receptionist at Monsoon Poon) and I think even the technophobe boyfriend enjoyed it (trying to explain the concept of a web star taxed my powers of elucidation somewhat though). Might even attempt more of the human interfacing thing again in future.
*Please let me know if I guessed anybody’s link wrong!
Another one of those backseat of the bus conversations:
Teenage Boy 1: I reckon you’re going to be like 16 when you lose your virginity.
Teenage Boy 2: That’s when it’s legal. You’re not allowed to do it before then.
Phone camera + Holga-ish filter on Picnik = The World Where I Live.
Also, if you’re stalking me, I don’t live anywhere near the scene of this photo. At all. No Siry Bob.
You know how the balloons in the supermarket always come in bags of colour ugliness? Don’t give up. Sometimes you just come across a bag of pretty.
A thing I learned on the bus this morning that I would prefer not to have learned:
Having “hairy sacs” is something Intermediate age boys aspire to.
The dead baby hedgehog I spotted yesterday–
Look at its little curled up hands (first person to say “rigor mortis” is banned). Now cry dammit.
There was a cat lurking by my back door this morning. I bet it was a boy cat planning all the nefarious things he would do to my Edie. Not on my watch buddy. Take your boy bits and slink off back to where you came from.
You know how the “gangsta” kids go around with bandannas hanging out of their back pocket? I saw a guy this morning with a slide rule hanging out of his.
As a nice added bonus it dragged his pants down far enough that we all got a great view of his yellow satin boxers.
One of the very excellent things about having a female cat is that I can call her “Girlfriend” and “Miss Thing” and thereby pretend that I’m in an episode of America’s Next Top Model.
She gets a little offended when I say, “Oh you did not just get all up in my weave bitch!” though.
So I went to a thing on Saturday. Or–to give it its slightly more official title–I went to see the “Petone Project by Ans Westra & Friends”. It was being filmed as part of a series called New Artland which is to screen on TVNZ 6 and–helpfully for those of us without working televisions–TVNZ OnDemand from April.
Thirteen young photographers from the Hutt were chosen by Ans Westra to take photographs en route from their homes to the Petone Foreshore. On Saturday, a photo selected from each photographer was displayed in the area along Buick Street and around the Settlers Museum.
There was of course also a parade with marching girls and a man in very tight trousers, because it was being filmed for TV and TV is one of those foreign lands where they do things very differently.
Chris Knox is the presenter for this series, and at one stage he said something to me to which I said–rather wittily-in reply, “Babble, babble, babble. Dribble. Blah blah blah.” Because my brain was going, ‘It’s Chris Knox! CHRIS KNOX! CHRIS KNOX CHRIS KNOX CHRIS KNOX. Exactly like that, only louder and with more red.
And then Other Me said, “Touch him.”
Me: I’m not going to touch him.
Other Me: Go on…
Me: I can’t just touch him.
Other Me: Ask him first then.
Me: No!
Other Me: You want to.
Me: I do not! That would be weird and creepy.
Other Me: Well sure. But when you’re 80, sitting in your rocking chair in front of the fire with your tribe of cats gathered around you, wouldn’t you like to be able to tell them the story of the time you touched the man who wrote the song in the Vogels ad?
Me: Well yeah, little bit.
Other Me: Do it then!
Me: No! Or at least maybe I’ll wait until he’s not looking…
The most gorgeous and creative set of toy animal photos.
As opposed to the facetitious way in which I photograph my toy animals. Oh to be a creative genius.
So, those people who wait until they’re on the bus before they get their wallet out–how is anyone that stupid still alive? Shouldn’t natural selection have deselected them?
I hate the term “vintage”. It seems to have been repurposed by the snob classes to distinguish themselves from poor people who buy secondhand (ugh–how distasteful darling) out of necessity.
This is my cat. She is secondhand.
Oh my word! There was a woman in the coffee shop the other day seriously trying to chat up the barista while he was making coffee. Ew! That is like trying to chat up a priest during Mass. I mean, at least wait until he’s got his vestments off at the cup-of-tea afterwards.
I have never been prouder of my sphincter than I was yesterday.
Some words, by means of explanation: “migraine”, “nausea”, “diarrhea”, “explosive”, “fifteen”, “minute”, “bus-ride”, “home”. Yes, indeed, many of those should never be found in such close proximity. And I pray I never have to use them as such again. But I made it home and even had time to kiss the cat* on my way to the bathroom.
*Must research relationship between cat-kissing and explosive diarrhea.
I love Jesus so much. Or really I love creme eggs so much, but I think he invented them? He was like totally a cross between Willy Wonka and a chicken farmer, or something.
Ack. One of those ghastly women with long long hair sat in front of me on the bus this morning. I had to huddle in my seat as far away from it as possible least it touch me.
And worse: the breeze coming in under the door was making it fly everywhere. Gag. Flyaway hair (and long long hair is always flyaway) flying away. It was so utterly frightful one nearly vomited.
Now if the Universe would just get on with sending out that long overdue memo:
To: All women with arse-length hair
Note: Ew! Are you serious? It’s not pretty or feminine or in any way your crowning glory. It’s. Just. Yucky. Cut it now before you give anyone else the squicks.
Pardon me while I pluck my eyeballs out with barbeque tongs. Tom Coates–plasticbag Tom Coates–was in New Zealand, nay in Wellington and I totally missed it. Woe is me. I would have camped out on the front steps of the conference and let all the pretty people trample me on their way in if I had known!
Added: Ahhh! He’s so tweed! I downloaded and listened to the mp3 of his talk and so gorgeous! He’s all corduroy and elbow patches and a pipe!
Lesson one in the “beginning to blog again” journey–don’t use a blog that is linked to the username you use on your 9 year old nephew’s blog. So, trying again.
So to buy a Telecom wireless hotspot prepaid card, you can’t actually go to a Telecom shop. Instead you have to face the indignity of going into Starbucks. I still feel dirty. But hey, I’m online and there are no pervy old men queued up behind me waiting to get onto the library computers. I might get back into this blogging thing after all.
Twittering
