You Don’t Know What It’s Like (To Love Somebody)

Hi!  I seem to have had a busy week not being here.  But things are calmer now.  Projects are complete.  I have relaxed by eating Havarti cheese.  And acquiring a giant appreciation for the Bee Gees.  You heard me right, don’t look at me like that.

I know I make fun of the Bee Gees sometimes.  It’s so easy.  That hair.  Those pants.  Those voices that sound like they’re being forcibly sodomized by a scalding hot tire iron.  But I like the Bee Gees.  I like their quirky, catchy, retro, goddamn cheesy songs.  They’re infectious like the plague.   I wish  I'd been a dazzling 18 year old disco diva back in 1976, resplendent in sparkly gold lame so I could strut my funky thang to the Bee Gees in some palm frond decorated Miami discotheque.

You can quote me on that.   Sniff.  I was born too late.

The thing is, I feel it’s my right to tell you all that the Bee Gees are ok. Really they are.  Don’t fear the Bee Gees.  Step into the light.  You need to get their Greatest Hits album and play it in heavy rotation till your ears bleed, especially when doing mundane tasks.  It makes sticking a marigold-gloved hand down the toilet seem like a pleasure when somewhere behind you, the brothers Gibb are shrieking “You win again!”   It’s like they’re huddled by the door frame going “You go girl!  You blitz the stains off that porcelain!  You turn that water blue with a fresh stick on!  You get that brush down there and twirl!”  Your own personal bathroom cheer squad.
 
Maybe lock them out for a while when you’re pinching a loaf or something though…

Making dinner is so much less a chore when you can swig a cold beer and have the Bee Gees ask “How Deep is Your Love?”   When things get hard you know it’s going to be ok because the Bee Gees know all about “Tragedy” but they’re “Stayin’ Alive” and so can you.  (well except that one Bee Gee who didn’t manage to stay alive, but no method is foolproof). 

Rest assured though, when the Bee Gees tell you “You should be dancin’ yeah!” you should be fucking well dancing!  Don’t mess with the Bee Gees man, the Bee Gees will cut you.  Don't be fooled by the gold lycra and open chest shirts, they will  FUCK.  YOU. UP.

What’s “Jive Talking” about though?  Can you really think of three whiter boys to be talking about jive talking?  But the Bee Gees pull it off with aplomb.  Talent like that doesn’t come around every day.  Embrace it.  Love the Bee Gees!

Veggie out.

The Entry With No Name

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day or Remembrance Day depending on which side of the border you reside and to many of us apart from remembering  the troops, that meant a holiday.  I decided to spend it the way a holiday ought to be spent – remembering I didn’t have to get up and do anything, before polishing my poppy and going back to sleep.

It was a plastic poppy.   From the gas station. 

Things I have learned this week:

1)  There is such a thing as too much chocolate.

2)  If you’re not careful it is possible to unknowingly attach a club lock to your steering wheel in such a way that it slightly depresses the horn which in turn seriously depresses several of your neighbours when it proceeds to blast on and off all night resulting in a drained battery the next day and possibly many livid glares.  Oops.

3)  It is possible to find a soy based veggie burger that doesn’t taste like shit.

4)  The new version of the old sci-fi eighties’ series “V” is jaw droppingly awful.  Let me try to put it into words for you.  It’s like when a hot band of pain flashes across your belly all of a sudden and you know you’ve eaten something bad and you groan and you rub your belly and you clear a path to the bathroom just in case your innards think about becoming outards while sweat starts to trickle from your hairline onto your clammy forehead and you can’t sit still because the pain feels like there’s a diseased elf filled with malice jabbing your gut repeatedly with a hot scythe while his little accomplice bastard sits behind you kicking you hard in the lower back with steel-toe capped boots and you feel queasy and uncomfortable and achey and the bile is rising in your esophagus, ready to burst forth at any second in a fountain of puke so you get up, breathing heavily and you clutch your abdomen and you hobble, painfully, slowly, muttering and grimacing towards the bathroom, tearing your pants off in blind panic and throwing yourself on the mercy of the porcelain throne and you sit there, sweating, aching, blasting noxious, toxic gases from your bum, aware suddenly that you were too panicked to close the door and now there’s a crowd of ten people you invited round for drinks, including your boss, all gathered around the bathroom door staring at you, anxiously inquiring if you’re ok, while you’re butt naked on the toilet and you think, “Nothing can be worse than this moment.”?   Yeah, well watch “V”.  Surprise!

5)  Lastly:  Haiku are fun so go see Hunter over at Time Crook as he wrote a great car related entry filled with haiku, a few of which I even contributed, so go on over and check it out and while you’re there check out his whole blog because it’s full of dry humour, poignant thoughts and the sort of general awesomeness I can never hope to aspire to.

Container Madness

I’ve been in the mood for a spot of spring cleaning lately.  And before you point out the obvious, “But it’s AUTUMN!” well yes, you would be correct, but it’s more the principle I’m going for not the season. 

Not that I have a lot of stuff to organize – I have mercifully few things but somehow I still need to get them encased in their own private accommodations with miscellaneous containers and things.  I’m obsessed with containers.  They’re like a sweet drug I can’t turn my back on.  You can keep your hash cakes and your Ecstasy – just point me in the direction of somewhere with a fine array of containers and I’ll be high as a kite all day. 

Well maybe save me ONE cake.  For old time’s sake.

I can find a use for any container.  So long as it’s functional and relatively cute.  Cute is necessary.  You don’t want an ugly container cluttering up your apartment do you?  That is counter productive to any organizing Mecca.

I’m not above making my own containers either.  Coffee tins are particularly good for painting up all fancy and keeping stuff in.  It’s recycling!  So long as you don’t mind your stuff smelling like coffee, you’re golden.

So anyway, I take a little trip to the dollar store.  I know I mention the dollar store all the time and you all think I probably live in the goddamn dollar store but I don’t.  I just go there for a) striped socks in offensive colours, b) cheap paint of undetermined origin and c) containers – all things you hate paying real money for.   They have all sorts of containers that make me drool on myself because I lose control of all bodily functions when my eyes glimpse all that shiny, multi-coloured plastic everywhere in all shapes and sizes.  I start to twitch and mutter and I realize how those five, lucky golden-ticket winners in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” must’ve felt upon entering Willy Wonka’s candy factory.   Just like when I was sixteen and I’d practically pass out with ecstasy at lines and lines of vinyl records lined up in my local record store.

Now I’m getting the vapours from containers.  This is a sad development. Yet oddly pleasing.

Detouring back to the Dollar Store for a moment here though.  The Dollar Store has a food section and I find this slightly alarming.  Really, who buys food from the Dollar Store?  There has to be a reason it’s a dollar, surely and that reason can seldom be for good.  If there’s a steak in the Dollar Store fridge, it’s probably never been destined for the menu at any classy restaurant.  It probably has the cooties and came from a rat or something.  I don’t know and truthfully, I don’t want to dwell on it too much.  Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll let myself buy a big bar of chocolate or something for a dollar.  I mean how bad can that be?  A giant Milky Way for a buck?  Sign me up.

But back to the containers.  I have them all commissioned instantly. “You would be great for my paints, you would be good for pens, you would fit my measly make up supplies and you would hold my laundry!”  I am triumphant in my delegations.  I am all delighted with myself.  More than usual even.

Even though, outrageously, I feel I should point out that some of those items were two dollars.  Which makes me think they should change the name of the store from “The Dollar Store” to “The Dollar Store – Sometimes” or “The Dollar Store After Inflation”.

Don’t even get me started on the Container Store…

Paranormal Activity in my Gut

I woke up this morning ravenous.  This almost never happens as I need to be alert to be hungry and being alert generally takes most of my day.  I can perform tasks for hours before I’d classify myself as actually alert.   I have auto pilot.  I have zombie efficiency.  So it was a surprise to find my belly growling like a Satanic demon. 

And a shock since I went to bed feeling like I was housing the entire world’s food surplus in my belly.  I got all social last night and went for a dinner of junk food type deliciousness, which is always a damn fine treat, and which included a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich and sweet potato fries all healthily cancelled out by a giant Diet Pepsi.  When I’d done I felt like there was possibly a full grown human curled up in my gut.  Or at least the Olson Twins.

All this munching turned out to be a huge mistake as we went to the movies afterwards and it was some half price Tuesday nonsense, which sounds like a really good thing doesn’t it?  Except it’s not really half price at all.  It’s full price but you get a free popcorn and a giant free soda with your ticket.  Which I didn’t know.  Or particularly want after a belly full of awesome.  I don’t even like popcorn much and I didn’t eat any of it.  Really the half price ticket would’ve been a much better deal, you fuckers.

I forgave them though because I got such a kick out of the movie. (“Paranormal Activity”)  I’d seen so many reviews and I’d read all the hype and I thought “Well OBVIOUSLY it’s going to be a letdown because all hyped moves are!” but you know what?  It wasn’t.  I thought it was better than expected by quite a bit.  And it’s a long time since I’ve gone to bed at night totally creeped out.  In fact, it was scarier after the movie than during even.  I like stuff that starts off really slow and unremarkable and gradually builds.  The entire first half I was thinking “This is creepy but not really scary.”  Then the last half hour happened.  Holy fuck.  The last minute or so almost gave me palpitations.   I loved how there’s this crazy, tense, shock of a last scene then the movie just ends with no credits or anything and the lights come on and everyone’s just sitting there shell shocked. Wicked!

I guess if you like your scary movies full of implausible slasher super killers, blood, gore, torture and predictable cliches (how many times can we see the whole ‘girl closes bathroom cabinet to see nasty entity in mirror’ thing?) you won’t like PN but if you like slow building, realistic, gets under your skin creepiness, you’ll probably love it like I did.

And I woke up every hour to check there was no one standing at the side of the bed watching me sleep, because if there was it’s possible I’d be on the news today for setting a new world speed record for sprinting.

I leave you with my latest painting effort and this time it’s retro girlie pink.  You can buy it for copious amounts of money in unmarked, consecutive bills or you can just admire its giant pinkability right here, right now.  Or not.

Toot toot!

Left is Write

Miss Beckster over at "I'll go eat worms" did a handwriting post today to show her crazy writing and encouraged us to do the same.  Mine is way crazier than Becky's though.  I write like I'm coming off a seven day amphetamine bender.

Thing is, I'm rusty too.  Besides shopping lists I never write ANYTHING.  I need to get a fountain pen because those at least flow nicely and make my writing look like I'm not some crazed serial killer.   Unlike this.

I know, it's sad isn't it?  But you got off easy.  You should see me write with a scratchy old Bic.  Ugh!

P.P.S. I  realize "scratchy, purple Pilot" sounds like I'm talking about a defective penis.  I'm not.

PB&J

I almost missed daylight savings altogether as my head thought it was all going down next week and, as always, I assumed it knew best.  Let’s hope my head never plans a bank heist. 

It was ok in the end though.  I got some extra sleep and managed to get up this morning without having an internal struggle, probably due to my small pea brain’s confusion.  Maybe I’ll make a morning person yet? 

Still, it might have messed with me in other ways.  For instance, it’s not even 9:30am now and I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing because I’m already fixated on the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  But it’s much too early to be thinking of such things.  It’s coffee and granola bar time really.  One doesn’t screw with societal convention.  Although I already eat breakfast food for dinner because I’m a rebel of society so this shouldn’t really be a great stretch.

Peanut butter and jelly together are two of life’s little pleasures.  A simple delight and a sticky one but sometimes those are the best kind.  Growing up in a country not bred on such mixtures, I was the lime in a bowl full of lemons as a kid because I was weaned on a strict diet of cheesy American TV shows and knew two things from an early age;  if you were anyone at all you ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and you drank root beer, two concepts so foreign to me they sounded almost exotic.  I’d never tried either. 

I eventually tasted root beer as a kid, during a family vacation to the States in the early eighties, during a heat wave and after braving what seemed to be a 300 day wait in line at a cafe at the Statue of Liberty.  When my dad asked what my drink of choice was I excitedly asked for root beer.  Because I was in the know with the cool kids.  I was practically American goddamn it.  I was fucking COOL.  I took one sip of that root beer and pulled a face that suggested maybe someone had accidentally fed me a cup of salted duck guts.  “What is THIS?” I said, disgusted.  “It tastes like Listerine!”  To this day I can’t touch root beer.  Stuff is just NASTY.  People are just devoted to it and I can’t figure out why.  Unless they had some unfortunate taste-bud killing disease…

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich however did not let me down.  In fact, in my late teens my sister and I and some mutual friends used to frequent a local indie club together once a week.  This meant drinking copious amounts of “Snakebites” (beer and cider mixed into a lethal pint-sized cocktail of extreme danger and flavoured mildly, in our case, with a splash of blackcurrant) and grabbing a taxi home in the wee small hours then trying not to wake my mum upon arrival with our rubber-limbed attempts at making a snack REALLY QUIETLY BUT NOT REALLY QUIETLY.

We were always ravenous and drunk as Nick Nolte at a titty bar.  My mum could always assess our level of drunkenness in the morning by the debris we left in the kitchen at 4am.  If there were cheese gratings we were coordinated enough to work the grill and make grilled cheese sandwiches – nectar of drunken bums everywhere.  However, if we were really incoherent and giggling, there’d be a peanut butter jar, a jelly jar and a half uneaten loaf and she’d know we couldn’t quite fire on enough cylinders to deal with actually cooking something.  On those mornings she took extra care to be noisy.  Who said mothers have no sense of humour?

Obligatory Friday Attendance

It’s Friday again so this means I am home, cozy, installed in some comfort-level, slightly worn pyjama bottoms and a big t-shirt, my reading glasses perched on the end of my nose like a disapproving librarian, my hair inventing angles that astound the geometric world, a big cup of coffee by my side, some tunes blasting in the background and a pristine, giant white canvas on my easel waiting for me to utilize the pots of pink, magenta, red and purple paints laid out in anticipation.    Because yes!  Once again I defy blue by attempting something in another colour spectrum – the spectrum of “offensive to the eyeballs”.  There’s also the possibility that later I might bake something fragrant to nibble while watching a movie later tonight.  So really, what’s not to like?  Come on over and play.  And eat a cupcake.  Filled with lemon butter cream and joyous little exuberant calories.

I have a slight eye socket migraine going down behind my right eye.  It’s nearly always my right eye, because Right Eye is a party animal.  There’s all manner of chaos going on behind there.  Left eye, in the meantime, is the serious one, the studious one, the one who wants to sit nine feet from the TV and use a glare screen on the computer.  Left Eye likes early nights and gardening and possibly reading up on spiritual fulfillment, whereas Right Eye prefers strip clubs, hollering cheesy song lyrics and drinking a 40 in two minutes for a bet.   Sadly, Right Eye is dominant.  I am a slave to its every whim.

Anyway, I hope your  spooky weekends go terrifyingly.  My Internet is doing odd things – or rather, NOT doing them.  Maybe one of the gnomes that runs on the treadmill to power it is sick today or something? 

I leave you with my bad kitty pumpkin from last Halloween.

My Horn Is Being Tooted

Well hello.  Yes you!  You there looking ultra sexy tonight with your tousled locks and sweats.  Would you like a beer?  I only have Corona but I do have lime.  Sit down and put your feet up and I’ll bring you a chilled bottle.

What’s that you say?  Do I not love you?  Of course I do, I’ve just been busy and preoccupied and dealing with said busyness and when I haven’t been busy I’ve been cooking burritos filled with hash browns and eggs and doing laundry and watching “Mad Men” and painting.  A lot.  Oh!  And I almost ran over some geezer in a motorized wheelchair in the middle of the damn road the other day on my way home.   He drove that sick mobile like Mel Gibson on a bender and his ass was almost mine.  So as you can see, I have been far too busy to blog and comment in case the overload of “things” entering and leaving my brain, make it explode.

But look, I finished another couple of paintings, both bound for the gallery and yes, I’m about to bore the shit out of you with them.
 
I’m still working on my Airstream ‘collection’ – two of which I showed you previously - and as I was getting tired of working with blues all the time I decided to try something green for the sake of my sanity.  Hence one 60 cm wide, green Airstream abstract painting.

Do you know how many different greens are on that canvas?  I will tell you.  Approximately seven hundred.  And twelve.  (Or maybe about six…  Same difference.)
 
It’s soothing isn’t it?  I’ll tell you something else, it wasn’t soothing by the third night of painting when I had to repaint some of the greens yet again because they just weren’t right.  They have to be right, goddamn it. It was irritating and making me say bad words.  But I persevered.  You may now feel free to heap lots of enormous, godlike praise on my accomplishment, because honestly, I am actually a little proud of these ones.  I am very self-critical of my paintings but get this - I sort of like that green one.  I know what you’re thinking too, you’re thinking, “Is the apocalypse approaching?  Was that blast of cool air a backdraft from the wings of a flying pig? Is she feeling unwell?”  No, it’s true.  I sort of like it and I think it’s funky.
 
And is it just me or does it make you want spearmint gum?

Just before that painting, I did this one purely to get a break from Airstreams for five minutes:

This one is huge and took less time than the smaller green one.  This is because I am quite possibly an expert on blues now. I might even DREAM in blue.  It looks like a retro travel poster.    Did I mention it’s 90 cms wide?  That’s big.  That’s like…three thousand…billionty…feet or something imperial.  It’s like three whole rulers!

So you see, I have been productive in my spare time instead of writing this nonsense, therefore, I will accept no reprimands for lack of participation in entries or comments.  I have been reading everyone’s blogs but my mind’s been too busy devising new blues and greens to write actual words so the odd comment I did leave probably didn’t make much sense. Sorry about that.
 
But I am watching.  So behave your bad selves.

One Hot Mess

Hey, it’s the weekend (my weekend starts on Friday, I don’t know about yours).  I’ve been crazy busy the last couple of days as all my spare time’s been used up painting a new giant canvas and playing cheesy playlists as I find cheesy songs fuel my painting process like the bejeezus.   Or the Bee Gees!

Today I’m all sort of infuriated because I keep getting rubber shavings from my eraser in my white paint.  They don’t add much to the painting at all.

You know, when I was at school erasers were called “rubbers”.  I know!  We said that out loud ALL THE TIME.  Nowadays you’d get into all sorts of hot water asking an 8 year old if you can “borrow his rubber”, right?  The sad thing is, he’d probably HAVE one.  A condom I mean, not an eraser.  Try to keep up here. 

Talking of condoms, we used to call those, “johnny bags” and we spent many happy pre-pubescent hours sniggering about older boys who carried them in their wallets because oh my God, johnny bags were so DIRTY. 

And then there was a big scandal in my school when I was about twelve because a gym teacher arrived to school early one morning and found the *bush outside the gym literally covered in hanging johnny bags!  Just hanging from the bushy branches like mutant, latex leaves.  I never did find out if they were used or not - because, let's face it, that's the first thing everyone was thinking - but by the time I got in there were, sadly, no hanging johnnies left to be seen.   However, people were LIVID.  You’d think we’d disembowelled a nun on school premises the way they went on.  It’s only johnnies, people, jeeze, really.

*somewhere in there is a joke about a “bush” covered in “johnnies” but I’m too lazy to go find it.

Talking of condoms again, I once was out with my mother and her camera ran out of batteries when she was photographing some park or other and I accidentally said, “Oh it’s ok, I have a spare pack of Durex in my bag!”  When I meant Duracell.  Oops.  Anyway…
 
I’m getting off subject here.  Painting.  I like painting and it relaxes me a lot except when I get eraser shavings embossed into the paint.  And the little bristles from the paintbrush that you have to painstakingly pick out while mumbling things like, “Go fuck a cow you cocksucking little fucks!” and then it occurs to you that maybe expecting to do a professional grade painting using brushes you bought at the dollar store while you were looking for a rubber spatula, might not be the most genius idea you ever had.

So yes.  I came on here to say I don’t even have a meme for you today, that’s how lame I am and I ended up posting this nonsense instead.  However, if you’d like a nice, cool, refreshing beverage of the alcoholic persuasion this weekend, I think you should nip over HERE to Miss Buffy’s site where I am guest hosting a cocktail for her Cocktail Friday.  Honestly Buffy is one of the most interesting people in the whole world! I believe it's written in stone somewhere.  Her parents were bona fide hippy types and she’s a professional actress and bartender and once worked in an editorial capacity, at “HUSTLER” alongside one Larry Flynt.   I mean really, how cool is that?  Go check her out and while you're there, see if my cocktail makes your tastebuds swoon.

Toodaloo!

Spirits: And Not the Liquid Variety

With Halloween waiting in the wings, I’ve been in ghost mode lately.  Personally I don’t know what the hell I believe pertaining to supernatural beings.  I’d call me a sceptic.  I’ve never had a true ghostly experience of any sort, although I know lots of people who claim they have.  I’m very curious about the paranormal – there seems to be a lot of stuff out there that can’t be properly explained, but I’m not sure I’m ready to believe there are spirits hovering around us either, haunting us or helping us, no matter how many “Ghost Hunters” type shows out there tell me otherwise.

Plus come on, if you believed the ghost of your dead grandmother was watching over you, you’d never do that thing with the whipped cream and the drilled out melon again, would you?

My only possible ghost experience was years ago, when my sister, our friend and myself were teens and were driving home from my grandmother’s house on the main motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh.  It was night time and dark and the road where we were was starting to wind a little.  We were in the middle lane of the highway and there was very little traffic ahead or next to us although there were cars some way behind.  We were doing probably 65mph when we rounded the bend and suddenly, there in the middle of our lane, was the figure of a man in a long overcoat with his back to us walking down the road, with his head down.  We had no time to really react, but we swerved hard into the left lane and onto the shoulder to stop, in order to miss him and when we looked behind us he was gone.  Just not there.  And there were only fields around us.  He’d been right there in the middle of the damn highway so if we didn’t hit him someone behind us surely would have, but there was nothing.  No one.  I never figured out if he was real or not but we all saw him and then he was gone.  It was just a weird experience.

Another time, one of my friends had recently lost her grandfather, who she was extremely close to.  A couple of days later she was wandering around town, doing errands when a random woman in the street stopped her and claimed she was a medium.  The woman told her there was a man on a bike following her and that he was not living.  She described my friend’s grandfather right down to his clothing, the strange cap he used to wear and the fact he always rode a bike everywhere and then told her his first name.   My friend freaked the hell out.   I mean how do you explain that sort of thing?  Even a sceptic like me is bemused.  Part of me wants to see something I can’t explain whereas the other part of me thinks it can live quite comfortably without peeing my pants for no reason, thank you very much.

I do enjoy hearing other people’s ghost experiences though, so basically if you have any stories of your own, feel free to leave them in the comments so I can be entertained.  It’s all about entertaining me you know.  Shame on you if you thought otherwise.

The Times They Are A-Changing

When I think of my childhood in Scotland, I think of long, warm, sunny summer days that began at 8am when I squinted open my eyes to pale, morning sunbeams and only ended close to midnight, when the sky had turned a dark, vibrant indigo - never completely dark - filled with pin-pricks of light that detailed distant worlds of wonder.  I used to lie on the embankment near our house, late at night, looking at the Moon through my dad’s Japanese binoculars, hoping if I looked hard enough I might see the American flag, left years before by the astronauts.

We lived on the edge of the woods, close to the river, on a quiet, residential road.  My days were filled with the limitless possibilities of the great outdoors.  There were slopes to roller-skate down, ramps to bicycle over, always somewhere to explore and we explored it all.

In winter, there were gentle waves of hills all dressed in a chilled cloak of snow.   Fat with layers of woollen clothing and fistfuls of mittens, we’d drag our sleds to the top and fly down on our bellies like Olympic loge champions.  If you didn’t have a sled you used a kitchen tray or an old suitcase or anything else flat you could find. 

There were trees to climb too – majestic, thick-limbed oaks stuffed with shiny, bald acorns in the Autumn and lush, dark leaves in summer.  The woods were also dense with Chestnut trees which yielded plump, mahogany horse-chestnuts when the nights started to get chilly.  We fought over the biggest ones and tied them to strings in order to play “conkers”.   A conker bruise was a badge of honour. 

There were slippery, damp stones, in the shallows of the river, each thick with a deep-green, velvet moss and if you were careful, you could clamber gingerly over them to reach the other side.  

My summer days were filled with wandering with my dog through the scent of fresh garlic in the woods between our house and the nearby ruins of Bothwell Castle, gathering fragrant bluebells and daffodils and skimming stones on the river.   We’d play in the castle grounds, rolling down the plush, green, grassy slopes, stopping just short of the river and climbing the protruding sandstone rocks that made up the castle wall.

Other times I spent my time climbing high on a dilapidated old railway bridge that still carried regular train services from the outskirts into the city, 7 miles away.  The bridge was eroded by time and held up purely by three supreme forces; rusty metal girders, worn sandstone brick and sheer rugged determination.  We’d slide onto the thick, red girders and nudge our way across, oblivious to the danger that we could, at any moment, slip off the edge into the murky river many feet below.  We knew no fear.

In the late afternoon we’d pool our money and go buy ice cream or a coke at the local, main street cafe – an old establishment that had been a village fixture since back in the fifties and still retained those old, original dark wooden booths with vinyl cushions and an old time atmosphere.  Sometimes, when we had no money, we’d collect old glass soda bottles which we could redeem for candy.

Then one day we grew up.  Seasons still changed but they were filled with more grown up matters.  Nowadays the oak trees and chestnut trees still stand, majestic as ever, but no kids cling to their trunks or climb high up in their branches to read a book, as birds croon around them.  No one is picking violet flowers in the woods or watching trains go by, belly down on the embankment of the bridge.  There are no girls and their dogs, silently crouching at the foot of the beech tree by the pond, waiting for dusk to descend, to watch the bats skimming the tree tops while listening to owls calling to each other in the night. 

Nowadays the world’s a different sort of place, where children spend their time in front of a TV set or a computer, playing with video games and expensive toys.   And they never have to proudly display a conker bruise or a scabby knee from sliding down a tree bark too fast. 

And I think it’s a shame.

A Public Service Announcement

I was reading Becky’s post today about her allergy to gluten and thinking about how my stomach is made of asbestos, therefore, I am not allergic to anything (apart from winter and strenuous exercise) but then I remembered that I am, in fact, extremely allergic to Quorn.

“What the eff is Quorn, Veg?” I hear you Americans yell, as you’re all thinking, “Is that some fucked-up type of corn or some evil, determined, scarred Star Trek villain?”

Well let me enlighten you all.  This is Quorn.

Let me recap for you slightly.  It’s a man-made, laboratory-grown fungus, used as a meat (often chicken) substitute for vegetarians and is extremely popular in European vegetarian dishes, particularly in the UK.  Doesn’t it sound attractive?  Whenever my stomach starts to rumble I can’t get my mind off chowing down on some man-made, lab-grown fungus, can you?  Nom nom!

Most people eat Quorn safely – my sister swears by it and every vegetarian I know in the UK uses it in some form or another.  Me though?  I don’t like it and it likes me even less.  In fact, it makes me turn into a human Niagara Falls of puke.  Every time I’m in the UK and someone is feeding me veggie food I have to be a total butthole and ask “Does this have Quorn in it, because you do not want to witness the aftermath, if so.”

Naturally, it took me a few severe vomit-tastic episodes to figure it out.  I always knew it tasted weird to me and that should have been a clue.  Well, that and the fact that not long after eating it I always ralphed like I was going for an Olympic medal in vomit.  One time, I spewed forth on the bus and another time in my next door neighbour’s hallway.  Surprise, neighbours!

My mum once gave the non meat eaters in our family Quorn turkey at Christmas, which they tucked into eagerly.  I had one bite and knew I couldn’t eat it.  Two hours later I blew chunks in an impressive display of ‘The Exorcist’-worthy mayhem all over my mother’s bathroom, complete with a noise that sounded like Satan was trying to enter the real world through my esophagus.   I think that was the time I actually figured it out.  No more Quorn.

So that really is today’s entry – beware of man-made, lab-grown fungus no matter how gorgeously appealing that sounds, because you might get to see your innards on the sidewalk.

I know, you’re all delighted I made this entry because I saved you all from a vomity evening as I can sense you were all dying to get some of that lab-grown fungus action, right? 

Well that is why I am here.

A Day in the Life…

I thought it might be nice to do a short series of insights into the daily lives of famous people.

Today…Samuel L. Jackson.

Thank you. 

Normal service will resume shortly.

From The Land of WTF?

I’m still tired and busy (busy being tired mainly!) and I just popped up like an unexpected (but hopefully welcome) erection, to say hello and give you all a special little gift.
  
You know how everyone loves Etsy and its arts and crafts made by talented people from all over the world?  Those people are all so creative, so artistic, so imaginative! 

Yeah, well some of Etsy’s crafts are also made by the fine compilation of people listed here.   Would you like a teddy bear with a lady’s front bottom?  (Winnie the Poonani anyone?)

Or maybe you’d prefer a bar of soap that looks like a poop?  Well, you better get your cheque book ready.  I present, for your pleasure (certainly not for mine) Regretsy - an impressive compilation of the worst Etsy has to offer.   It’s semi-but-probably-not safe for work.  Hell it’s not safe for anyone.  Wear goggles.

And never say I don’t bring you culture.
 
More when I’m less tired and grouchy and busy and headachey and lumpy throaty and less covered in orange paint. 

No, thank YOU!

Meme Me Baby

Hola fine people of blogland.  Whoa, I have been MIA this week, huh?  I’ve been busy as a fucking fuck the past week with a big project that hurt my head.  Busy as a little busy bee.  Busy as a wall covered in neon-coloured paisley wallpaper.  And also, on top of this, I’ve been busy getting some paintings finished and ready to ship to an actual gallery to display, because I am now famous in my own HEAD.  Hell, you have to start somewhere, right?  I’m also thinking about being pretentious full-time.  You may call me “Claude” (don’t call me Claude).

So for now, let me give you a meme.  It is Friday after all.  I’ve told you all – Friday is for memes.   Just like Thanksgiving is for turkey and Don Imus is for punching in the balls.

I got this one from the divine S.E. Sward whose name makes her sound like some awesomely accomplished novelist who writes about pirates on the high seas and swarthy men in billowy white shirts and leggings who go around fighting other similarly clad dudes with bandanas on their heads and who say things like “AAAAAARRR. Them be thine concubines I surmise!  I will now duel to the death with you for the hands of thine wenches of ill repute!”

Something like that…

So, yes.  The meme.  As usual, feel free to do it yourself.  I ain’t taggin’!

1. Where is your phone?
Two feet from me on the desk.  It doesn’t work very well but I don’t care enough to think about upgrading it in any way.
 
2. Your hair?
Independent.  Does its own sweet thing in its own sweet time.  Sort of like the rest of me.

3. Your mother? 
Great as the obnoxious answer to questions you don’t want to answer.  “What were you doing last night?”  “Yo’ mama.”

4. Your father?
In the 1970s he looked a lot like Fat Elvis.  You know, if Fat Elvis chain-smoked, liked terry cloth shirts and enjoyed drinking gin a little too much.  He used to make homemade potato chips and write short stories.  Not at the same time.  Not usually.

5. Your favorite food?
I’m a big fan of good garlicy Italian vegetarian food.  I also like good cheese.  None of that processed, plastic crap.  I’m not a meat eater EXCEPT having said that, my favourite sandwich is Subway’s BLT.  Only without the “L”.  Sort of a “BT”.  With sweet onion sauce instead of mayo.  Try it.  You’ll die from pleasure.

6. Your dream last night?
I worked most of the night. And I painted for an hour or so.  I didn’t actually sleep till 9am this morning since I have nowhere to be today, but I dreamt that I went to San Francisco for a conference about interior design and it was hosted by that jackass Johnny Knoxville (haha!) only his name was “James”.  He liked pink shirts.  Then I woke up and it was noon.

7. Your favorite drink?
Diet Pepsi is my beverage of choice.  I believe it is favoured by royalty and cool people everywhere.  I also enjoy a nice, icy Irn Bru.  When I’m in Canada Irn Bru is readily available.  When I’m in the States, it isn’t.  I could become a famous Irn Bru smuggler and smuggle it over the border and be like… the North Dakota Queen of Irn Bru.  I'd be the northern States Irn Bru dealer.  Irn Bru also makes fabulous floats of the ice cream variety.
 
You know, unlike those other floats.

8. Your dream/goal?
To never live in a house stuck in one place forever.  Or at least not until I find that perfect place.  Oh, and to find a way to eat cake every day without gaining any weight.  And to live somewhere where it never gets cold.  And to sleep more than four hours a night.  I used to be great at sleeping.  Now I have to threaten myself to withhold privileges if I don’t get some sleep.

9. What room are you in?
I’m in the home office/my paint studio.  OK, that was a bit grand of me.  It’s a room with the computer in it and my easel.
 
10. Your hobby?
I guess painting has become my number one hobby.  Painting, swimming and cake.  And jewelry making.  And blogging.  And baking.  And not sleeping.

11. Your fear?
Dissipating daily.  I sometimes fear that I’ll wake up one day and find that I like Lady Gaga and have to commit myself.

12. Where do you want to be in six years?
On the road.  Working from home all the time and not splitting my time between North Dakota and Manitoba or waiting in lines at borders.

13. Where were you last night?
On this very seat, being busy.  And nursing a headache that had been lingering for about four days on and off.  I also took a couple of hours off to watch some old “Larry Sanders Show” episodes.

14. Something you aren't?
Latina.  Purple.  Extroverted.  Miserable. A fan of winter. Right-handed.

15. Muffins?
Safeway gourmet muffins from their bakery.  They have a cranberry and lemon one that is to die for, but horribly hard to find.  Usually though, I prefer cupcakes or pastries to muffins.  Or pizza.

16. Wish list item?
I don’t really want much.  I don’t have many belongings anymore and I’ve found that I’m fine with that.  I want fulfillment.  I understand myself more every day.  I’m a lot more open than I used to be.  A lot more positive.

Ah screw it, I want an Airstream and a big lottery win. :)

17. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Scotland.  Where it’s light till 11pm in the summer and dark by 3:30pm in the winter.  Where you’re never far from the sea.  Where it rains a lot but will always be home.  Where I learned to tell people to fuck off in Scots Gaelic.

18. Last thing you did?
Ate some banana and pineapple bread I baked yesterday.  It was supposed to be banana bread but I ran out of bananas and supplemented with pineapple.  It worked.  Yum.

19. What are you wearing?
Some weird jeans I bought in Fargo that fall off if I don’t wear a belt.

20. Your TV?
By the bed.  I like to watch it to unwind every night before I fall asleep. You know, assuming I sleep.
 
21. Your friends?
My friends are like Nutella, they are completely nutty.  And like Nutella, they are spread all over the place.  But less sticky.  Than Nutella…

22. Your life?
Complicated yet fulfilling.  And tranquil so long as my Diet Pepsi supplies don’t dry up.

23. Your mood?
Generally mellow and even.  I went through a phase of being more uptight and stressed but I’ve learned to appreciate things and I find I’m quite happy and competent and stronger than I used to be.

24. Missing someone?
I miss my cat.

25. Vehicle?
Temperamental yet adorable, even that time I locked the keys in the ignition and had to walk home to get the spares.

26. Something you're not wearing?
Lederhosen.  Not today.  Lederhosen are for Wednesdays.

27. Your favorite store?
Target and Ikea.  If you don’t love Target or Ikea you’ve had a brain injury of some sort which rendered your taste, null and void.

28. Your favorite color?
I’d have to go with that colour of blue the sky is on a late afternoon in July.
 
29. Last time you laughed?
I noticed some guy’s name on a list I was perusing earlier and chuckled because his name was Dick Boggler.  That is just awesome.

30. Last time you cried?
I actually remember this.  I had PMS a few weeks ago and was feeling belligerent and there’s this door handle in my apartment I am always smashing my elbow off of, so I went to great pains to thwart that stupid door handle, and I was so busy avoiding bumping into it and being smug, that I stubbed my toe on the bottom of the door instead. And it hurt.  And it bled.  My toe, that is, not the door.  If the door bled it would be time to move. 

31. Your best friend?
Knowledgeable, caring, smart and makes mean borscht.
 
32. One place that you go over and over?
Home.  That’s why it’s home.

33. One person who emails you regularly?
Julia. With her wicked smarts and sassiness.

34. Favorite place to eat?
If we’re talking basic chain type junk food then I’d say when I’m in the U.S. I like me the occasional white trash hoe down at Ihop because in all seriousness, Ihop make the best omelettes known to mankind.  When I’m in Canada I like me some equally white trash hoe down at the Salisbury House who have the best sweet potato fries and spicy dip, ever.  If we’re talking eating out in general, Mexican restaurants are hard to beat.  I just love Mexican food.  North Dakota is oddly rife with Mexican restaurants and tasty margaritas.  It doesn’t seem right somehow… Finding one in Manitoba though is a lot harder.

Clumsiness, Porn And Ann Coulter

I always find it uproariously amusing when I see someone fall over, particularly if they do it in an exaggerated and un-graceful manner.  Not that there are many graceful ways to fall, so the odds are good if you fall over, I’m going to be laughing.  It’s not that I mean to be cruel it’s just that…that’s some funny shit right there.  Mainly because you’re thinking, “Thank the lord god of fuck that wasn’t me face-planting in that puddle there!” and your mind starts sort of imagining, what if it WAS you and you had to go to work all wet and muddy and scraped up, still cussing under your breath and calling people fuckers and somehow that makes it even funnier.

I just got back from running an important errand (I was out of eyeliner and if “What Not To Wear” taught me anything, it’s that you have to wear eyeliner or the world will beat you down and keep you there homeless, jobless, friendless and unlovable until you acquire some).  I was coming out of the Drug Mart and approaching my chained-up bike when I twisted over on my ankle.   I realized I was falling, took immediate, reflexive measures to preserve my dignity and pulled off an elegant little manoeuvre, reminiscent of Jeff Goldblum after you've fed him a gallon of tequila then plonked him down in the middle of an ice dancing competition.  I landed on my hands and knees with what can only have been a similar expression to one you might find on the face of a virgin seeing Ron Jeremy’s penis for the first time. 

At least it was only a half fall.

However, I noticed this guy.  Mid-thirties, moustache, curly hair and with that look on his face.  You know the look – where, say you’ve just turned on late night TV expecting to see a talk show and instead you find a normally scrambled porn channel, only it’s not scrambled tonight and you think “Oh my God, it must be my birthday!” and you proceed to watch – you know, for RESEARCH purposes – and there’s cheesy organ music playing and there’s a guy sitting on a chair with a giant, struggling and very obvious boner straining suggestively to get free as he grins lustily at someone off camera and you lick your lips, a little excited with anticipation and feeling a little bit naughty, mainly because you’re in your grandma’s living room, on her velvet 1970s, floral sofa that’s been her pride and joy since you were born and that she only just fed the local minister hot tea on and she just removed those stupid plastic covers that keep it clean and you’re there watching porn on it, like a common deviant, waiting for the huge boner guy to spring into action with the enormously silicon endowed, platinum blonde mess that’s sure to stroll aimlessly into shot any second in her g-string brandishing a double-pronged dildo and a seductive smile, so you squirm around excited to see what depravity will ensue but when she finally walks out with her back to you, long blonde hair cascading down her back - a little darker blonde than you were expecting but a blonde nonetheless - you notice her butt-cheek tattoo and you’re surprised because it’s a caricature of Tucker Carlson fucking a pig and you think “odd but ok because anyone snotty and obnoxious enough to wear fucking bow ties, deserves it…” then she turns to the camera and the music in  your head stops dead and all the breath leaves your body and that thing happens where the entire background of your world’s spinning around and getting further and further away while you stay still and you realize “OH GOD NO!”, but yes, YES it is ANN COULTER and although at first you’re horrified you soon have a look of pure grotesque, grinning satisfaction because you know the little blonde anti-christ is going to get the Herp from some diseased guy with a donkey-cock who looks like he last bathed in 1991?  

This moustache guy, watching me fall over in the parking lot, had THAT look.  Because karma, just like Ann Coulter, is a heartless bitch.

Car Wash

When I was little I was unusually fascinated by cars. Before I was born, my parents drove a second-hand 1960s, pale blue Ford Anglia, identical to the one used in the Harry Potter movies. I’ve seen it in photos – them leaning against it, posing in their mod gear, all young and proud in black and white. They drove that car for a long time, long after everyone else had already moved on to more boxy shaped, “modern” clunky vehicles. They finally sold the Anglia once us kids started to come along and they discovered that kids are actually fairly needy and expensive forcing the difficult but necessary dilemma of “the kids or the car?”

Now me, I’d have taken a good long time to chew over this decision and probably have driven off into the sunset after dumping the kids on the orphanage steps wearing their names on tags around their necks and clutching mini suitcases. After all kids aren’t much use for getting you to work in the morning, or carting home a month’s supply of groceries without complaining or facilitating a covert, frantic quickie when no one’s around. Plus, in the seventies it probably cost less to fuel up your car than feed a bunch of children for a week.

My parents though, always moral compasses of insanity, chose the kids, without debate and so they tearfully waved goodbye to their decade-old Anglia.

After a couple of vehicle-free years, cars became necessary again and so my early childhood memories consist of a series of used cars my dad acquired from nameless sources, wheeled home and drove until they either fell apart on the road or he could afford a better one. A second-hand selection of the ugliest cars the seventies ever spat out, have all sat on our driveway at one time or another – a shit brown Ford Cortina, a lime green Datsun Cherry, a red Vauxhall Viva, a navy blue Fiat and my favourite, a perky little red Mini-Cooper my mother used to commute to work and even though I was little I remember them all with varying degrees of fondness.

The Viva, for example, was cherry red and angular and had seats made from the stinkiest, tan coloured vinyl known to mankind. On a hot, summer day your legs would stick to the hot vinyl like molten lava till you weren’t sure where the seat ended and your legs began. The whole interior smelled like I sort of imagine a bomb munitions factory might smell.

The car I remember best was the Cortina, a dark, rectangular family saloon of doom. Our next door neighbours had the exact same car in the same colour with an identical interior which made for many cases of mistaken identity and ensuing hilarity. We parked in a communal strip out front so if you couldn’t remember where your dad parked the car the day before you had to go around checking license plates before trying to open the door in case it belonged to the neighbours and you’d set off their car alarm for the third time that week. It was an ugly car but I used fantasize about us driving it over hills and flying through the air like cars did on the hills of San Francisco you saw on TV. Ironically, the only time it ever came close to flying was when my dad sailed over an embankment and crashed it into a train during a blizzard, but that’s another story, entirely.

So basically my eighties were filled with nasty seventies cars in distressing hues until one day my mother picked me up from school in a strangely inoffensive metallic-blue Citroen and I learned we had officially entered the 1980s like the rest of the world. No more dropping me off at the corner every morning in a car that looked like the driver probably sold crack from behind the furry dice dangling from his rear view mirror. I still hold a nostalgic affection for that car.

Sadly, while driving home from my grandmother’s one dark New Year’s Eve, my mother hit a patch of black ice on a windy road and rolled that thing over multiple times into a field. My mother survived with bruises but the car didn’t. However, it did pave the way into my parents finally buying almost new cars that didn’t look like pimp mobiles or hippie leftovers for the rest of the eighties and nineties, ensuring I could bring friends over for dinner without embarrassment.

Which really, is what childhood’s all about.

Ferris Bueller Can Masticate on My Ass

I hereby dedicate this post to BeckEye who is going to rearrange my face after reading this.

Last night I watched “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” for the first time. Yes, you did hear me right. All you people who’ve seen it 400 times and can quote it line from line, I now know to what you’re referring. I don’t know why I never saw more than two minutes of it before – probably because I’m not a fan of ‘80s movies, or ‘80s fashions or 'the goddam EIGHTIES, period. Nor am I a fan of smug looking heroes who think they’re cool. Because seriously, if you knew Ferris Bueller in real life, wouldn’t you want to kick his ass? Don’t tell me it’s just me. If a kid at my high school had acted like that, I’d have taken him out back myself and got all up in his business with a blunt object. I mean that odd leopard-print sweater vest/tank top affair he wore would encourage a beating alone. For severe crimes against taste.

Here’s why Ferris is a crappy hero:

1) He’s smug and proud of his smugness.

2) He’s annoying as hell.

3) He has no regard for his friend’s feelings at all, it’s all about Ferris.

4) He dances like Richard Simmons on Ritalin.

5) Any kid who goes to the lengths he does to disguise the fact he’s not actually home, deserves a knuckle sandwich.

Screw Ferris Bueller – watch “War Games” instead.

Also, who let Jennifer Grey in movies? She scares me. She’s like the deformed devil-spawn of Barbra Streisand, with an attitude problem. The girl has an "unfortunate" face, for God’s sake, who told her a PERM was a good idea? That was just cruel. It’s hardly improving the situation. Shoot that idiot.

I’m not a giant John Hughes fan to be honest. The teens in his movies are the reason I want to put the beat down on youth. The only youth more beat-worthy than Hughes’ teens are the “Dawson’s Creek” kids and their over-analytic, verbose musings. Give me Dawson and a baseball bat and I’ll show you JUSTICE.

To Hughes’ credit, I kind of liked “The Breakfast Club” because it was at least interesting and made you think – mainly about who I’d beat up first from that group - pissy little pussy-boy Anthony Michael Hall, glowering, Emo, drama-queen Ally Sheedy or Judd Nelson and his pouty eyebrows and toddler-like swagger. I say Sheedy gets it. Every time I see her in that movie, I want to throw her against a wall and yell “Get a fucking life, assbrain, no one cares about your pouty emo girl faux weirdness.”

Also, Molly Ringwald in detention? I’m not buying it. What did she do, stop being cute and pouty for ten seconds?

Besides, I remember the eighties. It was clear, even as a kid, no good could ever come from that festering decade of pus.

Kreativ and Kewl

It’s Friday once more, so be afraid! Time for a meme. Yes, again. Shut yer yap.

This week’s fine piece of information about me, is from the talented Miss Debra of Write On Target. She’s a real writer you know, the sort that actually writes things every day and the things she writes make SENSE and connect to other things that make sense, to form an actual book that she sends to professional, knowledgeable people, asking if they’ll publish it. Unlike the book I’m writing that has four fragmented chapters and 700 rewrites to date and is about as exciting as an enema given by William Hurt in a beige room, while Enya yelps in the background.

And so onto the Kreativ Blogger meme. You can tell it’s creative because it’s spelled with a “K”. You can’t get anything past me. (Certainly not cake, but that’s another story.) I am supposed to tell you seven interesting things about myself - I assume of the creative variety - and then nominate seven of you reprobates to do similar. (I won’t, because in the words of Seth Gecco, “I might be a bastard but I’m not a FUCKING bastard!”) You should, however, feel to do it if you want and if you do, please take the award, below.

The Kreativ Veggie

1) My creativity started when I was about five and I used to make perfume for my mother. We had roses in our garden and I’d put the petals in water and pound the living shit out of them with a rock, add whatever I could pilfer from the kitchen (lemon juice from one of those plastic lemons, some jam, leftover pudding – the entire kitchen was fair game, frankly) strain it all through a colander and give the “juice” to my mother in a yogurt tub. Well, nothing exudes class like homemade rose petal, lemon juice and pudding scented perfume in a yogurt carton, let me tell you. She was DELIGHTED. And it smelled….JUST LIKE YOU’D EXPECT. I can’t think why Chanel haven’t stolen the ingredient list yet. I’m actually willing to sell the recipe, if they’re interested.

2) I paint. I’ve always sketched and drawn and used charcoal and pastels and made collages and other arty odd things, but paint always escaped me. I couldn’t get jiggy wit it. It was like the little ho that refused to become my bitch, thus making it all the more alluring. Lately I’ve gotten into it however, and I’m liking it quite a bit. As well as my small Airstream painting that I showed you all a few weeks back, I just finished a giant Airstream abstract the other day too. (I’m doing an Airstream set, sue me. I do paint other things too.)

Here is the latest abstract one (acrylic on canvas) so you can all shower me with praise and make my fragile ego expand like a shy boner. Or you can tell me I suck. I accept all criticism with good cheer, even if it’s unfavourable and I have to then kill you. You know, when I stop crying.

3) I am very musical. I can get a tune out of most instruments, even if it’s a lame tune. Well except a trumpet. I once tried to play a trumpet and produced an alarming sound that my brother adequately described as, “What one of the Incredible Hulk’s farts would sound like, played through a megaphone in the mountains”. And he was being kind. I had guitar and piano lessons as a kid though and didn’t kill anyone through ear drum explosion, so I guess I don’t suck THAT badly.

4) I’ve always written stories. When I was a kid my mother embarrassed the pants off of me (not literally) by taking a “novel” I’d written into my teacher at school who insisted on reading the 64 pages of its hand-scrawled, absurd plot aloud to the class. I was about eight at the time and mortified. I also wrote stuff for the school magazine in high school and had some short crappy light fare published in a women’s magazine, in college. This is akin to prostitution. Writing crap you hate for money. I’m not proud though. It beat working in McDonald’s.

5) I’ve written over 200 songs. A couple of them I can still stand.

6) I love colour. Living in rented accommodation where you have to live with beige walls, kills me. I want to paint them red or blue or green or orange. I want to get beige banished. It’s offensive. I’m all about crazy interior design. Wait till I get my Airstream. That thing’s going to be a retro, seventies-esque shag-palace.

7) I’ve always taken tons of photos. I enjoy it a lot. This year’s been all about sunsets. Here are some of my favourite sunset related photos from this summer:

Wasn’t that soothing? Have a lovely weekend you fine studs!

A Selection of Badass (AKA Lazy Post)

Today I am wide awake and feeling all sorts of leary. And belligerent. And up to no good. No good can come of me today at all. I am just warning you.

I had nothing much to say today but then Becky got me playing with the Urban Dictionary and well…that’s good times for all right there. So I ripped off her idea of checking out her name and did a little experiment where I put some of you lovely people’s first names into it. So I made a quick random selection and these are my favourite things it had to say about the following people’s REAL names:

Some Guy: Is slang for huge cock. Like incredibly huge.

…Maybe ‘Some Guy’ WROTE the Urban Dictionary?

God: A MASSIVE PENIS. A PENIS LARGER THAN ANYTHING EVER SEEN. EVERYWHERE, EVERYTHING, MASSIVE.

Or it could have been ‘God’… It was definitely a MAN. Or someone WHO YELLS A LOT.

Mr. London Street: A term used to describe an especially perky boner in public that is unable to be hidden.

More fun on the funbus for Mr. Street? There must be someone fragrant sitting in front of him again.

Soda & Candy: A lady's miniature PHALLUS; a clitoris of the type which readily SPRINGS into action.

Soda's a girlieman! She's totally a girlieman.

The Pop Eye and I'll Go Eat Worms: Another name for getting head, getting a blowjob, the act of receiving oral sex.

Becky wasn’t kidding when she reported that ‘Becky’ was all about the blowjay. The Urban Dictionary sure seems to be all about the penis, huh?

But then it got all mean about my bud, Words, look!

Words, Words, Words: A total retard who doesn't know up from down. He can usually be found jacking off to Michael Jackson.

Dude? Michael Jackson? Not Janet? La Toya? Tito?

Bored Neo-Classical Guy: A term used to describe a mentally retarded cat that has the ability to fly by moving its tail in a circular motion.

It got Eric spot on though. I’ve always had my suspicions. It’s the whiskers.

Cora: A purple hippo or cupcake.

It was sleep-deprived when it thought of Cora.

Repliderium.com: To smack in the face with testicles in a decidedly feminine manner

LOL. Sorry Kim.

Lounging With Tony Spunk: A great man, a horny bastard though.

Sometimes when it’s right, it’s REALLY right.

The Peach Tart: A girl who loves to eat the assmustard after sex.

WTF?

Wrestling With Retirement: A person whose eats a lot of vagina, or the act of eating vagina.

I guess we know what Eva’s doing with said retirement!

Suzel's Sass: A girl-boner.

Not a huge surprise.

Wendy Brandes Jewelry: Has a massive propensity for epic win.

Perhaps Wendy also wrote the Urban Dictionary. Or bribed it with a platinum pendant.

Gingers Is The Watchword (Red): Punjabi for Penis. Mostly used as a Punjabi alternative for "Dick Head".

Red? You kept that quiet. No wonder you go by “Red” instead.

Mean Girl Garage: Someone who gives AMAZING head.

Guys, meet Jules.

Danjerus Kurves: J. is pretty much the sex.

I suspect she already knew this but it’s nice to have it confirmed.

Well. The UD obviously has a boner for Miss Wendy Brandes but isn’t sure about the rest of you. In case you’re wondering, it said that I am sex.

What can I say? Even a stopped clock’s right twice a day, know what I’m saying?