Hey Extroverts...Don't

You know there's a difference between being introverted and being anti-social.  That's what I tell myself.  I don't consider myself anti-social - I get on with people, I have friends, I'm fine at conversations and small talk if the need arises, I like hanging out with small groups of friends at a bar or wherever.  I just prefer not to go out in large groups, partying or clubbing or doing fantastically extroverted loud things with lots of people or groups because I don't have any particular love for it and I don't see the need.

Therefore, I don't see why people are all up in your grill in public places because they think that it's socially okay to quiz you like a Jeopardy contestant.  Take the laundry room.  I'm totally fine with saying "good evening" or polite claptrap about the weather, or the holidays - just enough for the wait not to be cloaked in a silent stew of awkwardness.  But I don't know what gets into some people who seem to think that occupying the same space at the same time stipulates they can get all kinds of familiar.  What's your name? Where are you from?  What apartment do you live in? Have you lived here long? What do you do?

DIE IN A FIRE, that's what I do.  I just met you, dude, while I'm washing my smalls, you can't ask me anything personal.

I'm not sure how to deal with such over abundant questions I don't feel like answering from someone I don't even know.  I thought maybe I'd try one of these:

1) Pretend to be Bulgarian or something and speak some made up language.
2) Stare at him without blinking, like a serial killer, not saying a word.
3) Shout, "MY NAME IS VEG WHO ARE YOU, THANKS FOR ASKING" at the top of my lungs so that he gets confused and runs away in horror.
4) Say, "Do you want to put my underwear on your head?"

What is the proper etiquette for such things?  I'm not sure I'm qualified.

Cyber Funday!

Monday, December 2nd, 2013

Well hello, Cyber Monday!  Nice to see you.  And it's nice you are doing your sweet thing on a Monday because Mondays are just pointless otherwise aren't they?  Dragging you out of a nice, warm bed way too early to scrape cold shit off your car before you can go anywhere?  Horrible.  Anyway, here's hoping everyone in the entire world listens to Scope and comes out to play.

Anyway, I hope the blogosphere responds because man, I miss all my old buddies, who're no longer out there and the rest of us who are when time permits, which isn't as often anymore.  I've had so many laughs out of this place it's been unreal.  Nowadays everyone's all "Tweet me this" and "Facebook me that!" and it's sad because is that all our attention spans are now?  Little bite sized chunks of information.

Plus dudes?  "Facebook" is not and should never be, a verb.  Or indeed a thing.

I like Instagram though, which FB owns, but shhhhh don't tell anyone.

How are you all this fine Monday? For me, this weekend was spent being too ill to celebrate my stupid birthday, then trying to fit insanely large Ikea furniture in a less insanely large car, putting together said furniture (always such a fun, fun occupation, though immensely improved with the addition of an alcoholic beverage) and trying to jettison this damn flu thing into orbit or anywhere that isn't in me.  I've half succeeded, but the death rattle cough remains.  My neighbours LOVE me.  Soon as I'm horizontal, [insert hideous rasping cough straight from some hell demon, here].

Next week I start a new painting for my living room because I'm sick to death of staring at a blank wall that needs a giant-ass Airstream on it so that means a trip to the art store (yay!) so I can lovingly finger canvases and special paper and tweak the ends of brushes, all without fear of arrest.

So as I sit here, in my pleasant smelling John Dies at the End t-shirt and hair that hasn't seen a brush since Saturday, I bid you a gigantic, resounding HI! And I hope to see some of you either here or at your place or around because, wouldn't that be fantastic?  I miss you guys!

Oh Here Comes The Whine

Wednesday, November 27th 2013 - I am sick, goddamnit!

Seriously guys.  I haven't been sick in a good couple of years now and suddenly I'm hit with this pestilence that would fell a buffalo, clear out of the blue. I hate being sick. I'm like a man when I'm sick.  You all know what that means. I have no energy, I can't sleep worth a damn because I lie down and cough up a lung and I think I may be in some parallel universe.  On the positive, I have been watching a shit ton of old X-Files episodes on Netflix instead of sleeping so that's been fun.

It started with a dry, rough throat, which progressed to a sore, dry throat and then moved south in victory, right into my chest, where it now lives in an ocean of phlegm and bronchal patheticness.  Every body retching cough makes me wince and I feel like Mike Tyson did some practice on my midsection.  I walk like I'm ninety and I work up to every cough like it's a goddamn contraction.  When did coughing get so painful?

Anyway, I've barely eaten anything in about five days but managed to drink enough orange juice during that time to fill the Pacific.  Funny thing is I never drink fruit juice unless I'm sick then I crave it like babies' blood.  I'm kidding about the blood.  I just want orange juice, it's addictive like meth. I had some Campbell's tomato soup too.  I mean who can survive illness without THAT?  An alien, that's who.

So I need entertaining/sympathy/jokes/insults etc., etc. Please see to it.

I'm off now to see what you guys are up to and it better be good.

I Wish I Was Better At Titles

Thursday, November 21st 2013 - Eff Me, It's Cold

I don't know why winter takes me by surprise, seeing as how it happens every year without fail and it usually announces itself by turning leaves orange and yanking them off the trees a few weeks earlier, yet somehow, I always wind up hosting an expression of utter confusion as if something untoward has occurred without asking my permission.

I saw "Gravity" for the second time last night (because who can see that movie once and not sit slack jawed with awe at the effects and not want to see it again?) and shot out of the warm bosom of the movie theatre and right into the cold, heartless crossfire of the first mini-blizzard of winter and a car that could make ice faster than any freezer.  The flurries of light snow swirled right down my parka hood and into my cold, dark SOUL.  I uttered some bad, bad words.

In other things that slightly surprised me this week, I went to A&W before the movie last night, for some fast food, which I hardly ever do because not being a meat eater the choices are slim in such places and if they do have a veggie burger of some sort it's usually pretty much like a piece of cardboard covered in a tomato and angst. However, A&W have a pretty kick ass veggie burger I discovered and it has onion rings and sliced dill pickle and tomato and well....yeah!!! I approved. Tasty! How did I not know of this?  I thought I knew everything.

How's everyone today?  Stoked for the weekend?  I hope so.

Behold the New Overlords

Today, around 7:30 a.m., as I was walking in the half-light, around our site on my way to my office, a rat the approximate size of a German Shepherd, shot out from behind some pallets, scurried over my foot in its haste to scare me to death, and made me emit a sound like a 1940s' horror movie victim as she opens her velvet drapes to find a glowering Dracula hovering there in mid-air, like a vampiric, satanic fart.  I honestly don't know who got the bigger fright, but I'd wager it was me.

I don't know what's going on in our place, lately. The creatures that frequent it are like colossal mutants, full of food plant leftovers and homicidal intent.

One early morning, I was walking down the thin, paved path, at the back of the factory, when I found my way blocked by the Orson Welles of birds - a giant, rotund thing with a scowl like Kiefer Sutherland when he finds out his car's broken down in a dry town.  The avian Tony Soprano was blocking the entire path (and possibly the sun!) with its fearsome aura of malice.  He was clearly sizing me up before turning into one of those crows in Hitchcock's "The Birds" and mowing me down in a bloody pool on the paving.

Now technically it was a seagull, but like no seagull you've ever seen this side of Hades.  Eyes like tiny, black currants, if currants can be straight from the depths of Hell. It had a body the size of a milk cow, a hooked beak you could moor a boat on. He was a gargantuan, murderous beast of a thing. And he would NOT BUDGE.  Most seagulls see a human approach and they sigh and reluctantly fly off while maybe weighing up the options of spitefully shitting on your head.  Not this guy. He sat perfectly still, like he was stuffed, and he stared me out with his beady, Danny de Vito, death eyes.  I swear he was smirking.  When I got almost all the way up to him he came right out and said, "I hope you don't think I'm going anywhere, human. And you even THINK about walking around me and I will eat your eyeballs."

Oddly enough he sounded a lot like Nathan Lane, which I DID NOT EXPECT.

Man, that bird owned that path. Damn thing sat there and had a Mexican stand off with me for about five minutes before I distracted him with half of my lunch, and ran like the wind towards my office door.

Things are afoot in creatureland, that's all I'm saying.

Well...

"What's a really fun thing to do on a Saturday night, Veg?" I hear you cry (or it could have been the wind)  Well. How about drink some wine and write a blog entry, because what could possibly go wrong with that?  Nothing!

The wind is really howling outside.  Sounds like Kanye West sat on a kitten, only less offensive. I decided a night at home with wine sounded pleasant because, doesn't it? I'm too happily introverted to give much of a hot damn about going out and doing social things when I like being home because I have a recliner, some candles, wine and some Swedish TV shows on Netfix and what could beat that?

Oh, oh! Is it wrong that I'm stoked because I bought six pairs of obnoxiously loud stripey socks today? I'm talking socks so bright that Stevie Wonder would probably swear and put on some stronger sunglasses.  They are FANTASTIC.

Sorry about the Stevie joke, was that too much?  And also sorry that I'm excited for socks. I just saw my life from the outside for a second and it was a whole big pile of WTF, so I poured another glass of wine and figured I might as well just go for it.

But it's the weekend. God, I love the weekend. When I wake up at six am, instead of having to drag myself out of bed, dripping curse words from my lady-mouth, I can cheerfully roll over and go back to sleep. Especially since it's dark till about 8 a.m now although the clocks go back tonight.  An extra hour in bed?  SIGN ME UP!

In other news, my big toe is weird.

Remembering the Magic

Autumn has arrived complete with blazing orange leaves and sharp cold and even the occasional blue sky.  I like it. The contrast is breathtaking. It's not at that place where you curse when you touch a metal object with your bare skin or scrunch up your toes in your boots to keep the blood from freezing, but it's slowly getting there.  Winter is always on the horizon.

I loved Halloween as a kid, and a few days later, if you were in the UK, Guy Fawkes night. In my memories the nights were brisk with cold, dark with a scattering of stars and our breath suspended in the air while the darkness became illuminated by fireworks and bonfires.

One of my earliest memories, harks back to when I was about three years old, sitting on a step in the back garden of the old tenement flats where we lived, with Slow Sandra, a little girl my own age who was mentally impaired. I didn't know it at the time, though.  We rode tricycles together and played with dolls. Then I grew up while she stayed a child.  Slow Sandra had a much older brother who would set off fireworks for us to watch while we sat in our winter coats and clapped.

Nowadays, all I clap for is people falling over on ice and when someone offers to refill my wine glass.  Where is the magic now? Do we just grow up, grow old and nothing is special any more?

I spent some time in the desert, fairly recently. The wonder of the colours, the heat, the vast, open expanse of hot, sandy nothing and the clear blue skies, made me feel alive. It made me remember the magic and I realized that it is, in fact, still present, you just have to know where YOUR magic lies.

And that's the corniest thing I've said in a long time.