This time last year I blew up a washing machine at the laundromat. My post about it says, "Imagine a chainsaw and a bowling ball going through a spin-cycle!" which made me laugh. I almost posted a reply to my year-ago self saying, "Ooh! But overstuffed pillows make more smoke!"

Maybe this habit I've developed of reading year-ago-to-the-day posts is bad. It's like a twisted advent calendar: behind every day is a memory! Or... most days. I wrote a lot last year.

Either way, last night I had a lucid dream. I was eating dinner with myself, and myself. A past self and a future self, except the future self didn't eat (does that mean I'll become an anorexic down the line??) and she had a yo-yo. My past self kept drinking all my wine and asking questions, like: "Have you been to Astoria? Canada? Aotearoa? Are you still with Kara? Living with Susan? Did you move to Alaska? Are you growing your own chickens?" (that's what she said... 'growing chickens'...*shrug*) And the whole time I just kept thinking, "God, she doesn't have a tattoo..." (Note: My tattoo is across my back, so I couldn't actually see it. I just knew intuitively that Past Self didn't have it yet.)

So Future Me finally entered the conversation, and I frowned and asked why she still looked exactly the same as I do now. I mean, okay, I'm not expecting miracles or anything... but cool hair and a decent wardrobe would be nice down the line, y'know? Anyway, my Past Self was flicking wine corks across the table at my Future Self, and I felt kinda embarrassed... but finally the Future Me kinda leant across the table, nodding quietly at my Past Self, and said: "She doesn't have a tattoo." I was like, "Um, yes?" And she gave me a look that said, "But does she look any different?"

*

I guess my tat really changed me... not the ink itself, but it happened right in that transition last year between the person I was and the person I'm became, and maybe even the person I've yet to become. The point of the half-awake dream, I think, was to point out that Shit Happens. That, a) that shit HAS happened, b) shit IS happening, and c) that it'll CONTINUE to happen forevermore.

And possibly also d)... That my life moves erratically fast and can be illustrated best by imagining a chainsaw and a bowling ball going through a spin-cycle. Do you ever feel like that? Like you have absolutely no control of where you'll end up in life or how much of the laundromat you'll destroy getting there? Is it worth it just to be able to SAY you blew up a washing machine? Should you be laughing? Gleeful? Proud? ...or freaked about the potentially massive amount of money you'll be asked to pay to repair it? Will this crazy life/laundromat metaphor EVER END?!!

*

Today Nikki and I walked through the park in the rain. It rains harder and more often here than in Cambridge, and I like it. I worked all day, spent lunch playing Dead or Alive 3 against Nikki in the Game store... and came home to pounce on my girlfriend, who was naked and asleep because shifts at the hospital are draining the pretty joyful goo from her jellybean world.


Sitting upstairs in the dark now, with the remains of a chocolate rabbit from Easter and a clean sock to remind me I need to do laundry sometime before July, I can't help but wonder... where will I be next year?

- keep waking up at 5:27am
- had soup for breakfast; train station looks pretty at dawn
- worked on the three software toolkits I still haven't finished -- the magazine goes out next week. eff!
- had a meeting with the production editor for .Net
- scribbled down lots of notes that I don't understand
- I GET TO WRITE A SMALL COLUMN IN THE MAGAZINE! fame!! she said she wanted it to be snarky/creative/amusing, which i can definitely do
- got my photo taken for the next issue. probably look crap. no sleep, urgh.
- HR don't believe I'm from england
- boss yelled at me via email for leaving the office without saying where I was going. i felt small and shakey
- raisins!
- raisins used to be fat and juicy. now they're just twisted, they've had their souls sucked out of them. raisins are humiliated grapes
- the grumpy guy on the other side of my desk bought me ice cream
- i listened to the cardigans quietly
- i got the shit frit out of me by a biker; who ran into the office to dump house-keys and a large plastic bag with bungee cords into my lap
- it was kate :]
- the bag had flowers and a card inside
- the bungee cords were orange
- love
- the train melted to the tracks on the way home
- i feel like flat coke: less exciting, but nicer to drink
- now the house is dark and hot and still smells like dead cat
- but at least it didn't catch fire, which is what nikki and merikate's house did today

raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar
thank the fucking GODS for three-day weekends!

Current Mood: kinda chuffed to've survived

I love seeing everything I own stuffed into luggage; it makes me feel adaptable and self-contained, like I could go exactly anywhere this instant and be completely happy.

( Three bags, two moose and a girl. )

*stares out at the sunshine and dusty-blue sky*

Man. Sometimes moving someplace new just fucking rocks.

Current Mood: ahhhhhhhhhHhH!!!

Trey-creature: RAAAAWWWWRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Small Blank LJ Post: Oh. It's you.
Trey-creature: rrrraaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!
Small Blank LJ Post: Surely you aren't thinking of updating your journal aGAIN? We did this yesterday; that's FIVE times this month already.
Trey-creature: [looks]
Small Blank LJ Post: You're out of your nutty tree if you think I'm updating again.
Trey-creature: Mais... le singe est DANS l'arbre! Dans dans DANS!!! Le singe veut être mis à jour!! Le singe veut le FROMAGE!!!!!!
Small Blank LJ Post: No, the monkey is definitely OUT of its tree. The monkey does NOT want to be updated. THE MONKEY NEEDS NO CHEESE!
Trey-creature: .....
Small Blank LJ Post: ....................!
Trey-creature: ...j'aime des filles.
Small Blank LJ Post: Oh.
Small Blank LJ Post: Well. Just a small post, then.

( i am small, like the smallest nugget of poo from the smallest poo-producing creature )

So this is what my friend Rachel looks like after sex.

And no, I don't know this from personal experience; she IMed me photos. ;) But I guess she's feeling kinda down on her LJ right now, so I decided to bathe her in the fame and glory that is _my_ lovely journal instead.

Fawn over her!

She has sex-hair!!

Meeting your girlfriend's family for the first time is scary. I'd talked to Kate's mom on the phone before, but driving into their quiet little village on Saturday morning and knowing I was about to meet her parents AND her sister AND her sister's husband AND her sister's two kids for the first time was a wee bit daunting. Especially since it was Kate's birthday, and because her dad has cancer and I felt like maybe I'd be intruding on their time together.

The morning had been pretty fun though. I got Kate a neat little dragon carved out of driftwood for her birthday, and a polished wooden box made out of a log... and then inside the box I put a bracelet made out of condensed raindrops. Or, really I think they were black pearls, but they're more raindrop-shaped and a billion swirly colours --like oil in a puddle. Kate told me this story once about how she'd tried to catch a cloud in a film canister when she was a kid, so I made her a film canister with a label that said "100% Coniston Raincloud!" and filled it with balled-up toilet paper (uh, "cloud") and put the bracelet in there with a little note that said, "Oh no! Some of your cloud has condensed into raindrops!" ;) Nikki and 'Merikate got her a wooden beer tankard from the same place I bought the dragon (it's the kinda thing you'd see Xena drinking out of, as Nikki pointed out) and then they took us out for breakfast.

mm... drivey drivey. ( Ride the small red mechanical duck of bravery to your doom! )

I felt kinda down driving home. There's a certain kind of rain that isn't happy-stormy or soft-sprinkly or downpour-pelty-hard. It's just... blah. The kind of rain that falls from white sky in heavy scattered drops that stick to windows like syrup. The kind of rain and makes everything dull and quiet, and makes you to whisper inside your own head and think about things you'd otherwise happily ignore. I thought about Kate's dad, and about Rowann's cancer and the confidence and relief and anguish in her eyes right before she died. I thought about the epic zombie nightmare I'd had the night before, and about the hamster I accidentally killed when I was ten (it ran behind a mirror leaning against a wall, so when I reached behind to try and catch it the mirror slipped and crushed him). I wasn't particularly sad or depressive-feeling or anything, I was just... blah. Like the rain from a white sky.

So it was good to get home. Nikki played her oboe for us and my GOD she rocks -- I mean, I knew she'd been in big orchestras and stuff, but really, wow. I miss having instruments around. I miss playing the piano and seriously miss hearing Kara play guitar. I need music, dammit. MUSIC!!!

I think tomorrow I'm gonna take the train back to Cambridgeshire for a few days before my new job statrts next week. I feel like Eric from Wonderfalls; going on vacation somewhere and winding up with a job and just staying. It's weird. My life is so erratic, and yet so fate-feeling sometimes. I need s'more clothes though, and I swear if I don't bring DDR back soon I'll go insane. It's been an entire MONTH since I played!!

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd... that's all. :)

Current Mood: thankful

Today I am a small grey mouse inside the Great Hamsterball of Uncertainty.

"But...wait!" you say, "Isn't it wrong to put a mouse inside a hamsterball? Won't the mouse be too small? Too grey? Too weak to utilize it's hamsterbally freedom?" Why, yes, it's awfully cruel, and there will possibly be jealous hamsters plotting evilness from their cages because a mouse has stolen their ball... but somehow this is all part of a complex and largely-misunderstood metaphor for my own undramatic doom.

Kate and I drove up to Gloucester last Saturday to check out the college I'm interested in --sheist it's a nice campus! It's small and out in the country, with little carparks stuffed with horse boxes and dirty Land Rovers. There's a farm with sheep and cows, and an artificial lake and pheasant-shooting and tractors. There's an animal clinic and an equine-therapy center (with horse treadmills and little aqua-fit bathtubs), and greenhouses and posh English gardens. It's exactly the sort of place I'd like to go. Or, as my mother put it, "The sort of place for bratty kids with no ambition, and with parents who have more money than sense."

That kinda hurt. I do have ambition, it just happens to be smaller and more simplistic than the ambitions of other people. All I want is to have a job I don't hate; one that involves animals and being outside. It doesn't have to pay amazingly so long as I can live, and go to New Zealand at least once in my life, and buy my girlfriend fantastical things for her birthday. Why is that so horrible?


Again, I refer you to the mouse, the hamsterball and the uncertainty. Because... even when I manage to push the ball? I just don't know where to go.

Current Music: anet ~ "tortured"

And so it is that from the brightest mountainy crags -- from the wilds of Coniston and the silvery lakey depths -- two figures emerge.

One is limping slightly, the other is sneezing... but they alone have survived. For seven days they've battled the indescribable horrors of a beautiful mountain vacation: the constant flow of fresh air, the miles of freedom and baffling sunshine. They alone triumphed against the unknown terrors of GOOD FOOD and ROARING COAL FIRES and FUN, and though verily plagued by the perils of cheap wine and slightly-damp socks... they have returned to civilization unscathed.

And now we ask: Did they truly meet the Old Man of Coniston on their journey? Did they discover electric sheep and devour many small blocks of chocolatey tiffin? Did they pee behind rocks? Did they trek on pretty horses through the hills? ...aye, this they did, and to their legacy they left behind a single tube of lube; to say, "Thanks!" ...to say, "We did it!" And to say (halfway down the motorway on the way home), "Oh SHIT, we forgot the fucking lube!!"

Perhaps they'll soon recover from their voyage. Perhaps a real LJ-entry will further tell the tale;- explain, even, why they howled with crazed laughter at driving Kate's classic car up the sides of mountains, why Trey became obsessed with frolicking fully-clothed in icy tarn water, or why Kate navigated them down a near-vertical dried-up waterfall as a means of escaping The Old Man.


So little is known of their time in the wilderness.
We can only wait.

Trey: Hello, small muddy horse.
Small Muddy Horse: [looks]
Trey: I read that horses with white socks are prone to mud-fever y'know. If I went to college here I could clean your feet everyday -- you'd never get sick.
Small Muddy Horse: SNORT.
Small Muddy Horse: [walks off]
Trey: ...oh. Hmm, you're right. There are places I'd rather be too.

---

So, the College of Animal Welfare had it's open day this morning, ra. I got up at six just so I could make it for the first tour, which basically turned out to be a lot of silly people talking about Jesus-approved chew-toys for dogs. Pfft. I bailed out halfway through campus because the faculty were consistently NOT answering my questions, or answering them half-assed and then going back to talking about "Mighty Mouse" the Chi-Ninja Siamese. I mean, seriously! The whole merry bleedin' place was all cats and dogs and cute fluffy bunnies -- we passed around chinchillas and oohed over a baby garter snakes too small to really see -- but mention anything big enough to put a saddle on and the staff went all hushed and weird. "Oh," the main lady said, "the course involves doing a bit with goats later on. Much later. Maybe llamas. And horses if..." I think she was going to say "if you're interested" but her tone made it come off more like "IF YOU SURVIVE."

*crosses that college off the list*


It's almost Easter though. :D I bought... something today... something cute... something... mmm *claps hands over mouth before she tells* Man, I love Easter. I also got food-colouring to take down to Bristol next week so I can teach Kate (and anyone else who wants to play) to dye eggs. Poor unEastered English people! Ahh, I shall show them the Way.

Crayola NEEDS to come out with a box of all white crayons.


---

edit: okay, this post makes it sound like I have something against cute fluffy bunnies. I don't. honest, I love just about any animal with less than six legs (um, and crabs and lobsters too!) (and starfish!) I just... I'd rather work with bigger animals, y'know? Either wild ones in Alaska like moose and musk ox and caribou, or spiff domesticana like horses, cows and sheep.
And maybe starfish. :)

Current Music: BT feat. tori amos ~ "blue skies"

Yesterday I went to Europe.

It's true that I do in fact live in Europe, so theoretically this could've just been a trip downstairs in my pajamas, but with so many of my fellow Englishmen whispering hushedly about "Europe" as if it were a distant, alien creature, I decided to go there and see.


At 8am I sipped tea and digested an imaginary crumpet. Heathrow Airport was grey and stuffy, and people in the booking-line were ramming each other with suitcases and watching small children rub french-fries into the carpet. When my turn finally came, I stepped up to the desk, slapped my passport on the counter, and said in a loud, clear voice, "I'd like to go to Europe, please!"

Instantly my sentence was translated to all 59 European dialects. And I say "dialects" because, obviously Europe's just one big spacecakey country; with one big language that no one understands. ;)

I got my ticket. The flight was quick, and in less time that it takes to go from Miami to Anchorage I found myself standing in the vastly unpronounceable land.
Hooray!


I went everywhere. I picked tulips in bright, sunny fields. I skied, devoured frogs, travelled with dusty horse-nomads. I rode vaporetto along ancient city canals. I stood in ruins, castles, temples. I wore everything from clogs to sealskin boots; leather to mud to flamenco dresses. And as I travelled, I talked. The natives were friendly, and mean and funny and sour and kind. I was able to understand them using my handy Universal Dialect Book, and got some interesting feedback on England.

"Osservi, voi strani!" said one fat, hairy man spinning pizza-dough over his head, "l'Inghilterra è pazzesco altrettanto/stupido/bizzarro quanto il resto di noi. Abbiamo costruito un traforo maledetto a voi e non è il nostro difetto se nessuno desidera usarlo. SIETE EUROPEI!"

Translation courtesy of Universal Dialect Book: "Observe, strange you! England as is crazy/stupid/weird as much the rest of we. We have constructed a cursed tunnel you for and it is not our defect if nobody wishes to use it. YOU ARE EUROPEAN!"

So. Yes. I nodded. He seemed to know what he was talking about, even if my babel fish was suffering from pizza-driven hiccups. I waved goodbye to him. I waved to the tulips and the dead frogs and the vaporetto boat drifting sleepishly on its canal. I waved to the nomads. I got back on my plane in Middle-Europe and flew home to Europe-in-the-Top-Left-Corner, and though none of it looked the same I decided that, if English people could accept being British, it was about bloody time they accepted being European as well.


The end.
(true story... there was a sunset & everything ;)

Current Mood: quietly travelling