I’ll be back next year.
Have fun until then.

Look after yourselves (wink, point) and each other…

Lying in the back garden in Iona, there’s a sack of compast that says;

‘With added John Innes!’

Who is this Mr Innes? Is this legal? Not to speak of ethical?
Do you now get a choice between “burial, cremation or Sainsbury’s own-brand compost, madam?”
Did Mr Innes know?
Was this his last wish?
Do all the bags have to name their own constituent members individually?
Or are they mushed up too finely to know?

What’s going on?

I want to make New Years Resolutions this year but can’t be arsed to think of any.
Can I borrow yours?

Seminar professor; . . So, Anna, did you have a chance to read over those plays we were talking about?

Anna; W?… Oh! Yes. I really enjoyed them. A lot.

Seminar professor; . And which do you think you might do for your presentation?

Anna; . Well, they were, of course, all,.. erm.., very, very interesting.

Seminar Professor; . Any in particular?

Anna; Well, I thought they were all interesting. Particularly… erm… (glance down at the back of the book cover)… erm…

Seminar professor; ‘The traveller returned’?

Anna; The traveller returned. So I thought I’d do that one. Yes. That one. That was what I thought. Yes. The Traveller, erm, returned. That one.

Seminar Professor; Ooooh. Brave choice. Quite a challenge.

Anna; (squeaks) Is it?
I mean, ahem, yes. It is. Well, you know me, I love a challenge…

Challenge is one thing. Obscure plays by eighteenth century American feminists that didn’t go down that well the first time around, (that’s the plays, you understand, not the feminists. I don’t know how the feminists went down…) is beyond challenge.
It’s into the territory of myth, of the tasks of Hercules or Jason.
I’d rather kill a dragon than try and research Judith Sargent Murray right now.

I don’t suppose anyone out there happens to be an expert, do they?
Anyone know anything about Judith Sargent Murray?
Anyone know anyone that knows anything about Judith Sargent Murray?
Anyone a reincarnation of Judith Sargent Murray?
Anyone good at making up convincing things about 18th century American Feminist dramatists?
Anyone?

help?

Once upon a time, there was a princess who had a big bushy moustache, enourmous, fluffy, well groomed and black. Quite a lot like Saddam Hussain, but a little more feminine. She would be pictured on currency, sitting erect, tiara on head and big moustache sitting proudly right under her nose.

I don’t sleep well when I have to share a room with other people.
Over Christmas, I had to share a room most of the time. It doesn’t leave me grumpy, but it does lead to some pretty fantastic dreams.
On boxing day morning I dreamt there was once a princess with a big moustache. I woke up, and asked the other person in my room whether this was true.
‘Is there a princess with a big moustache? No? Was there ever?’
Apparently there wasn’t.
So I went back to sleep, and started to dream about the princess as a fairy story, one that I was telling to other people. In my dream, a group of people from Iona, from work, from Uni, were sitting around me, and I was telling them the story of the princess with a big moustache.

‘Once upon a time, there was a moustachioed princess. Although the moustache was considered slightly unorthadox, the princess loved her moustache, and groomed it daily, making it the shiniest, best groomed moustache in all the land. Where is this story going?’

I woke up. And thought about it.
Now, if the princess is happy with her moustache to begin with, the story has nowhere to go, so we have to start with her not being, right? I dozed back to sleep. We’d shifted location, and some of the people listening had changed, but I was, again, telling a story…

‘Alright, there was a curse set upon a princess when she was a girl, that although she may be the most beautiful girl in the world, she would have a moustache to make up for it. When she grew up, a handsome prince fell madly in love with her…

I woke up, thinking hard.
Why would a prince fall in love with her? She had a moustache. That doesn’t seem a likely way to make handsome princes fall in love with you.
Maybe…..
I drifted back into sleep…

‘The princess only had a moustache sometimes, like every other month or after dusk…
One of my listeners cut in - “This is far too much like Shrek!”
‘You’re right’ I said, and woke myself up again…

Now let’s see. What if the prince loved her anyway, loved everything else about her, loved her moustache or no, and she could only rid herself of the curse once she’d accepted that the prince loved her with a moustache and life with a moustache wasn’t necessarily a cursed life at all, maybe then…
I drifted back to sleep.

And so I went on for three hours or so, telling the story in my dream, waking up, editing, re-editing, going back to sleep, telling the story again, until I’d got it to a point where I considered it a good story.
There were even romantic and action subplots in the dream parts, but I can’t remember those. Shame.

But I’m well impressed with that. The conscious and subconscious minds working in tandem to create… what?

Well, now I look back on it, I’m not sure I can make “the tale of the moustachioed princess” fly, but as a method of writing, it sure beats sitting in a cold study, staring at a blank screen.

If only all writing could be done like that…

I believe that on the 25th of December, I stretched the walls of my stomach to 14 times their previous size.
Where previously my appetite was contented by a couple of small meals, a self-enforced breakfast and some coffee, on the 25th of December the perameters shifted and nothing will ever be the same again.

On the 25th of December, as far as I can remember I ate more than my collective meals of the last three months.
Since then, my stomach cannot be contented with less food.
And, if possible, it needs more.
Yesterday, I ate two bowls of cereal, a cow, four houses and a primary school.
I am turning into the fifty-foot woman.
Thank you for not going away while I’ve been quiet.
Unfortunately, now I’ll have to eat you.

I got a webcam for christmas.
I look forward to eating it.
I mean using it.

Other than that being 50 foot and rising, that and the Seasonal affectedness, I’m fine and dandy.
How are you?

Just about starting to come to after last week.
I’ve begun trying to work out how many hours I spent working, how many reading, how many sleeping, eating, flirting and whinging.
And how many I spent sober.
Funnily enough, they don’t seem to compute.

Still, after eight days of not knowing where I was, where I was supposed to be, whether where I was was where I was supposed to be and what day I was supposed to be where I was on was the day I was there, supposing where I was was where I was supposed to be in the first place, which I usually was, but when it wasn’t I couldn’t tell,…

Where was I?
No idea.
Obviously not quite out of that zone yet then.

Couple more hours sleep should do it.
Did I say hours, I meant months.

Anyway.
I’m thinking and collecting things to post about, but the internet connection sucks shit and the storms promise maybe a little bit of power cuttage.

Have a happy Christmas, if I don’t speak to you before then.

There’s good stuff on tis.
When should you open your presents?…

Happy Christmas, every one.

Between finishing the term and working a bunch, waiting for hours at airports, packing, filing, running around like a chicken with no head and 14 legs, I have neglected my boat.

And now I’m going back to Iona.
And hoping to hell that there’s a computer I can use…

Oh, and that guy I mentioned?
Married.
Well, one of them is. Shame.
There’s something about married men insisting on chatting you up that sullies everyone’s reputation. Theirs, yours, their wives, everyone they’ve ever met.
Why do they do that though?
Married men.
Why do they do that?
Why they chat you up? Is it me?

God I’m tired.
Please excuse me. Not terribly coherent. I need a holiday.
The train’s in two hours…

Tis, yesterday…

Stockings. What’s the deal with them, then? Why do I always get a satsuma? I hate satsumas. Does Santa hate me?

I know you’ve reminded me before, but remind me again again.
Bloke makes conversation in pub, you consider cute.
Bloke smiles some days later, you smile back.
Bloke keeps catching your eye, you the same.

Remind me again, how does the next bit go?

Things which should be banned, 1;
cash machines that offer whimsical proverbs or opinion

So, after waiting the conventional 15 minutes in the line for the cash machine next to the library, I finally get to the front.
I’ve remembered my card, which is unusual, and I take it out of my purse, and insert it into the machine.

“Please enter your pin code” says the machine.
Certainly. Beep, beep, beep, beep.
The machine thinks about it for a second.
While it’s thinking, it flashes up a default screen with the banks’ cheery new motto.
“Suddenly, anything is possible…” It says. Then…
“Which service do you require?”
Cash. Please. 10 pounds.

It thinks about this. While it is thinking, it tells me,
“Suddenly, anything is possible…”
and then…
“I’m sorry, I haven’t got any ten pound notes. We suggest you withdraw 20 pounds instead.”
Alright then. Can I have 20 pounds please?
“Suddenly, anything is possible…”
“No. You have not got enough funds to withdraw this amount. Funds available… 10 pounds”
But you just said that you haven’t got any ten pound notes.
“Suddenly, anything is possible…”

Anything is possible?
Anything, that is, apart from you giving me money.
“That’s right. Please take your card. And piss off.”

“Suddenly, anything is possible…”
I take my card and wander off to find a less sarcastic cash machine.
As I walk away, I swear I hear it sniggering behind me.

woohoo.

This is the noise I am making as I finish, print out and collate a pack of 7 essays that have been hanging over my head for ages and ages, ready to hand in as the last act before the holidays.
woohoo.

Sorry, what A.M.?
2?
2 AM?
oh.

woo.

woo.

This is my new sound.
It is the noise I make when I am tired and stressed and sad and busy and stretched and tired.
It is not one half of ‘woohoo’, it is much smaller and tirder and sadder than that.
It is like a tiny injured cow.

“woo.”

Today on ’tis the season

My girlfriend and I are saving up for a deposit on a flat. To save money, this year we’ve pledged to give each other only token presents. Does she actually mean it, or am I going to look like a completely thoughtless cheapskate bastard on Christmas morning?

And my sister (who rocks) being not only funny, but informative to boot.
Rah.