wow. it snew.

Last night I dreamt about Freud. He was shaped almost exactly like a penis. What does that mean?”

There are few things more annoying than people explaining their dreams to you at length.
Today, however, I discovered one of those few things.
It’s people explaining their dreams to you at length, and then expecting you to ‘interpret’ them.

Standing and waiting before my class today, I was joined by a classmate, who began her afternoon smalltalk with - “I hear you’re really good with dreams…”

“What?”
“I hear you’re really good at reading dreams.”

“I… ah… erm… What?”

Eventually I worked out what had happened; this girl lived with another girl, the other girl had been part of the playwriting class, and at some point I’d tried to silence a irrelevant conversation between some others so that we could all get on with some work.
The conversation had been about dreams, and I rattled out some bull about these things quite obviously revealing a hidden passion for a friend, the desire to marry him and have his babies - Bollocks, all of it.
But they stopped talking and we got on with some work. So it worked.

But now I apparently have a small reputation as a seer, a reader of dreams. I should get myself a tent, a headscarf and heavy eyebrows and the transformation would be complete.

Anyway. By the time we’d worked out all this information, the girl had also managed to slip in the details of her dream, so while concienciously debunking the ‘mystic’ image on the one hand, it was one of those classic everyone-has-them dreams that I found myself debunking,debunking, debunking, and then reaching the end of the sentence and tacking on; -

“Of course it’s a control thing, feeling out of control and such, but it ends positively, so bear in mind that… oh, it doesn’t matter.”

Later I had a conversation with someone from the “dreams are a meaningless resuffling of recent events and memories” school, and while I agree with that to an extent, I think the there is some interpreting can be done about how your dream self reacts and interacts with these people, events and memories.

Not over analysing, but certainly your brain at play or rest is going to come up with some things that are worth looking at.

Then again, maybe it is all about sex, after all.

?

A couple of months ago, a vague plan was formulated that the entire dramaturgical student body of Glasgow University (that’ll be ‘four’, then) should take a day trip to Manchester in order that I should show off my favourite theatre in the world, and Lorainne could get some good Chinese food.

It was one of those ‘closing-time’ conversations, when everyone had been drinking for a while and were all feeling adventurous and fond.

And all of a sudden, we’re going to Manchester tomorrow.
I’m going to see him, and some other lovely people, and I’m really very excited.
This is not a funny or interesting story.
I’m just, y’know, sharing.

Collective voice of the web: “Erm… Thank you for Sharing, Anna Pickard. Now fuck off and watch CSI.”

okey dokey.

I’m extremely insert-euphemism-meaning-drunk right now.
Because of the quiz-ness.
We were all talking about dates and how I’ve only once been on one (it’s not really the same thing in this country),
and then trying to work out where I’d ask anyone I wanted to invite somewhere to spend time with them.

[Next morning - I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of wrting this post. And while it’s true that I’ve simply fallen into going out with most of the people I’ve been out with, I certainly have been on more than one date in my life. Still this was pretty good typing for a drunk person. I even spelt euphemism right. Anyway. I’m not even thinking of dating people at the moment, I’m too busy. So I don’t know what I was talking about. I’ll leave it in though…)

How does the dating thing work?
Do you go to bars? Cinemas? For food? The theatre? A bar? A friend’s party?
What does one ask?
How?

We won

We asked the questions.
We did it.
We rule.

Even if it wasn’t taxing, brain-wise, it was fun. I think. They seemed to like the bling bling round;

(Define;
1) Bootylicious
2) Booty call
3) Booty
4) Phat
5) Wack
6) marinating (”does anyone, need this contextualised? Oh, alright…as in ‘I been marinating in the rizzi with my road dawg’”)
7) Bling bling
8) Pop a cap (in yo ass mother fucker)
9) Benjamins
10) Tripping.)

With 2 points given if they were pretty much on the definition marked by the Dictionary of Rap, and 1 point if they were anywhere near…

And then there was the beer round, made up by Meg, a loud American and me, where you had to give the country of origin (”original origin, I don’t care if it’s brewed in essex now….”) and which currency you would use if you were to buy it in that country.

(The beers were;
Bohemia
Efes Pilsen
Leinenkugel’s
Budvar
Pacena
Flagg
Tiger
Kwak
VB
Belhaven)

And then we had a script round, since we’re all studying scripts, which included lots of hard things, but my choices were;

“You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” But only slightly less well known is this: “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.” A ha ha ha ha ha. A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. A ha ha ha h…”

And

“So…. so. Are you guys like boyfriend/girl-friend?
(a beat)
Steady dates?
(another beat)
Lo–vers?
(another beat)
Come on Sporto, level with me. Do you slip her the hot…beef…injection?

And a whole bunch of other, harder things. They all got the Harry met Sally one though; basically me faking an orgasm in a disinterested tone;
“mmm. mmmm. Oh yeah. mmmm. right there….”
In monotone, with pauses.

And then there was a fabulous other film and T.V. round and anagrams and a picture round from this site
and the boy band music round, which was simply fantastic.

And you know what?
We rocked.

And everyone else seems to see this as a boy-meeting opportunity… they may be right. We’ll see…
At least everyone in the whole club knows I can fake an unconvincing orgam now.
Oh, hang on…

It’s all about the bling bling.

So it’s this quiz tonight.
I’m nervous. Very. I was scared that we weren’t going to be prepared, but you know, I think we just might be.
I think, in a way, we’ve solved the problem of being intimidated by all these high-minded academics by producing what - I hope - is the least academic quiz that the club has ever seen.

Therefore, with the help of my fabulous sister, we’ve got a ‘bling bling round’
(Please define and, for extra points, place in a sentence the following terms; ‘Whack’, ‘Dope’, ‘Bootylicious’, ‘marinating in the rizzi with your road dawg’, etc. In my accent they sound ridiculous.)
And a ‘beers of the world’ round.

Then there’s a Boy Bands music round, and quotes from really silly, non-arthouse films.

I think we’ll be fine.
They might hate us, but I think we’ll be fine.

Well, that’s alright then, I’m not ’shit-with-money’ anymore. I’m financialphobic.
Me and 8,999,999 other people in this country.

The sky’s got that ‘rain-pending’ look.
It has done for the last hour or so, that kind of almost ultra-violet light that makes everything almost glow, that intense “It’s going to rain” feeling, that tells me that the only thing it’s waiting for is me stepping out of the door.
That’s all.
At that point, the point when I step out of the door, there will be biblical, mythical amounts of rain.

That’s right; the weather?
All about me.

Traffic too, traffic is also all about me. And the price of things in shops.
All done to inconvenience me, personally.
So now you know. It’s my fault.
Blame me.

If anyone isn’t doing anything on the afternoon of the 26th of January and happens to be in the middle of Glasgow, I would highly recommend that they go to the ‘Celtic Connections’ - Taste of the Festival gig at the Tron.
Yes, I realise that it was yesterday, but I didn’t know it was going to be any good until I was there..
And it was good.

Where you night get bored hearing 2 hours of the same people, here, you heard half an hour, like a ‘best of’ or something, and then they were gone. From the most traditional of traditional music to new forms of tradtional, to singer songwriters like the incredible Ruth Martin, it was an incredible musical experience.

There were a couple of funny things.
And as always, the tips made it worth me working, Oh, the joy of cleavage.

call me concierge

I don’t mean to have a favourite cat, but I do. Of the two, Fin is sleeker and softer and a bit more wary, but more loving.
And I’ll happily admit it, I’m really quite soft when it comes to the cats.
And particular to Fin.
He’s grey, or grey-ish blue, with enormous eyes and ears and everything.
And he likes jumping up onto the shed in the back garden, and from there, parading the garden walls, all along the street.

He likes jumping onto the shed, but he can’t seem to jump down again.
And luckily for him, he doesn’t have to.
Because the roof of the shed leads to the roof of another shed.
And the roof of that shed leads to the sloping roof at the back of the house, which leads to the two windows of my bedroom.

The window next to my head as I sleep, and the window next to the computer.
Whatever I’m doing, and if I’m in my room, it will be to sleep or be on the computer, he sits outside the window, with one paw touching the glass, looking as cute as hell until I open the window and let him in.
This morning he did it 7 times.
3 times very soggy.
I’ve tried ignoring him, and I can’t.

What is it about pets that leads to us turning to mush?
I wouldn’t put up with a human being knocking on my window at 5.45am, just so they could tread wet footprints all over my pillow and then sit at the end of my bed licking their arse.

I’d certainly be surprised if a human being did that, and quite impressed, but I wouldn’t put up with it.

God, it’s hideous weather out there.

Plugging up the Derridian Vortex
(0898…)
or

‘Hang on to the end, all that pseud stuff, i do have a point.’
Really I do. It’s fun and all.

Y’see the thing I like about deconstructuralism is the whole sceptical/cubist/multifaceted thing.
The fact that there are an infinite number of ways of looking at everything, and that no certain truth can ever be reached, because everyone looking at it will look at it a different way, and the language that their eyes use to send the information to their brain is particular to them, and the way that their brain deals with that information will be particular to them, depending on who they are and what they know and how they know it, and the way they articulate it is particular as a fingerprint.
And then the same happens through the ear of the hearer.

Sorry. I spend all day with nothing in my head to write - nothing in my head at all, if I’m honest with you - and then, when I do find something to say, it’s about deconstructivism.
Y’see, we have this class, on ‘Languages of analysis’, aka ‘How many long meaningless words can we fit into two hours? Oooh! Bagsy me “transcendental postmodern signifier”‘, and friday’s class was on deconstructivism.

It’s just the thing I thought I would hate about this course, analytical, theoretical, academic wibbling which creates nothing, does little useful for anyone and at the end of the day means nothing.

But then I realised that it’s like taking your brain out for a walk,
letting it run in circles for awhile, play with other brains, fetch ideas like they were sticks, and then letting it take a dump on a grassy verge and no, hang on, this is a stupid metaphor.

Anyway, I like it. And I like deconstructivism, what it basically seemed to be saying is that all analytical, theoretical wibbling is fun, but pointless.
That’s what it said to me, anyway. I was looking over my notes from class, and the last one is;

‘We cannot deconstruct everything forever - there is a principal called the Derridian Vortex, meaning, essentially, that too much deconstruction leads to disappearing up your own arse.’

Anyway, I think I’ve solved it.

Basically one part of the whole theory said that we all see thingsdifferently, because of the binary oppositions to which we all give different meaning. So we as cultures set up these opposites, and decide what we think on the basis of them. So you get things like;

Masculine vs. Feminine.
Truth vs. Fiction.
Sane vs. Insane.
Civilisation vs. Primitivism
Hetrosexual vs. Homosexual

As many as you can think of. And basically, different cultures, and individuals within those cultures, will view things in relation to their weighing of those opposites.
Like, for, example, western philosophical thinking has placed the emphasis on the first of all those pairs.
It’s bollocks, basically.

Any way. I’ve found the way to solve the tricky deconstructivist problem, and a way of proving which of any pair of opposites wins.

It’s Googlefight.
And incidentally, Femininity wins.

Yes, that was my entire point.
Class dismissed.

Numb bum

I really can’t decide who is the most stupid in this article from the Guardian;
The four people who sat for 45 minutes on minus 78C solid Carbon Dioxide, or the radio producer who thought it would be a good idea for a competition.

My favourite quote…

Outside court, Miss Terry, who has two children, said she found sitting on hard chairs too painful and activities such as horse riding and watching Aston Villa play football were out of the question.

Now, the horse riding I can imagine, all that bouncy bouncy hard seat thing, but watching Aston Villa?
And watching Aston Villa particularly?
Would she be alright with Manchester City?
Would her bottom hurt less to watch Fulham?
What about Arsenal?

Be Afraid. Be very afraid.

It’s a little thing I learnt while working in another theatre bar - selling over-priced drinks to easily outraged customers.
The Manager taught me;

The customer is always right.
(At these prices) The customer is always outraged.
The customer is always right to be outraged. (therefore).

So never say ‘Please’
Only say; “I’m afraid…”

You see, you take the order, get the drinks, add them up and say, with your best and nicest and biggest and sweetest smile;
“That’ll be 7 pounds and Ninety pence, I’m afraid…”

Not “please”, but “I’m afraid”.
It’s a magic charm.

It’s a phrase that not only says;
“I agree with you, the drinks are too expensive at this bar“,
but also;
“Unfortunately I have to charge you this amount of money. I don’t want to, but I have to…”

They won’t try and argue with you, because they assume by those two words that
a) You agree with them (no argument) and
b) It’s not your fault (No point in argument)

Not once, in all my experience of working in overpriced bars, has anyone tried to get into a price-scandal argument with me since I learnt that phrase.
Why does that work?
I don’t know. It does work.
Always.
But why?…

bisy. backson.