Searching for Inspiration

Image © Wondermark

There are entire days when, surprise, surprise, I feel about as creative as a footstool. Which is to say, not at all. In case you were confused by my somewhat obscure metaphor. Look, we're getting off the topic, somewhat.

Yesterday, I should have blogged. It should have been a good one, because I had the time. My bosses are out of town and things are quiet in the office*. I even had time to tidy my outbox, so that should excite the Biznatch when she gets back. I made tea, and coffee, and ate all the chocolate-covered-biscuits, took part in the Facebook movie quiz, and am now on 6000 points. I know, I know, you can send congratulations to me on the back of a postcard.

But did I blog? Feck, nay. Bugger did I. I guess I should have taken it as a bad omen that when I went out at lunch to play with my new polariser**. I took some interesting test shot but could I work up any enthusiasm for some sort of creative, interesting, finally- going- to- get- me- back- on- explore nonpareil-wonderment. Or even something that didn't suck boring ba... lemons out of sheer boringness.

Part of the problem is I don't really blog personal stuff. Half of it is...personal****. An the rest- well, people come to me the next day and are all: "so I see you blogged me. We need to chat". My blog is less anonymous than it used to be.

But mostly it's just the dreaded lurgy: not so much writer's block per se as a bad case of the Ehn. Same with Photography: the spark is hissing, the fire is...those little coals you can't quite toast a marshmallow on. Really, though, the best time for that is a when the fire is hottest, so before the meat, which throws everything out of whack. You know, that was going to be an astute and witty metaphor but I actually can't go anywhere with that. Anyway, This post is beginning to get a little crazy-eyed, so let me just sum up by saying: I didn't get any cake for my birthday*****, and that pissed me off. And I blame that for my current ennui. Wouldn't you?

* so quiet in fact, that people are having time to brew dissent. A plan is being hatched to feng shui the office, and perhaps install a skylight. A report is being written. No actual work is getting done. Just in case you thought it was just me.
**I got a polariser. happy birthday to me! from me!***
***oh yeah it was my birthday on Monday. People have complained that I didn't make a big deal of it. But it was a Monday!!!! who's even awake then?
**** The theme of my week, by the way, has been Please Please Please let me get what I want by The Smiths, which is about as deep and meaningful a revelation as you get. From me.
***** The interngot cake today though. So I guess being a cute, fuzzy intern is more important.

FAQ

What's up with you and the bunnies?
pygmy bunnies are super-cute, especially with the big eyes and the flopsy-forward ears. Also, I'm desirous of a pet, but I read Bridget Jones' Diary a while ago* and the thought of dying old and alone and being devoured by my cats/ dogs/ pet rocks became sort of a theme in my more obsessive moments** rabbits are a) vegetarians and b) mostly live in cages, so they don't get to live off my body. A horse would probably also be okay, but they're a bit big, aren't they? A teeny tiny horse, therefore, would be perfect.

What's the weirdest birthday present you ever received?
Mr Flinn sent me a full-frontal naked picture of a young Tony Danza. I'm now pretty convinced that He's the Boss. Tony Danza, I mean.

What's your natural hair colour, anyway?
Sort of a dark-blonde-to-light-golden-brown. It's unexciting, except that in sumer it used to go pretty light. But since I was 16 I've had red hair, auburn, champagne blonde, black, brunette, platinum blonde, and even a brief, accidental period of purple, which taught me the lesson: don't dye your hair in Israel. All of which has been way more fun than my "natural" hair colour, aside from the occasional need to remove all my hair.

Axl Rose: what's up with that?
I dunno. He used to be the epitome of bad-boy cool. Mind you, that as when I was about 11 or 12, but still, everyone that year had the bandanna or the sticker or the little Gn'R pendant/earring whatever. Then he got all weirdy, tubby, and...ginger. How do you suddenly become an eyebrowless Ginge? was he not blonde, most of the Cool years? How does it take ten years to record an album? Actually it's more like 15 at this point. Whether or not the album is good or not is somewhat moot: would people spend money on what is essentially a joke band at this point?

Mind you: people buy Michael learns to Rock***, Avril Lavigne, and Nickelback. Next question.

What's the longest English word in the world?
According to Wikipedia it's (deep breath, now) pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a 45-letter word which refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silicious particles, which just goes to show research scientists have as much of a sense of humour as the rest of us. When I was in junior school, however, I was taught that it was Floccinaucinihilipilification, the act of estimating something as worthless, which ironically enough, was what I was doing earlier with Nickelback. Think about it, very time you find yourself contemplating Urine...I mean Irene Bester, you're engaged in Floccinaucinihilipilification. Don't you feel more well-rounded and interesting already?

Why do you swear so much? And why is your blog so relatively sweariness-free?
I can't swear so much on my blog because I'd get blocked, or some shit. The kids read this stuff, you know what I'm saying? But swearing is fun, satisfying, and also it juxtaposes nicely with my cute, sometimes ladylike exterior. Belching loudly and being cynical are also hugely entertaining, especially if I can do all three at the same time.

Better yet: making up my own obscure cusswords. People are never sure how to react when you call them a bok-dancing monkeysmuggler. Or a pituitary-glandular Robespierre. They look at you funny, and that's the cue to feel smug and superior.

What are we having for dinner tonight?
I dunno, what are you cooking?

Don't be like that. I made Sashimi last time.
Yeah, sashimi is hard to make.

Biyatch.
dumbass. What kind of questions are these anyway?

* I'll never admit that again.
** All the time.
***he actually learned to suck.

Facebook and the long-lost Mystery Pal.

People are all about dissing on the facebook at the moment. It's become very fashionable to refer to it as the devil, and refuse to sign up on some sort of tenuous technophobia-luddite moral grounds*. Up to you dude, but I disagree. My name is Betenoir and I'm a facebook addict.

Can I have my cup of coffee and my cookie now***?

Ina any case, Facebook is kind of awesome. It keeps me busy during coffee breaks, allows me to keep in contact with acquaintances without having to write tedious emails ("yes, I'm still at The Job, still single, no news, blah blah waffle parp"), keep an eye on how my buddies are relating to each other, and best of all make contact with people that I thought I'd lost forever. It really gives rise to the whole six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon concept, doesn't it? Also the poking makes me feel special. Nothing like rocking up at work to find you've got 23 simultaneous pokes lined up and waiting. It's like an orgy, but without fluids, mess, or Caligula****.

The only problem is that sometimes people find you, just when you thought you'd got rid of them forever. But those people you can block. Or accept. And then block. You know, so they feel the rejection.

With that in mind, it's easy to see that Facebook is a pretty sweet mechanism of the Rad Times.

*some of them get really snotty about it. It's a website dude, not anal fisting**: you're not actually making a stand against the decline of humankind.
** I'm hoping to bump up my "accidental search term confusion" traffic. expect to see more random violence and inexplicable sexual content.
*** I'm assuming everybody's seen the same AA/ Rehab movies I have.
**** without Caligula it's just group sex. See, how I'm doing this? I expect way more traffic tomorrow.

I'ma Slap A Beyatch.

My boss (well, one of them), tends to get supercritical when she's tense. This means that if I've missed a detail or left out even the most infinitesimal of things (one of the participants didn't have pen!! How did you manage to MISS that!!!??), I get bitched at in the most condescending manner possible. All my faults-real or imagined- are brought up. Past infractions have included:

• not serving tea in the correct silver service manner
• not regulating the airconditioning temperature carefully enough
• the photocopier producing copies that are too light
• not taking enough photos, taking too many photos, taking photos in the wrong area of the exhibition, being too obtrusive while taking photographs, using flash.

The problem is I keep learning from experience, and not making the same mistake twice. Ferinstance, after the great "there were no evaluation forms" debacle of last week*, I made sure to copy double the amount of forms, put them right in front of her, clear a space around so that they are easy to see, and then tell her them about them, twice.

Which means that she has not so much to critique. Win-win, you'd say, right? Nah so much. This morning, she came in, handed me a letter it took her 4 weeks to type, sighed, and started complaining about how untidy my office was, and how it offended her. She was adamant: Surely I had enough time to maintain a decent level of tidiness?

Short answer, uh, no. Also: it's my office, not hers. Her office is large and has cupboards and a window and is nice. Mine is a cupboard, where everything is stored. There is even a kitchen sink, rusting noisily in the corner. our offices are far, far away from each other. 7 Cubits at least. She spends an average of 8 minutes in my office a week. How do my piles of paper become her issue?

I'm totally going to make her look fat in all the photos I take from now on.

* there were, and they were right in front of her, but whatev
**MCBeeeeyaaaaaatch!

Excuse me, Might I Drool Here Briefly?

I would just like to say that Orlando Bloom is as cute as a button. Or even, say, a flopsy-forward-eared bunny. I just want to pinch his little cheeks and make unintelligible "boogowoogobobumumu" noises. I can't help it: he was once my favourite elf. Did you see all that arrow-slinging? Top-notch. I want a little Orlando to keep in my handbag: I'd feed him nuts and popcorn and buy designer teensy outfits for him. But also I'd like a full-sized version too. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Woof!

My hormones are all raging today. Goodness.

Rampant Materialism, or Gimme! Gimme! Gimme

So, it's my birthday in 2 weeks. I'll be turning 30, which is sweet because it's a round number. Odd numbers always piss me off. Even numbers are better and round numbers are the best*. Anyway, birthdays aren't as cool when you're an adult because you don't wake up to a mountain of gifts**, which...well, it kinda sucks. And the worst part of it all is that you're not even supposed to want or care about gifts..you're supposed to be adult and above it all and all: "oh, don't spend your money, give it to charity or something".

Bugger that.

I'm acquisitive, see, and even though I'm not expecting the aforementioned MOG*** I'd like to assert my right to covet things. Lovely things. pretty things. Possibly ridiculous things. But things that, in general, I want. In no particular order, then, my top ten birthday list****.

1. Cool 70's-style retro wallpaper for putting on only one wall of my domicile. I like Mimir, Helena, Flapatos, Branch and Galatea in pink.
   
2. Katamari Damacy. And A PS2 to play it on. the console need not be a gift, lendage is fine. And if you can actually find it in this country I'll name my 17th cat after you*****
3. Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturiser, oil-free. I'm classy, me, and I have expensive skin to maintain. Well, ish.
   
4. Lots of designer vinyl toys from Toi-toy (Moofia! Dunny! Smokin Labbits!). Or a giant Gloomy Bear. I LOOOOVE GLOOMY BEAR! He rips open the bodyof his adopted owner because he's a godd*mned bear!!!!
5. Gingham Wedges! Because I love shoes, I love shoes, oh god how I love the shoes. A pair of all-black high-top Cons would also be more than okay.
6. Lots and lots of books. I hear in the olde tymes, the Pharoahs used to cover people who did good with gold until their bums no longer stuck out******. I would like someone to do this with books and my bum.
7. Pocky Mousse. Or Special Sakura KitKat. Because I can't get them here and they taste of yummy numminess.
8. A Polarising or Infrared lens to fit my Fz-50. I recently realised that it does actually have a thread so filters can be used: therefore this means there's a Hoya adapter out there with my name on it. Sexy sexy sexy infrared. Infra-RAD more like!
9. A teeny tiny tan or black pygmy bunny with big manga eyes and flopsy-forward ears. the ears must flopsy forward, not up, or back. Forward. I'm quite insistent on this point.
10. I'd like to wake up in the morning next to a mountain of gaudily-wrapped gifts. And a cake. with excessive frosting and Marzipan Roses. To be a kid again, and have the full complement of parents and grandparents, and not a care in the world except that I might get clothes instead of toys this year. Except clothes are awesome too! Clothes and toys. And clothes for toys.
    

So, I am done, my list is presented. And now my crisis of conscience: please don't actually get me any of these things, because I'll feel AWFUL. I don't like asking for things. it makes me feel tawdry....however..if you feel you must... suppose I'll have to live with it.

Tawdry.

*as in: 'round up to the nearest five/ ten"...see?
** when you're little it always at least seems like a mountain of gifts
***mountain Of Gifts, do I have to explain everything?
**** I may have been writing such lists since I was four. Or it may have been earlier.
***** I've already made promises about future children, dogs, hamsters and other assorted pets.
****** source: Asterix. It's a valid historical text, bizzatch!

A Horribly Traumatic Experience

Last night it rained, and this morning, it was damp. It was quite nice actually, there I was in my cute beret and chunky scarf, feeling very cosmopolitan and vaguely French*. The birds were all: "Hey tweet y'all" and the autumn leaves were falling, albeit damply. And I wasn't running late for work, which was a nice change. I was listening to the new NIN. I was finding it quite cheerful.**My morning walk through the Company gardens looked to be a pleasant one. Crazy-dog lady*** passed me by.

And then I looked down.

There it was, glistening pinkly, oozing itself across the pathway. An earthworm. They do this, you know, after the rains... Some bizarre instinct tells them to flee the muddy soil and head for the safety of...tarmac and concrete. Right. Not known for their intellectual capacity, they.

So, having narrowly missed mashing one long pink wormy with my right shoe, I became somewhat paralysed. Because there's never only one. I became obsessed with the idea that the path would be strewn with dozens upon dozens of earthworms, a veritable minefield of squoosh and subsequent guilt. it didn't help that entire sections of pathway were obscured by sticks and leaves, which can look very much like earthworms if you're having a bit of a Nutjob Moment.

So, it took me almost twice as long to traverse the distance to work. I almost had a panic attack. I felt very close to ralphing publicly.

I stood on an earthworm barefoot once. It wasn't very nice.

*in a Paris Fashion Week ; rather than an arrogant un-deodorised; sense.
**I find Year Zero quite poppy, for NIN.
***the dog is crazy, not the lady. His legs are too short for his body, his eyes are all googly and his fur is tufty. It's adorable.

I'm Only Petite on the Outside.

All my life, I've been the tiniest person in the room. Especially when I was a kid, when I was even smaller than I am now*. Well except maybe in Sub B**, where this guy Tony was about an inch shorter than me and I decided that this meant we were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't recall actually mentioning this to Tony, because I didn't realise at the time that he had any sort of choice in the matter. He didn't seem to mind... or notice, for that matter.

Bygones.

In any case, I am now a petite adult. Petite in clothing stores seems to be shorthand for Really Short Legs. Generally though most people prefer to go with Midget, teeny tiny short person, and Oh Hey You're Cute. Women tend to refer to me as slim, skinny or delicate. Men, on the whole, tend to use the word miniature a great deal, and attempt to rest things on my head. I get a lot of hair ruffling too***. In japan, slightly-less-tiny 15-year-olds would ruffle my hair while squealing excitedly that I was "kawaaaiiiiii". Then I would shoot them with the Bazooka that I had taken to work that day and had cunningly concealed in my elaborate hair style.

The problem is, how people seem to see me is not how I feel. I feel, generally, lumpy and gangling. Technically there needs to be more of you, and with longer limbs, to be gangling, but I feel like I somehow accomplish this. While I strive for ballerina grace, it feels more like elephantine stompiness.

Possibly, this comes from being somewhat of a tomboy, and also incredibly clumsy. If there's something to fall over, I will fall over it. Sometimes also if there isn't something to fall over. If I lean into a cupboard under the sink to get a pot, I'll whack myself on the back of the head. I'm pretty sure I've incurred brain damage doing this the hundred-odd times I have. Drinking tea or water, I'll miss my mouth completely and pour the liquid down my face, or onto my lap, or a nearby computer, or a baby. I come home with mammoth bruises that I don't remember getting, and large swathes of skin I seem to have misplaced.

Once, a friend referred to me as "graceful and elegant" when describing me to someone else. I was, to say the least, confused. But if I can fool at least one person, then maybe that's enough. The rest I can just take out with my Bazooka.

*Proportionately to the other children dumbass, obviously I wasn't born this size or my mother would have made an even bigger deal about the labour.
**which is now called Grade 2. It used to be 2 sub-standards and ten standards, the last of which was Matric and now it's 12 Grades. I get very confused.
*** because there's nothing a grown woman likes better than being condescended to like a four-year-old.

Self-esteem Issues, Illness, Self-pity and Carrie Bradshaw

I had one of those Sex And The City girls' nights on Saturday night*, the kind where you have one of those awesome, frank, uncensored discussions about sex and relationships, and realise that a) you are not as ridiculously jaded as you though you were, b) you actually feel quite upbeat and positive about relationships and men in general c) women are for the most part pretty pervy, but in a fun and wholesome way, and d) Ryan Gosling, we'd like us some of that, please.

Then came Sunday, and the Amazonian Death Flu**, and with it, the fall of my poor little self-image. Now, I'd like to assert that I have a normal, mostly healthy self-esteem. Yes, there are things about myself I'm not overly fond of***, but I've reached a stage where it doesn't bother me that much, and kind of love myself, and think I'm rad**** (especially my bottom, which is pert, oh yea) but throw in a cocktail of exhaustion and viral agents and suddenly I feel like excrement on the shoe of the universe.

Probably being all feverish and delirious and having slightly greasy hair and an untidy apartment doesn't help. Also, being stuck in bed all day is boring. And when I'm bored I think too much, and also eat Cheetos, which equals Bad Idea. I get to thinking I'm going to die childless alone and be eaten by my rottweiler, which is ridiculous because I'm going to buy a whole bunch of pygmy bunnies and they'll be in cages, so... but you get the idea. Also, I'm not really good with other people for extended periods and the idea of marriage and children has been know to give me the grille, so my paranoia about the abovementioned dying alone scenario is a little confusing.

Dying dressed in a polyester housecoat and ugly orthopaedic shoes: now that's truly terrifying.

...perhaps writing a post when feverish is not the best idea. My posts suck. I suck! The world is a vale of tears and sucktion! Life is Sucky! Poo.

*in the brief hiatus of feeling healthy that fell somewhere between the Bubonic Plague and the Amazonian Death Flu
** Oh, my kidneys, joints and glands will ache? Sweet, I like to multitask. And I hate my lungs anyway, so let's cough those biggers right out, shall we?
*** nose, ankles, could be taller, fall over too often, socially inept and shy, talk too much
**** BTW I'm bringing back the word rad back. Go out and use it.

sick, like the doggie*

Suspiciously, the symptoms started about an hour-and-a-half after the flu injection my doctor tricked me into (with his wily doctor skills). This was shortly before he made me pee into a bowl. Mind you, it was easier than peeing into one of those little plastic cups, it's just that he actually refers to it as "making a weewee into the little bakkie". It makes me feel about four years old.

Anyway, peeing over and done with, blue-cheese-and-avo burger devoured, book bought**, I started feeling awful. Muzzy head, fever, coughing. Luckily I was on leave for two days. And after that it was only a half-day's work until the weekend. Because I used it all on being sick.

Then I came back to work, and between bringing the destruction of everything in existence***, running around looking for things, trying to educate 15-year-olds, wrangling the website designer, and carrying things, I got sick again. I had a day off yesterday but got called four times (once, annoyingly, to be asked where a remote control was), and was asked nicely to pleeeeease come in today.

Now I feel like the undead, truly feverish and nauseous and gurky***. So, Zombie undead, not cool Anne Rice vampire undead. So, thanks, job. You reward me in so many ways.

* wait, where does that expression even come from? Dogs don't get flu or colds, as far as I know... and I'm not into eating my own poop, so...
** so I finally read Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis (took eight hours): okay, dude, enough about your girlfriends and heroin. yes, they were all awesome in bed. Yes, you took a lot of heroin. let's not belabour that point.
*** or something like that: apparently now we've reached the point where nothing can be done without me, but everything that goes wrong is also my fault.
**** screw you it's a word.