80

This is post #80 on the new blog (having retired the old one due to random internet stalking). When I am 80 years old I am going to chain-smoke and wear purple hats with pink high heels and fuschia lipstick, and tan all day in an orange fold-out chair that will stick to my leathery skin when I get up to mix another gin and tonic. Actually, by the time I'm 80 I probably will have moved on to straight gin, but will drink it out of teacups so that people think I'm sweet and elderly instead of cantankerous, drunken and elderly. They'll ascribe the shakes to age, not to withdrawal.

Posting will be sporadic throughout the summer, because this is the first night in over 2 weeks where I got home before the sun went down - and honestly, it's all I can do to brush my teeth some nights before falling into bed (I always do; oral hygiene is very important to me). Thankfully I am not kept out due to work - I'm still working 8-hour days, suckers! - but due to sports and social life. Can't complain, this is why I love the summer.

Drown

I went to London on Friday, to finish packing, and arrange sublet money (he is adorable, all French accent and stubble and unpretentious chemical engineer), and to tri-date with sugar and flippancy and blowing stuff up. We didn't do the blowing up, but we did see Mission Impossible III, which is full of explosions and shaky camera and the great great greatness of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Violence suits him well - ok, he's PSH, everything suits him well - but I love him more than ever, having seen him be an amazingly underdeveloped (character-wise and otherwise) villain. If I met him I think I might just stare in awe, dumbstruck. Also, Tom Cruise runs real fast real good. For all the zany tabloid antics, he's pretty good at the summer blockbuster, and his desperate runs through streets (crowded and empty) have only become more convincing since The Firm.

I kind of want to be a movie critic.

I read on the bus ride. There were people in front of me reminiscing loudly about their glory days at UWO, but as soon as I sank into the story everything faded. I couldn't tell you what the words were on the page, but inside my head the story unfolded, thoughts and emotions and carefully crafted dialogue all coming to life. Every once in a while I would surface, staring about me bewilderedly, shaking off the fiction like a wet dog. The real world was too intrusive: the voices too loud, the lights too bright, so a few blinks of the eye and I held my breath and dove deep once again, only truly breaking the surface in the cab on the way to the restaurant, where the spell was shattered by country music at top volume.

I kind of want to be a writer - except that I never will, because I lack the ability to make others drown in my words, and I can't imagine what it is like to have that skill. It seems terrifying and alluring all at once.

Night terrors

I awoke in the middle of the night, hot and dehydrated from boozing and baseball. Drinking some water, I turned on the fan and opened the windows. I fell back into bed, cooler and hydrated and ready for more sleep. As my eyes drifted closed, I was launched upright by terrifying noise. Sound travels remarkably well from the street to the 3rd floor, and so my room was suddenly filled with demon sound - as though I was standing on the edge of the hellmouth. It sounded as though the air was being ripped apart, with an eerie cooing in the background.

I think it was raccoons, but why such cute creatures need to sound like that is really beyond me. I'll be sleeping with the windows shut tonight.

Work, and life

Yesterday was my first day of work. It was uneventful - a company orientation in the morning, followed by lunch with my mentor and further orienting. The most scintillating piece of info I learned at the morning session came from a charming gentleman working in another department, who kindly informed me that this Friday is no pants day. Do with it what you will. I would happily observe, but I'd really like to keep my job. If it's nice maybe I'll wear a skirt.

Work will be enjoyable, I think, but for now the getting up early part is the hardest, and I'm all tuckered out. More observations to follow.

PS: So far it really is an 8-hour workday. This will probably change once I learn how to do things.