they drive me insane

Most of all I drive myself insane. I lost the keys to the station wagon two days ago, after impetuously deciding to take the car to work when it started raining (me and 7 million other Melbournians obviously, as we had forgotten what rain was) and then deciding impetuously after driving for ten minutes that the traffic was too awful, that I’d have to take the train after all, and parking the sw in Oak Park, where it’s been for two days now because some time on Tuesday afternoon I lost the key. I drive myself not only to Oak Park but also insane.

But what about the other idiots I have to endure? What about that woman on the train a short time ago waggling on about how they should take all the seats out of the train so more people could stand in it? Oh, she was bad enough, all with her ‘I should be in parliament… introduce a private member’s bill, even though I’m not a member, apparently…’ that ‘apparently’ apparently supposed to indicate that it’s not really a democracy if not everyone in the world can be a ‘private member’ in parliament. But her friends were mental: ‘oh, that’s a really good idea. That’s a really good idea actually. No really, I think that’s really good.’ Blah! She gets me down and so do they.

But not as much as the Dickensian junkie on the train yesterday who I purposefully went down the far end of the carriage to get away from, so Dickensian was his junkieness, more like a Cruickshank engraving really which has since distorted further in my memory, and then for some reason he and the fluoro-jacketed middle aged man he was with came down my end of the carriage, where I had expressly hoped they would not be. He was one of those junkies with an endless sense of wonderment about his surroundings, as though his awe with the world excused his so-called experimentation with a life of deadly addiction. They were getting off at Strathmore. ‘Are there any trees where we’re going?’ he asked fat companion. ‘Why?’
‘Because I need to piss!’

Obviously using a toilet would befoul an otherwise fine and private place.

Speaking of which, what about ‘William, did you do a poo in the back of your pants?’ on the bus yesterday. She was horrific, in her brown peasant tent and her grin-moron child would have made Alfred E Neuman recoil in horror. I mean for god’s sake. In fact his name wasn’t William it was Tom. ‘No, I’m very cross with you Tom, that’s very naughty, you should wait to go to the toilet.’ OK, your child is all wrong, having him was an error, and he did a poo in the back of his pants (had he done it in the front of his pants she might have been proud of his ingenuity, I don’t know, or maybe that was what he was taught and doing it in the back is a special talent he has developed which the parents can’t do themselves, being front-pooers, so of course the mother is scared a la the Chrysalids.) Hell. I hated them.

Or that woman on the train on Tuesday, she in a red gypsy outfit, giving a monologue not unlike something someone might deliver if asked to play a game of stand-up comedy with the game being not actually making one single joke, in which she was apparently parodying someone a little like Neil from the Young Ones only an American, who was driving a van somewhere and wouldn’t take any notice when being told that he was already on Ballarat Road, ‘OK man just tell me when to turn onto Ballarat Road.’ You know those people who think that if it sounds laconic it doesn’t matter what the content is, it’s hilarious, and of course, Australians who think they can do American accents (and so pronounce the ‘r’ even in words without ‘r’s) are fucking idieRRts man.

But the worst was actually the guy on the train this morning. He was cutting his fingernails on a crowded train. Now, really, seriously, that is de trop. I looked around hoping to catch a bit in my eye, or if not that, then stare him into embarrassment. He was doing it inside a plastic bag. This was horrible, mainly because it was so freakin’ loud, and ‘clut! Clut! Clut!’ all the frigging time, and you start to think, Alright, prick features, you can cut your nails in a plastic bag on the train, I can’t stop you, I don’t know how to tell you this is socially Not Done if you can't intuit it, you looking straight ahead of you as if you aren’t doing a thing, and no-one else but me can hear you because they are all listening to Doof and metal on ear buds but HOW MANY FINGERNAILS DO YOU HAVE? When I cut my nails – which I do at acceptable times, without others around to listen to CLUT CLUT, or is it more like CLINT, CLINT, or is it STRIK, STRIK, I don’t know, a failing of the roman alphabet or probably all alphabets, anyway, when I cut my nails I make that noise about 20 times probably, not for half a freakin’ hour, are you actually trimming your hooves in there, or are you cutting the horny scabs off the heels of your hands, or are you shelling chestnuts I MEAN CHRIST, no-one should have to put up with that. Especially not me as I have enough bullshit to deal with I don’t care if it’s of my own making.

unsurprising phenomenon

I have mentioned before how when Charlie is higher up than a person (thereby problematising the natural and expected order of things) she becomes bashful and her ears curl at the ends like That Girl's hair. Well, here it is happening again. For real!

the internet... promises so much, delivers so little.

Sitemeter continues to dazzle me with information about why the heck people visit this site. Imagine the baffled Hungarian who on a perfectly innocent search for 'Werry young girl porn' happened up on this.

graffiti crimes II: graffiti crimeser

Rimimber thus? As Steve Gilpin used to say on his blog. I know, I know, accent 'jokes' - they are beneath me. It was Steve! Anyway, there's more, as I discovered recently looking at the front of Purdom (there are seven stages of purdom, by the way - it being a cross between purgatory and boredom - not really, it's a fine book, I like it a lot). (Great diagrams when someone's not drawing japanese sheilas on it).



I don't know what it's about. The book has a lot of big blank pages in it (at the beginnings of chapters, etc) but our little mincing pal really likes to add his dream ladies to extant diagrams. Notice how the hair perhaps reminds one of what an old girlfriend of mine used to call when sketching ladies fashions 'her bust'. There is another one with only one eye, which is creeping me out a bit (a little like that porn script about eunuch schoolboys watching porn which I accidentally happened on a few days ago) so I'll save it.

oh no more old manisms

I heard on Movietime on Radio National Julie Rigg's mention of reviews being sent to your mobile phone in 'handy capsule form'. However before unscrambling the concept I thought it was discussion of 'handicaps you'll form'. Modern life. *This morning on RN Breakfast I am sure I heard Fran Kelly talk about hamsters underground. But I don't know what this was about.

it rained today

Not once but twice. On waking I appreciated it had been raining a little not long before. It rains so rarely you tend to forget the tell-tale signs but there were some. We went for a walk.

Actually nothing looks lush at all (though if you could see the more uberpixelled version of these pictures you'd see everything glistening) but tomorrow might be different. It greens up very quickly when it's incentivated.

Charlie and Millie were in their element, and everything smelt totally different apparently: as though it were wet, I suppose.

If I were a poet, I'd somehow convey a cyclist dispersing some crows and magpies that had just been hanging around making crow (not magpie) noises en bloc. But I'm not. However, I have a blurry photo of it.

I'm sort of optimistically envisaging that some remarkable transformation is about to take place.