TrippingOwl's Used Soul Emporium

Most of the time, my day at work is pretty uneventful.  From time to time, there are little high points or low points, such as when someone who can hold a decent conversation decides to drop in, or if I'm feeling lazy and the day obligingly stays quiet, &c &c.  From time to time, however, the day is made eventful by some or other addition to the community.  Today there was one such addition.

I still can't quite decide if it was a high point or a low point.

So this dude came in; wiry, average-looking, mid forties.  I introduced myself as his massage therapist, guided him to the room, and began the treatment.  He started up a conversation, the usual "How long have you been working here/where are you from/other random question" - not the stuff to move mountains, but the stuff that makes the world go round, I guess.  I told him that my family is from Hungary, and he says,

"Oh, yeah... I've been there.  The February last year."

Always nice enough to find people who've actually been to Budapest, but I had a growing suspicion that this person was going to have nothing original to say.

I was wrong.

He said, "Went to Budapest.  I missed the beach, though."

I murmured something to the effect that yes, indeed, Hungary is land-locked.

"I was really surprised.  I thought everywhere 'ad a beach!"

WHAT?!

I literally could not speak for several minutes.  I imagined his view of central Europe as a collection of countries floating gently in the ocean.  (Which ocean?  The Pacific, obviously.)

When I recovered, I asked him what he'd seen there.  He replied that he had visited the castle.  "And there were a very good shoppin' centre, with fountains and everything! It was underground."

I swallowed and soldiered on, "Yes, so, did you see any more of the city?"

He ummed a bit, talked about how the people weren't so friendly as in Croatia, then brightened.

"There were a very nice McDonalds!  Very nice, it was."

Defeated, I subsided into silence.

... I sometimes imagine what it would be like to black out all the lights on an underground carriage with lots of black paper.  This idea always recurs when, for whatever reason, the lights go off for a few seconds on the underground, leaving the carriage in dim light (as usually not all the lights go, just 80-90% of them).  For a moment my eyes go, "Ooh.  That's rather nice.  No glaring fluorescent light.  This is almost... peaceful."  But of course it doesn't last very long, so my mind inevitably wonders if you could MAKE the lights go out...

Ok, so imagine for a minute that London isn't turning into a police state, causing 50 armed officers to be waiting at Warren Street station.  How cool would it be? catafalqued  pointed out that it would be enormously interesting to see what's in the tunnels, which of course would be much more obvious with the lights out.  You could see all the abandoned stations, especially if you took a powerful flashlight with you.  (Bonus if you see Franka Potente running around in the dark.)

But if you blacked out all the lights, it could be the chill-out carriage where you could get that extra 40 minutes of shut-eye on your journey to work.

In the centre of Budapest, there is a little bar.  It is nominally a punk hangout, though the music ranges from punk to electro to goth.  (I guess it's what the terrible word "alternative" refers to, though that word is about as useless as "mainstream" when it comes to referring to a specific subculture.)  A certain gentleman connected with this bar has come up with a strange little idea: to translate and transcribe Emily Dickinson into "machine poetica".  (Here.)

I find it strangely comical and even rather endearing, and the idea of bridging two such vastly dissimilar media appeals to me.  A few posts ago I referred to the Cold War Modern exhibition, with some fascinating examples of socialist influence on art (and the space program.  Love those space-dresses).  Under the excitement of space exploration (before it became clear that there wasn't anything in our immediate vicinity of Earth than a couple of motes of dust and a bit of algae), there was the dark undercurrent of identity loss, not only to the System, but to an increasingly homogenised, mechanised, de-humanised computer culture.  (Yes, yes.  Obvious, I know.)  Techno-fear infiltrated the 80s media: Star Trek's Borg, Kraftwerk's Robots to name a couple of fairly common examples.  The Matrix was hardly a new idea at heart; the ultimate loss of identity and reality, and surrender to an alien, self-created cyber-hell.  I like this alternative version of that rather dark fairy tale.  Maybe I'm an optimist at heart?  Or is it the ever-so-slightly bloody-minded pleasure of forcing computers to quote poetry rather than going nuts and killing everyone on the space-station?  (Nobody said the two were mutually exclusive, of course.)  I bet Data's Ode to Spot made more sense in ASCII than it did recited.

But really it's the linguist in me that enjoys the idea of translating poetry into Machine.  The translation, while I am not familiar with any programming languages, feels similar to the process I go through translating from any language.  Unsurprisingly, the similarity is probably closest to Latin and classical Greek, which are extraordinarily logical and regular languages.  M suggests that "if a consistent syntax of human relations could be developed, perhaps translation between human languages would be easier."  I suppose this means that each language would have to have the same structure.  The Latin/Greek easily distinguishable cases would seem reasonable, and if we absolutely must apply word order, possibly German.  Though as is proved by the Latin language, a consistent word order at least superficially (to determine basic meaning rather than any focus on emphasis) becomes unnecessary. But humans are never entirely consistent, so actually putting this into practice would be a bit like trying to turn London Underground into an efficient transport system.

I should probably add at this point that the Phoenix is over 2 metres tall.  Here are a couple of other photos (courtesy of dear friend F) to give you an idea of the "vibrancy" to which egadfly was referring.





Of course, the first thing that crackityg  said upon seeing said Phoenix was "Why have you painted a chikkin on your wall?"  It was rapidly decided (apart from the general Wrongness) that "chikkin" is the only way that you can spell it.

Bedroom wall, 2am, paint.

A triumph call, a joyous shout

That shook the earth; men looked about

To see the shining source of sound,

Which split the world from sky to ground.

In my forays into internet dating, I have come across a number of ads which name-drop Mensa.   They are exclusively American men, even though there does exist a British Mensa.  A few observations:

a) It looks like Mensa is a much bigger thing in the States than it is here - which is somehow unsurprising in a country that glorifies the standardised test (in my opinion) even more than the British.  The IQ is an arbitrary number, and test scores are unable to determine creativity or personality.

b) There seems to be no other purpose to joining than to be able to say you're in it.  What, it isn't enough to be that smart anymore?  You have to join an organisation to show it?  When will people get over the need to say, "I'm better than you, nyah nyah nyahnyah nyah!"
Good old wikipedia quotes Dr Ware, one of the founders of Mensa:  “I do get disappointed that so many members spend so much time solving puzzles." (as opposed to saving the world.)  Quite right.  Anyone found not making use of their intelligence will have it confiscated.

c) It doesn't work.  Mentioning Mensa in an ad is supremely stupid, because people with low self-esteem, not so good with standardised tests, or simply not that well-educated/unconventionally educated, will be scared off.  But on the other end of the spectrum, anyone who really is smart will quickly realise that it is entirely made out of bullshit.  The only band of people that such an ad will attract will be other Mensans, and there aren't that many of them.  Who knows, maybe they'll inbreed themselves into extinction.  Or - oh! OH!!

They're causing global warming!  They're making a master race, and they will stamp out humankind and repopulate the earth entirely with flatfish and egos!  The id will have no place here!

Membership fees for Mensa seem to keep around the £45-50 mark.  I prefer to think of it as another well-cloaked Stupid Tax.  Oh, the irony.

It feels as though they are trying to prove something to someone - and they are using the wrong bench-mark to do it.  They look to an external source for validation, where true happiness and contentment come from internal satisfaction with oneself, unrelated to recognition by others.  Surely the greatest joy should be to be able to use that intellect, not to flaunt it?

Yes.  I am naive.

I do recognise that it helps people to meet other people with high IQs - a sort of social tool, I guess.  But it's still an organisation that pools people who define themselves primarily by their intelligence, which I think is sadly quite a narrow and limiting view.

I have not yet met someone who has said that they are in Mensa who isn't a jerk.  It's entirely possible that I have met any number of people in Mensa who have simply not felt the need to advertise that fact, and if so, good for them.  Otherwise, fuck Mensa.

I think he knows now.

So, I finally have access to photos from the summer of 2006 in Budapest.  This rather wonderful chapter included: a Morissey gig, a trip to Hegyalja festival where we never actually went into the festival, a non-existent Billy Idol gig and abortive attempt at a family holiday.

This is the highlight.



He never knew.

I've had a short attack of writer's block, which has meant that I've been unable to write even the shortest paragraph without sitting at the computer for lengthy periods and staring at the screen in blank amazement.  This has happened a few times in my life and as a fairly creative and expressive person, it's not pleasant.

I suppose it's been compounded by the fact that I haven't really had anything to write.  I mean, stuff has happened to me, but I don't want to be the sort of person who writes a "I went to the X and did Y.  Then I went home and ate dinner." blog.

However, it seems to have cleared up, due to some pretty damn' exciting things happening.  Oh, and the strategic injection of more Jeeves and Wooster than the human brain ought to handle, which has resulted in some idiotic Jeeves-related fan-fiction on my part.  Excellent for clearing out the system; not so excellent for public consumption, though!  What drip.  (Crawls away in shame, yes I am that person.)  This means a Megapost to report the key points of the last little while.

Item 1: Antichrist Lite and Angels Sale

On December 5th, Antichrist threw another of their excellent parties.  Unlike all the other Antichrists, however, this was almost empty.  In a club which boasts a capacity of 1200, the turnout was extremely low.  It did make for an interesting night, though; it was rather cool to experience the space without too many people.  The posse consisted of myself, tirinar , egadfly  and beloved, crackityg , our housemate E, and associated polish friends.  At around 4 o'clock, I left with tirinar  to camp out in front of Angel costumiers', who were getting rid of all their costuming and re-enactment stock to clear warehouse space.  We sat outside from 5am until 9, which was when they opened.  During the wait, I exhausted my entire repertoire of Communist jokes at tirinar and companions.  (Oh, no, it was my pleasure.  Really.)   There was all kinds of weird shit there...  In the sci-fi section I found these huuuuge latex boots with red scales on them.  I also found a matching set of gloves, and what looked like a top.  All these were far too big to fit me, but fascinating nonetheless.  The most intriguing piece of this costume, however, was something that looked like two cones fused together, with a big hole in the middle, and a tube sticking out of it.  (Don't even try to imagine it.  It's too weird for words.)  I stood there for about ten minutes trying to work out what it was.  Eventually it dawned on me: it was an inflatable head-dress!  Apparently you're supposed to blow through the tube and stick it on your head.  Holy shit.
I came away with a Roman-style shield, possibly made out of resin.  tirinar  came back with much loot, which was the important thing!

Item 2:  Christmas and New Year

Christmas with sister went as per usual, mit copious quantities of roast duck, some very cool presents and a sugar crash on Christmas day.
New year was truly excellent.  There was a house party and I was among friends.  I arrived at the party at around 23:30 on the 31st and left at around 9pm on the 1st.  It was a lot of party.  But it was all perfect: the gathering was quite small to begin with, though our numbers swelled at around 8am when people returned from Slimelight.  The whole atmosphere was one of friendship, relaxation and, oddly enough, respect. That last one struck me most of all, because not everyone knew each other, and yet... I guess sometimes things just come together.
I'm of the opinion that going out on New Year's Eve is usually a waste of time.  Everything is overpriced, overcrowded, and it's never as good as they say it's going to be.  A house party is so much better, because it's cheap, you control the music, and it's a fair bet that you'll like most (or in this case all) the people there.

Item 3: Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970

I went on a small expedition to the V&A to look at propaganda posters, 1960s space suits, and silly toasters.  Check this one out, because it's certainly worth seeing.  It's fascinating to see how the era of nuclear threat and space exploration captured the imagination of designers of all description.  It feels as though the two are somehow inseparable, both essential elements of a particular atmosphere that permeated culture during this time.  The fear perhaps sparked a need to imagine a better world, while the space exploration mitigated that fear with hope that perhaps humanity could achieve more.  It feels as though it was more immediate, too; as though there was a sort of desperation and frantic growth during this period.  Of course, it's entirely possible that this is an illusion created by a very evocative exhibition. (A strange nostalgia-like sensation for a time that I have never experienced.)
Oh, and I want to drive a Messerschmidt micro-car, which is basically a one-person scooter surrounded by plastic.  It's tiny.  It's great.

Item 4:  Work

I'm getting out of there.  I haven't yet told my boss, but I'm thinking I'm going to tell him a leaving date of the end of March.  I want to have time to hand over to someone else, because if I just up and leave, there's a chance my boss will throw up his hands and say, That's it.  I don't want everyone to suffer because I leave, in other words.  And I genuinely care about what happens after I go, so I will leave carefully.  (Not in a tantrum, though that would be enormously satisfying!)  Having made this decision, I already feel better and more balanced, so it definitely seems like the right thing to do.  When E vacates our spare room, I will re-furnish it and start building my client base so that I can make money at home.  I'll try to build up a client base (so if anyone needs massage or knows anyone who does, please do let me know!), and the rest of time I'll probably temp until I decide what I want to do in the long run.

Ha!  I haz a little plan.

I found this in a friend's bathroom.

I've been reading as many books by Lionel Shriver as I can get my hands on.  One recent acquisition was Double Fault, which was dismal to read.  Two tennis players get married, and the woman can't stop herself competing with her husband.  It destroys their marriage.  End of book.  It is technically well-written; that is, it contains some of the most elegant sentences that I have read in fiction for some time.  However, the story drags and it is a litany of pain and misery.  At the end, all I could think was "Why did I just read that? Aaaaaaaaaarg."  It is rare for me to actively want to throw a book across the room.  I had been expecting another Post-Birthday World, which spoke directly to me as I am constantly questioning and wondering about the road not taken.  (TP-BW runs two parallel universes in alternating chapters, stemming from one crucial decision in the female protagonist's life.)

So I dug up a copy of We Need To Talk About Kevin, a story from a mother's POV about her mass-murdering son, how he grew up, and what her life is like now.  This is probably Shriver’s most famous book and it is extremely emotionally grisly.  It explores a certain avenue of maternal psychology with great finesse.  It's great.  Go and buy it.

Yet while it lacks the sucking despair of Double Fault, it occurs to me that all of these books have a commonality of tone, a certain dismal flavour.  Out of all of them, TP-BW was the most “upbeat”, as one universe seemed to be the “right” one for the protagonist, but really it’s like saying “out of the three hurricanes, Katrina was slightly less windy.”  Having read TP-BW first, the other two almost seem like  a violation.  I felt a slight disappointment upon reading Kevin, because suddenly what had first seemed like the exploration of a particular skill for the twists and turns of female psychology, now had the faintest flavour of self-indulgence to it.  (Incidentally, this is one of the only times that I have "sensed" the author's presence behind the books.  Usually you get this sensation with less skilled writers who can't help projecting themselves in some form or another into their own work.  It seemed very out of place here, which I suppose is the whole reason for this post.  It took me entirely by surprise.)  Shriver now seemed addicted to misery rather than sharply exploring a new world, as though these books were all part of some kind of dismal pattern.  Double Fault in particular seems like a sort of orgasm of despair and pain.  So what drives someone to explore that?  Is Shriver seeking media through which to express some inner trauma of her own, or is she exploring foreign ground in setting after setting, to understand or perhaps to achieve a near-experience herself? 

Or maybe, and perhaps this is the most likely, this is what Shriver is good at.  That her best work comes from dissecting and creating tragedy.  I cannot fault that (no pun intended), because creativity thrives on conflict.  Complexity grows in conflict.  It is rare indeed to find a happy book which is also interesting and captivating.  (The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach is one wonderful example of this rarity.)

And she does write her female protagonists so very convincingly. All of them are deeply flawed, but all manage to snag the reader’s understanding with perfect clarity – and largely, sympathy.  I do wonder sometimes whether being able to write that convincingly might not be a pathology all on its own (and I use the word pathology possibly erroneously here, or at least loosely, until I think of a better term).  Is the difference between various writing methods roughly equivalent to those between acting styles; that is, is there an equivalent to method acting?  Is getting into a character’s thoughts and mind all-encompassing, and is it perhaps not a bit troubling if one is particularly good at it?

I hadn't realised that Rowan Atkinson had ever done any live work, but there it is!

And Angus Deayton with hair. Marvellous.

I really loathe the people who insist on posting their favourite line in the comments - badly-spelled, of course. There's always at least one, usually more. WHY?! Even more outrageous in the comments - "I'm not racist. I just hate pakis."

Oh. My. God. Sometimes I forget that there are people like this out there. I wonder how they manage to maintain this racial hatred in their minds and still rationalise it enough to consider it acceptable? How can this person hate an entire people and say "I'm not racist"? Because he's (I assume it's a guy) doesn't think of himself as a racist. I'm sure he really believes that, and somehow in his head there is a supporting logic. I find this one of the most terrifying things out there; see, this is a person who can supposedly reason, think for himself, and he has decided to focus his anger on innocent people. Yup, way more scary than zombies.

Someone asked me the other day "What do you think of Americans?"

I wasn't sure how to respond. On one level, it's a nonsense question because it's far too broad. Americans? It's like saying "What do you think of, y'know, the world?" On another, it's clear that the person who asked me was fishing. He knew the type of person I was and that many people like me have a great deal of antipathy towards Americans in general. So he was fishing for an American-bashing session (maybe).

The problem is how to respond to that sort of thing. It's true, many Americans that I have known or, well, seen on television are annoying, loud and stupid. Dylan Moran said that it's not that there are more stupid Americans; it's that the stupid Americans seem so much stupider than stupid people everywhere else.
(People complain that GCSEs and A Levels in this country are getting easier. Well, it could be MUCH WORSE. I once read over a paper written by one of my friends in the States, who was a year older than I was. Admittedly I went to a good school, but I swear that paper would have failed. Guess what she got? An A-.)
But you can't condemn an entire country for that. The problem of how to answer the question without coming across as a) a total racist or b) a wishy-washy fence-sitter who hugs trees. Because the two answers read something like this:

a) They're all idiots. (The answer that was expected of me.)
b) I know lots of really cool and intelligent Americans. Sure there are problems as with any country, but it would be inaccurate to say that about all of them. (The answer I tried to give, with much dissatisfaction with the result.)

Both of these feel like bullshit answers. I come back to the complaint that the whole question is far too broad. It's impossible to encapsulate "I like some of their television, I know some really smart and insightful people from there, many of them - like in Britain - have intimacy issues, I hate their foreign policy, they have too many guns, their president (checks the time - yep, still president, just) is an imbecile who dragged the west into a massively misguided conflict, they make great sweets, they fingerprint people who go into their country, they've made some great music, a lot of them are fat and oh, yes, nobody NEEDS that many FUCKING four-by-fours. Shut the FUCK up and walk!" into a pat answer. America has its problems, and it certainly seems to seek to inflict them more aggressively than many other countries. But it ain't all bad. And so we get back to answer (b).

Can't sleep.  Future will eat me.

I'm so very bad at keeping up with events.  I sort of go through phases of forgetting I have a blog, and then I read other people's, and am ashamed.  (But not quite ashamed enough.)  I've also been through a bit of an emotional rough patch, mainly due to a fuck-up on my part which caused another human being unnecessary pain and disappointment.  So, I was stupid and disrespectful.  (It's amazing, however, how much the guilt is assuaged by the object of said fuck-up subsequently behaving like an asshole  I mean azalea.  No, I mean asshole.  Really, the relief of mea culpa is almost sublime.)

Work has had a massive refurb, with the result that it looks slightly less manky than before.  But the lounge is a nice orangey colour, and that makes me happy.  And the showers are nice.  It was fun to see the whole place ripped apart; there's this curious catharsis to it!  Now, before anyone says anything about there being some mixed feelings about my job, I've decided that I need to look for another one.  Or I need to get more clients.  I've decided that unless the situation gets better (which as long as my boss has anger management issues, it probably won't), I'm going to start moving away from my current work place and concentrate on my home business.  This will all happen very slowly as I get my ass in gear and develop a client base, and turn my therapy room into a place where people can actually relax.

Meanwhile, the free time afforded by the refurbishment has meant that I could see lots of my lovely, Local friends (for local owls!).  And of course make cheesecake at people. (egadfly , crackityg, I and XXii).  And eat wonderful beer-based pancakes.  Yum-yum.  And I have also learned that having cute Goth friends means sometimes inheriting clothes.  Z stopped by yesterday to "dance" with crackityg , though this degenerated into dinner and then drinks.  I joined for about 20 minutes of drinking, during which Crackity was regaled with unprecedented, unprovoked and unsolicited tales of bladder infections and the merits of waxing or shaving.  Then I was given goodies, in the form of 2 gothy tops which Z lovingly donated to me.  One of them is the "We could mate... but then I'd have to kill you" spider top, which I wore to work with a rather defiant look in my eye.

In addition, my dad is coming over with 2 of his friends next week.  This is the first time he will have set foot in this country since he moved back to Hungary, and that's just... bizarre.  The world is topsy-turvy!

... that in recent months this blog has been about as interesting as the Prophecies of Mindless Farke vol III (the bit with the badgers), 3:25 in the morning seems exactly the right time to write something.

The following key events have taken place since the last time of writing.

1) The sojourn to Hungary, which I'm sure egadfly  detailed in his blog before he took it down.  Essentially it involved a very pretty Swiss boy, excellent Hungarian friends who may or may not have finally moved out of parents' house, a trance festival with other excellent friends of the Saffa and Polish variety, wonderful sister, and the best birthday ever.  (The Beast is 24!  Hooray for the small Beast.)

2) The big leap where I am published in a magazine in an article detailing my (purportedly) new role as XO of the spa.  (What it doesn't say in the article is that we have literally nothing else to write about, other than buying new headrests for the sauna.)  There's a peekcha of me and everything.  I still haven't managed to lay my hands on a copy, but I'm going to track one down.

3) Some but not complete progress in sorting out the Room of Doom (Ha! See what I did there?  It rhymes and everyfing.).  It is now classed as Habitable.

Thank you to Z for a bloody excellent house party not too long ago.  Hopefully the carpets didn't have to be shampooed too many times.  And I owe you a shower curtain still.  I got it green.  (This will come as NO SURPRISE to anyone who saw me at that party. The others need only know two words: body paint.)  crackityg and I spent the rest of Sunday sprawled at home, watching 8 hours of Scrubs.  For future reference, the perfect post-party food is sushi and soup - little by little, as your stomach is about this big:

O

after 12 hours of almost disproportionate levels of fun and silliness.  Our tall, Polish fallen angel suggested pierogi, which is indeed good - but not as good as sushi.

I have also come up with a little Plan, the idea for which germinated after tirinar made an offhand comment one day about the litany of boyfriend stories she's listened to over the past 9 months.  I'm going to start a Boy Blog, where all the dating disasters can be catalogued to the tiniest detail.  In it you will find such stories as how I was outdone by a stack of newspapers, and what to do when your partner chooses perhaps the most inappropriate moment ever to do a Mr Burns impersonation.  I'm not going to link to it here, but if you want to look in - at your own peril, I must add - ask and I'll send you the link by e mail.

Life just hasn't stopped since last entry in March, and has now ground to a mere gallop, enabling my slightly grazed self to sit down and write an entry.

We have moved.  All of you know this; most of you were at our extremely cool house party.  There are still boxes in my room and I have so many stuffs that I'm playing Sokoban moving them all around my room.  I still don't have a clue what it's going to look like yet.

Incidentally, something we already knew:  BT are fuckheads.  Three weeks and completely unable to get internet up and running.  Virgin: 4 days, and success!  Though it seems that the technicians on the helplines are universally stupid, no matter what service provider they are with.  Ask crackityg.

And now I go to continue to obsess over the interior decoration of my room.  I'm sure I'll come up with a more interesting post soon.

Oh thank christ it's over.

Or more precisely, it's over... for now.  I'm fairly sure I've passed everything except for the anatomy and physiology paper.  I'd call that one about fifty-fifty, at this point.  We shall see.  In addition, I hope to be doing a deep tissue massage course in June, assuming there are still places by the time I scrape up the money.

I navigated my massage practical and theory with a streaming cold; probably a result of stress and the lack of sleep induced by Slimelight on Saturday.  So now I am home, and instead of meeting up with Mrs Doyle and my course mates for celebratory drinks, I spent a pleasant (if congested) evening at home with soup, sandwiches (*proud*), catafalqued, bumpycat, crackityg, and Hot Fuzz, which I had not seen before.  And now I am for bed, because I intend to go and bake jumpers on Sunday, and must be at my best.

Yes.  Well.

We gots burgled yesterday.

Midway through an interview with a new therapist last night, I get a call from bumpycat; someone has barricaded the front door.  Turns out someone chucked a rock through the back window and nicked some stuff.  (crackityg suggested that it was a pity they didn't haul all the furniture away.  We could even have helped them by supplying them with a moving van or something.)

Arg.

So my Tuesday off was spent dealing with shattered glass and the glaziers.  Oddly, I'm adjusting fairly well to the thought of someone having been in my place.  It's annoying to be missing a spare hard drive with all kinds of useful stuff on it, but apart from that nothing of real importance was taken.  And even though they went through my underwear drawer and dream diary, I don't care that much.

I wonder why that is.

Maybe it's about not placing too much value on Stuff.  It's not that important, therefore it doesn't matter that much if someone messes with it.  Or maybe people feel violated because their identities are very closely tied to material things.  I think I might've been more upset if they'd messed up the aesthetics of the room (say spray-painted the walls, curtains and/or bedclothes), because I feel that the way that the room is set up reflects much more of my personality than my possessions.

That has been my ethos for the past few days.  This is most work-related;  in the last 10 days my place of work has lost no less than five members of staff.  Three of them left due to inappropriate behaviour and two to finding something better to do.

And our ad for new therapists was disallowed from Gumtree, citing the reason that this is not something they wish to advertise on Gumtree.  Now, I recognise that Gumtree has the right to refuse anybody, but I strongly object to employing a double standard.  We place great emphasis on being a genuine spa, with no inappropriate activity.  Yet Gumtree allows posts describing

a) naked cleaning service in your own home.  Now, this may be a genuine cleaning service in the same way that we offer real massages.  But why is this man allowed to go about his nudely business and we're not?

b) erotic private dances and not "full sex"(!)
Right.  So basically, everything but.

c) full body rubdown and relief for men.
No explanation needed here either.

How dare they group us in the same category, and how dare they (once we have been lumped with the clap-ridden masses) consider us LESS DESERVING?

All I can think of is that the filters that blocked us somehow let them through, and no one has yet complained.

Kill 'em all.

Or, if you can't be arsed to kill 'em (like me), eat far too many chocolate digestives and watch far too much Tudors.  Definitely a better use of my time.

A frustrating day (stupid post office, keep sending my to-sign-for items to different places...) was mitigated by some odd and mildly-to-very amusing episodes.

Firstly, I woke up after dreaming of self-dismantling massage tables and exploding nuts - as in, legumes. (Not seeds.  No, not seeds at all.)  I was about to start a massage and went into the room to find that the table was in pieces.  I couldn't put it together and the client (cute Japanese girl - damn you, bumpycat, for bringing your asian film collection into this house!) was waiting right there.  So I went to get another table, and that was in pieces too.

And somebody warned me that the plastic containerful of nuts on the counter was part of an experiment, and would soon explode.

(Shut up.  I'm managing my stress just fine.)

Secondly, I was standing behind a girl in the line at the post office, and she was at one of the windows.  I overheard, "I got a letter from the postal service; they tell me they've mutilated my drivers licence."

I can just imagine a horde of postal workers, each with a manic handful of licences and crazy, hysterical grins.  "HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!  None shall be saved!"

Thirdly, a woman tried to cross the road a bit too close to the bus on which I happened to be sitting.  She was walking with a bit of a limp and with a gait unfortunately like a velociraptor.

(When I showed the walk to crackityg, he nearly dropped the glass he was about to put in the sink.  It seems I'm depressingly good at the velociraptor walk.  Perhaps I'm a velociraptorpodlet.)