True joy and all that crap

My internet connection is gone. Vanished. I don’t know where it went. Maybe it’s off skiing in the mountains along with all the good, little Hellholians. It’s what people do around here. I’ve never been able to understand why.

Anyways, I am now hoping for a little man to come fix my connection. I’m just not sure on when he plans on showing up. Then yesterday morning, the doorbell rang. I knew immediately that it couldn’t be the upstairs-people. They’ve never figured out the intricate workings of my doorbell. It’s complicated. A button on a wall. Oooh. The upstairs-people just knock. Which I figure is a good reason to pretend I don’t hear them.

But I digress.

The doorbell rang, and I thought it had to be the internet-fixer-man. Who else could it be? So I hurried to answer the door, completely forgetting that I had make-up on only one – 1 – eye. That eye did look damn good, but still…

As the door swung open, I expected to see your standard, run-of-the-mill handyman type of a person standing outside. Instead I found myself staring straigt at the latest issue of The Watchtower. An overly cheery woman with a strangely far-away look in her eyes was peeking out from behind it. “Would you like to learn the path to true joy?” the lady asked.

“No, not really,” I said and closed the door in her face. I know the path to true joy already. It’s for me to get my internet connection back and waste some time surfing.

Let the Pooch soar!

I took Pooch with me to the woods the other day. Pooch likes the woods. It’s very high up on her lists of favourite things, along with tin foil, mice and the colour blue. At one point, she decided to climb onto a pile of wood and soar like an eagle down to the forest floor. As it turns out, Pooch is big on the falling, not so much on the soaring.

After her crash landing, which was promptly followed by the
running around like a maniac, I wasn’t very surprised to discover that she’d
managed to tear parts of a claw off. On our way home, she became increasingly
whiny, so I decided to distract her by slipping on the ice and smashing the back
of my head on the concrete. Then I stumbled around like a drunk. It worked like
a charm. Pooch forgot all about her toe. It was brilliant. Afterwards I felt
pretty damn dizzy, but true genius has always been described as rather dizzying,
so I suppose that was just to be expected.

In further news, my body and my head are having an ongoing debate about olives. The body tries to convince Bergerac (my mind) that olives are good, but Bergerac won’t hear of it. Since Bergerac is the one in charge of the mouth, Body needs to be sneaky in getting its point across. Body has the advantage of controlling the arms and hands, and those are always ready to stick olives into the mouth whenever Bergerac isn’t paying proper attention. Nothing has been settled yet, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Meet Dr. Smiley!

Years and years ago, I went to see a doctor. I can’t really remember why, just that I wasn’t feeling well and the visit to the local clinic was my mother’s idea.

The doctor was a young woman, very smiley, with big, curly hair. I sat in a blue chair with brown stains, prepared for the usual how-are-we-feeling-today-questions, which seems to be the first thin they teach you in medical school. The question was delivered and I went on to list my symptoms - whatever the were - like a good little patient, while I tried no to wonder whether or not those brown stains were left behind by other good, little patients.

Dr. Giggles smile didn’t fade for a second. Every so often she would nod her head and the curls would hop up and down around her face, trying to poke her eyes out.

“So what do you think is wrong with you?” asked Smiley.

That threw me for a bit of a loop. Granted, I did walk past one of those medical schools places once, but I don’t really think that qualifies me for giving diagnoses. Not even to myself. Had I by accident (or divine intervention) wandered into a psychiatrist’s office?

“Uhm… Aren’t you supposed to figure that out?” I asked.

“Usually patients have a great feel for these things.”

I thought to myself that Dr. Smiley had clearly never met my great aunt, who was convinced she had cancer every time she stubbed her toe, and who eventually died of a stroke (possibly brought on by all the worrying about cancer). Neither had Old Man Henry, who was convinced that his haemorrhoids were caused by alien probes, crossed the threshold into her office. But I didn’t say any of these things.

“Could it be… the flu?” I suggested.

“Sounds okay,” said Giggles, and gave me a prescription for something to bring down my temperature, which she’d never checked.

It’s a good thing I didn’t mention cancer. My great aunt sure would have.



By the way, I won an award, and now I'm going to spread the joy - and the award - to some deserving people. It's that big E up in the corner, there. I'm pointing right at it. I'm supposed to name ten nominees, but it seems most people that I stalk online already have one. Although that doesn't make ME any less special.

And the award goes to.......*drumroll*

SWINE http://swine.wordpress.com/
JAY http://saintvodkaofthemartini.blogspot.com/
Miss Doxie http://www.missdoxie.com/
TOM http://tomshideaway.blogspot.com/
TICKNART http://ticknart.blogspot.com/index.html

Cheer up, cocoa!

Every year I have the same New Years resolution. It’s a fairly common one, as far as New Years resolutions go: to start a better, healthier lifestyle. This year was no different from any other year, resolution-wise. And it did start fairly well.

Then classes started up again. Yawning, I moseyed off early every single morning to class and I rambled home late every afternoon, head spinning with information and The Tiny Voice inside insisting that everything would go so much easier with just a tiiiiny sugarkick, but I mostly resisted the urge.

Today I was determined not to give in to my sugar craving demons, who were extra insistent. I’d stopped by the store on my way to Hellhole U to pick up a bag of fruit for my oh so healthy lunch. I was going past the cafeteria, when I heard a small voice calling me.

It was the cocoa-machine wondering if I didn’t want a nice cup of hot goodness this morning. It sounded kinda sad. Rejected, sort of. I hate making people – and cocoa-machines, apparently – sad, so I indulged it. Just to make sure it wouldn’t be upset anymore, I helped myself to a double.

But tomorrow is going to be different. It is. Isn’t it?

ARGH!

Today I have been lucky enough to spend loads of time with someone who makes me want to commit murder. The kind involving axes and/or bathtubs filled with toasters.

Murder is the slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of murder: felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether they fell by one kind or another – the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers. If I kill this person, I’m sure it’ll be either excusable or justifiable. If someone else does it for me, it’ll be praiseworthy. It will be to me, anyways. There’s a hint in there somewhere, you know.

I’d even get you a lawyer. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

Satan's.... Uhm... SANTA's little helpers

I love when the Christmas decorations all come up around town. Especially the ones in the mall. They’re all shiny, soo shiiiiiiny. After having been awoken by the sounds of loud screechy sex from upstairs, I figured I’d go check it out. The decorations that is, not the screechy sex. The less I know about that, the better, really.

The first thing that you notice is the enormous Santa hanging on the wall right next to the escalators. First you see his boots and his gigantic…uhm…pelvic area, then comes the belly, arms and when you start to near the top of the stairs, you're always relieve to see that he's got a head. As I was staring up at Chris Cringle’s private bits, I could hear the merry music of the season pouring out from the record store.

Every year the record companies spew out CD’s with various A- and B celebrities singing Christmas songs. If you play them backwards you’ll probably hear the voice of Satan commanding you to stock up on Coca Cola products, or something.

This time of the year, I become extremely partial to everything with the word “Christmas” written on it. I buy Christmas soda, Christmas cookies, Christmas notebooks and the list goes on and on. I have a Christmas calendar, of course. Normally, when there’s chocolate in the house, I attack it all with such feverish glee you’d think I’d just been released from a work camp in Siberia. Are there still work camps in Siberia, by the way? Probably not.

Hey, did you know what I just noticed? SANTA is and acronym for SATAN. I wonder what that means? Probably that I have too much time on my hands.

Stinky munchkins of doom

Every so often, I put on my new boots and totter off to the grocery store to purchase all those things that keep me from starving to death. I say totter, not because I in any way resemble an infant in the way I walk, but because it is hard to move like a graceful adult on roads which consist mainly of ice.

When I woke up on this morning, stomach growling and Bergerac (my mind) telling me that there was nothing particularly tempting in the fridge, I knew it was tottering-time once more, so off I went.

I like walking to the store – not that I, in my drivers-licence-free state, have any choice – because then I get to philosophise over what sort of foodstuff I would like to buy. It’s strange how much of the time is spent thinking about cookies. Things such as carrots and beats never come up. Go figure.

Very pleased with having made it to the mall without getting my luvely footwear wet, I pulled one of those little blue plastic baskets out of its stack with a graceful swish. Rather, it would have been graceful if I hadn’t almost knocked over a display of Christmassy nuts.

I quickly pulled out my shopping list from my coat pocket, pretending that the Christmas-display- murder-by-plastic-basket had never taken place. I always write a list. If I don’t, I always forget something and end up buying soap in stead. The process of how that happens is a mystery probably best not dwelt upon. Let’s just say that if you’re ever out of soap, I’m your gal.

Right on top of my list, scribbled with a bright red pen, was the word “Milk”, and so I started the exciting journey towards the dairy isle. After having picked out a fine looking carton specimen, I reached out my hand to grab it. At that very moment someone shouted something which sounded like “Gerfuch vivong!” The next thing I knew, two tiny women hopped past me, placed themselves in between myself and my chosen carton of milk, and then proceeded to ravage the poor dairy isle. Yoghurt, milk and butter was literally thrown from their comfortable homes and into the tiny women’s cart. Any objections on my account were effectively muffled by the thick fog of cheap perfume which hung around them, leaving poor Bergerac unable to function properly.

Then they disappeared as soon as they had appeared. Somewhat disoriented, I placed the milk carton into my basket and moved towards the second item on my list: bread.

Once again, I carefully considered my options before I selected a plump looking bread, reached out my little arm towards it, and…. “Yoshyou schepflunk!”

Then there were little, blonde heads in front of me for a second time, accompanied by groceries flying through the air and the overwhelming haze of Eau De Brothel.

I eventually escaped the store with all my groceries and my life intact, but I’m not entirely sure whether or not the clown that I saw on my way home was real, or some hallucination brought on by perfume poisoning.



Photo by Ryker Beck for www.Flickr.com

To go deaf or not to go deaf

Since I am going down the coast for a couple of weeks, this will be the last fascinating and terribly intelligent thing I'm going to share with you until I get back. Enjoy!

That's an order.

People can be divided into many categories. Two such categories are mumblers and non-mumblers. For some inexplicable reason, a great deal of the people that I hang out with here in Bigger Hellhole, are members of the first category. Over the past three weeks, this fact had me seriously wondering whether or not my hearing might be going.

I had started to become a bit worried, actually, always asking people to repeat what they’d just said. I thought I might need to get myself a hearing aid. I would cringe when I thought of the ones the old folks at the home, where I worked last summer, would wear. The kind that would slither around the back of their ears like some waxy leech. Half the time, the apparatus would make a high-pitched noise that everyone but the owner would hear. I pictured myself wearing one of those, and I didn’t like the idea. Besides, they’re all either grey or beige, both of which are colours that make my complexion look like death warmed over. Which is so not the look I usually go for.

Then luck intervened, and threw a couple of non-mumbler in my path last week. Rarely have I felt so relieved. In the future I am going to have to become friends with more typical non-mumblers, so that I can seek them out if I ever start to doubt my abilities to hear properly again.

How does a mumbler become a mumbler, though? Hasn’t anyone ever told these people to speak up? And shouldn’t it be a hint to maybe turn up the volume just a little, when the most common reply you get whenever you speak to someone is “huh?” I have noticed something interesting, though – A mumbler never seems to have any trouble deciphering what another of his/her kind is saying. This leads me to think that these creatures have hearing like bats, and might not be entirely human.

This time of the year, people also start wearing gigantic scarves, which aggravate an already difficult situation. Trendy, fun and colourful as a scarf may be, the already miniscule voice of a mumbler finds it very hard to fight its way through such a large, woolly barrier. This leaves perfectly normal people, such as myself, to wonder if they’re going deaf.

There should be a law against these things. And violators should be forced to take a course in how to speak so that non-batpeople can hear stuff that comes out of your mouth. All in favour, say AI!

Funny as **i*

Laboratories and a guinea pig named Crust

Oh, how the days are snailing themselves along. This is the last week of classes before Christmas. That means that if you don’t count exams and papers that need writing and all that crap, the x-mas holidays have almost begun. My only problem at the moment, is that some evil troll has apparently come up from below and magiced every hour to be twice as long as it’s supposed to. That’s just not right. I should be the only evil troll in this storybook, dammit.

At the moment we’re doing our very last intensive lab course in microbiology. They let us mess around with DNA. I have come to the conclusion that I’ve really got the makings of a mad/evil scientist, seeing how I would luuuuve to muck around with my own DNA. That’s the first sign: willingness to be your own guinea pig.

I used to have a guinea pig when I was a kid. I named it Skorpa, which is Hellholish for Crust. Crust was…well…psychotic, to be completely hones. She had her own outdoor area, from which she would try to launch attacks on the neighbour’s cat. It’s a good thing Crusty spent most of her time behind bars.

Memory lane is an interesting place. Jupp-jupp.

To poop or not to poop

There’s an understanding between myself and The Pooch: I walk her and she might just choose to take a nap when we get home, rather than try to sit on my lap while I’m working. Other times she’ll forego on the nap, run to fetch her ball and proceed to throw it at me, convinced that this will make the thought of playing with it completely irresistible. After all, it usually works when I do it to her.

We were halfway through our Sunday walk, when all of a sudden, an elderly woman comes running towards us. Her arms were waving in the air, determined to get my attention.

“You know, it’s perfectly alright for you to walk your dog,” she says when she catches up to us. “But it’s very, very important that you pick up its poop after it.”

I thought that she could not have noticed the big, black, shit-stuffed doggie bag in my hand, nor the seven empty bags sticking out of my pocket, so I held the warm, swelling back up in the air and informed her, in a slightly cool tone of voice, that I always picked up after Pooch.

I assumed that she would back the hell off. No such luck.

In stead she goes on and on about how important it is to pick up those previously mentioned poops because people stepped in them, and so on and so forth. There was a small river running along the road where we stood. I studied the river, and then I looked at the lady while I contemplated whether or not I had the energy to throw her in. Probably not. Sick of listening to the sad tale of innocent shoes being thrust into piles of dung left behind by other dogs and their irresponsible owners, I pulled a fistful of empty bags out of my pocket and held them in front of the meddlesome woman’s face.

It had a rather peculiar effect. Granted, she turned around and started back towards her house, but she kept on talking about poops and shoes and whatnot, while looking back at me. Perhaps she’d been inhaling them, or something.

I looked at Pooch. Pooch was looking at her ass, as if it was a foreign object that she’d only just discovered.

Next time I’ll throw that woman in the river. Definitely.

Pooch in the mood for love

I am currently living in a hell of screaming and howling and the constant sound of IIIIIII and pitter-patter of claws scurrying from the door to the window. Back and forth, back and forth.

The Pooch is in heat…

Granted, the pooch has been in heat before and she’s always been a little whiny during that period, but this is the first time that she’s ever had a hunky man-thing sitting right outside her bedroom window. And if Pooch had been given more experience with hunky man-things over the years, she would have learned to separate them from the sickly boys with dickey tickers, like the one sitting right outside said window.

Last night she became ready for the making of the pups. On that very day, I decided to let her come with me to take out the trash. Pooch loves taking out the trash. She’s also a big fan of fetching the mail and raking leaves. Not that she helps any, she just likes to watch.

Anyway, our trip to the trash bins took us right past where Hunky Man-Thing sits on his lead. Pooch looked at him. Hunky Man-Thing looked at pooch. Then Pooch realized that I we were heading back to the house – the complete opposite direction of where her heart (and other bits, obviously, that I won’t bring up here) told her to go. In protest, she planted her bottom firmly on the wet lawn.

Great.

So I pulled.

Pooch resisted as best she could. If she’d had those big, bulgy buttocks that some creatures have, I’m sure she would have clenched onto every little piece of grass.

Eventually I dragged her onto her feet, and she walked all of two paces before dropping down on her side and immediately beginning to screech. It was like watching a two-years old throw a tantrum in a store.

I ended up having to drag her along like a carcass. The only thing which separated her from any piece of roadkill, were the high-pitched squeals emanating from her.

Two more weeks of this. I’m going to lose my tiny mind.

Buttmunching

Today I am completely exhausted, and I'm not quite sure why. I could probably figure it out if I gave it some thought, but I'm too damn tired. Still, I did read something in the news the other day that I thought I might share with you all, knowing that you enjoy twisted things almost as much as I do.

There is a man in Sweden who has eaten parts of his ass on tv.

That's right. I did not make this up. Just to make sure that you're all paying attention, I'll repeat it.

There is a man in Sweden who has eaten parts of his ass on tv.

Another man cut of two small slices, which the swede ate and concluded that they tasted exactly like sellery. Later a spokesperson for a religious community went out into the media and said that he finds the whole stunt tasteless and that he sincerely hopes that it won't become a trend among the young.

Imagine that... Just when the cops were getting good at stopping underaged drinking.

Kiss, slap, kissy-kiss

I've started classes in genetics yesterday and learned about loads of syndromes that I think I have half the symptoms for. Interesting. Also, just like most of the world, I was dragged onto facebook a while back. And just like everyone else, I added a lot of application in order to do strange and peculiar things to my friends and relatives. One of them was X Me. X Me seemed like a funny sort of a go-between, offering a wide range of actions. It did everything from hugging to kicking your buds in the groin. Neither does it discriminate. X Me was more than willing to deliver any action to your pals, even to the really weird ones that I might not have been really tempted to get too close to in real life. Yes, X Me was a handy little thing - until it turned on me.

One fine morning - okay, so it was a chilly and rainy morning - I logged onto facebook, only to find that X Me had been hugging everyone on my contact list in my absence. I found this to be a little odd, but at the same time a hug is a rather innocent sort of a thing, isn't it?

But it didn't stop there.

24 hours later I discovered that X Me had now started slapping people left and right, only to turn right around to kiss them all and then slap them again. It was clearly having some emotional issues. In the end I could see no other option than to put it down. Poor thing...

Emerging from the plastic wrap: I'm a frikkin butterfly.

Guess what, folks! The plastic wrap around in front of all my windows is almost gone. The landlord covered them with plastic a while back in order to spray paint the house. At first it was just foggy, then the painting started, and it got pretty damn dark. Combined with the fumes it could have easily put me into a paranoid state where I’d convince myself that I was being buried alive. That would have given us all something to laugh about later.

I have a final exam on Friday, so I’m hoping that my brain - also known as Bergerac – will return from its trip soon. It went away pretty much the moment the plastic came up. I need Bergerac in order to do my pre-exam hibernation routine. That’s when I lock myself up in my apartment and studystudystudy until those little grey cells start to seep out of my ears and nostrils just to get away from it all. I’d leave a light on in the window for it if I didn’t think that would set the blinds on fire.

Bergerac isn't home

There is plastic in front of all my windows. This must be what it feels like to live inside a soapbubble. The house is about to be spraypainted, so I’d imagine that it’ll smell anything but soapy. Where I used to live, back before I moved to Hellhole, farmers used to spray pee from unsuspecting cattle on their fields. That didn’t smell soapy either.

And I’m off to a wonderful start.

The thing is, I have absolutely nothing to say.

My brain, otherwise known as Bergerac, has gone away for a couple of days. It felt that it had earned a break after I put it through and intensive lab course all last week and an exam on Friday, not to mention loads of analysis I had to finish over the weekend. Analysis… Analysisis… See? Bergerac isn’t here.

Momma's got a brand new bag! Or something...

Guess what I’m doing! No, that’s not it. You’re sick in the head, you are. Guess again! That’s it, you ought to be publicly flogged, you demented weirdo.

I’ll just tell you, shall I?

I’m surfing the world wide web with by brand new computer. It’s got a widescreen and everything. Even smells like new plastic, it does. I luves my new baby, and have decided to name it muffin. I like muffins. Wish I had one.

Moving right along…

I have an assignment do, and the work process has become complicated by the fact that I can now play The Sims on a big screen. Very distracting, it is. I mean, who has time to ponder the principal thoughts behind statistical differences in the means between two samples when you’ve got a little man giving birth to the alien-baby he got stuck with after being kidnapped by a UFO in another window? It’s hopeless.

But I’m trying my very best. Apart from right now, of course. Right now I’m doing this.

Poor lucky number two

Last night the Pooch woke me up at two am by crawling into my bed and sitting there, staring at me in the darkness like some furry totem pole. I was very tired and didn’t particulary feel like crawling out of my soft, comfortable bed, but I could see from the way her enormous ears were pricking up that she’d already heard me blink and knew that I was awake. She does that, you see. She sticks her face right up in your face and listens intensely for the slightest little flutter of the eyelids.

As much as I disliked the idea of dragging my carcass out of bed in the middle of the night, experience has taught me that the Pooch usually only has two reasons for waking me up at ungodly hours:

1) She’s about to do her impersonation of a busted fire hydrant and projectile vomit everywhere.
2) She’d like to demonstrate her explosive diarrhoea.

Both of these things are better done outside.

So I slithered out of my sheets, into my pants, got the pooch’s collar and outside we went. It was windy. And cold. And windy. Did I mention that it was cold?

The first thing the pooch did was sniff a variety of bushes and trees in the yard. Then she sniffed them again, before she finally decided to pee on lucky number two. After that followed ten minutes of staring blankly into space, before turning around and heading back inside. No projectile anything and absolutely no explosions in sight.

It turns out that Pooch now has a third reason for waking me up in the middle of the night.

3) The Upstairspeople are being noisy and my bedroom is pretty soundproof.

Who missed me?

I’m sitting at my new kitchen table in my new apartment in an old house on an ex-farm in a far bigger hellhole than the one I lived in a few weeks ago. It’s nowhere near big enough to justify fear of terrorism or those little signs warning you to beware of pickpockets and thieves, but it is big enough to have more than one mall.

I can theoretically go shopping whenever I feel like it. That can’t be good for me, considering that when it comes to shopping, I have the self restraint of a psychotic monkey.

There are people living on my roof. Four of them. Well, they’re not actually on my roof, but on the floor above mine. I can hear every little noise they make. I know that one of them whinnies like an overexcited horse on regular intervals, and I wonder if he’s the same one who sounds like a cow with some horrible disease when he’s having sex. I suppose I shouldn’t ask.

Classes on scientific research methods have started, and it turns out that I’m a geek. I shudder at the thought of how my courses in microbiology and genetics might leave my social life in ruing once they begin, seeing how I’m utterly engrossed by models of dispersions and project design. Not to mention completely riveted, wrapped up, fascinated, captivated and engaged.

I have a thesaurus, I do.

And Pooch has a boyfriend. He lives across the yard, and she goes to play with him three times a day. Morning, afternoon and night. They’ve become quite close, but not yet to the point where she’ll let him sniff her bottom. But now he’s made the mistake of going camping with his family. Pooch looked for him every day for the first week and then she noticed that golden retriever next door…

So I guess Pooch has two boyfriends. But I have a thesaurus, I do.

Please leave a message after the bip

I have gone away. Not forever, though, mind you. First I will leave for a short vacation to the coast, where I will yell at seaguls and stare at water, then I'll start the much talked about moving process. This means that you will have to do without me until I get set up in my new place.

I realize that this will be hard on you all.

Some of you might want to curl up into a ball and cry. That's okay. Just let it all out. I understand, although passers-by and other random people might not. They're not important.

I'll be back. Eventually. Jupp.

*Biiip*