Summer is officially over, the new seasons are beginning!

Where does the time go? I did finish season two of Carnivale finally, but I've decided to shelve Life on Mars for now (I know larissa_bright won't be impressed) in favour of active shows. I've watched the first two episodes of Dexter and hope to get around to watching more of it soon. It might be hard to fit it in though...

This made me giggle, it's about the 21st century lost weekend (spent binging on full seasons of random TV shows rather than boozing it up). I'm glad to see that I'm by no means the only one suffering from this affliction. I'm also certainly not the only one who's getting excited about the new seasons and series, The Park Bench and Art Life are full of appropriate squee. As for me, I'll definitely be watching:

*Supernatural
*House
*Californication which ought to have a wonderful veneer of irony now [*]
*Bones
*Gossip Girl
*Pushing Daisies
*the Weeds season 4 finale

[*] I've been abstaining from making nymphomania jokes because, like Jill Sobule, I am a Good Person Inside. However I was intrigued to discover a couple of things: 1) My boyfriend cannot spell 'Duchovny' (bloody Gentiles), and 2) The price of the Californication DVDs went down already.

I almost definitely won't be watching season three of Heroes unless I hear stupendously good things about it because I was so disappointed by the second season. Dollhouse doesn't start til January so I don't need to worry about that yet, and I'll worry about the new seasons of Dexter, How I Met Your Mother and possibly Mad Men when and if I ever get caught up. Fringe does sound darn tempting too though... It's this kind of schedule that makes you appreciate networks prematurely cancelling good shows! On that note, I read an interesting post comparing Firefly fans to UFO-groups and the Firefly and Western Literature blog (in preparation of the upcoming 2008 Western Literature Association Conference) has actually gotten really interesting, even if I am a little wary of all the Derrida references (which don't worry me nearly as much as seeing Nietzsche's name scattered about a page).

But enough about what I'm going to watch (asides from the new West Wing animated series, natch) and onto what I have been watching. The Supernatural season 3 gag reel afforded me much amusement. I'm not really sure why it had me laughing so hard since as far as blooper reels go it's kind of sucky- there's barely any actual screw ups. Maybe the fact that it mostly consists of Jensen and Jared pulling stupid faces and saying things like "I miss your musk" had something do with it, who knows. Or it might have just been the ear/stake porn.

Mostly though I was watching season two of Carnivale. Although the series did finish with something that could be a conclusion (at least it wasn't a massive cliffhanger), there are still many unanswered questions. After perusing information gleaned from the pitch document, interviews and so on I feel a bit more satisfied, and have an inkling as to where the next four seasons would have gone. Stupid HBO for cancelling it after only two seasons. Despite this irritation I still have plenty to say about it, as evidenced by my scrawl-filled notebook:





Dammit all, it's just such an unsatisfactory ending and I really wish the show had had an opportunity to continue and explore everything that it hinted at. There was so much possible depth to be plumbed in terms of the complicated relationships between the characters. I suppose there's always the slim hope that Carnivale will come back in another format and these things will be answered and explored, so I'm glad that Daniel Knauf hasn't given too much away. A few years ago I would have been desperate for cannon titbits, but these days with the Buffy comics, Serenity getting made and that -verse also continuing successfully in comics and the long after the fact X-Files movie (still refraining!) who knows, other than a psychic like Sofie, what Carnivale treats might be in my future? Here's hoping!

Pee Ess: I wrote an incredibly long entry about my thoughts on season two of Carnivale but I'm not posting it here because it's ridiculously long. If for some reason anyone here has an urge to see it do let me know.

This weekend I have: almost broken up a marriage, finally seen WALL-E, gotten very annoyed with idiotic people, finally met Jamie's "not"-boyfriend, barely restrained myself from throwing my camera at people's heads and not drunk that much.

( Cut for angry ranting )
I've finally got a camera and I've been very excited about it, taking pictures left, right and centre:
( Cut for more ranting! )

I think I'm just going to stick to photographing trees and buildings which can't fight back.

I don't want to suggest that this weekend wasn't fun or that I'm excessively mad at people. Yubie and I actually had a really nice time together on Friday and it was nice to see Scotty and Joe too- and actually some of the randomites were pretty cool.  I wasn't in the mood to go out on Saturday night so after a bit of a walk around I got to indulge myself, even if I had to put up with idiots for a little while. After several botched attempts I finally got to see WALL-E today. It doesn't seem to be out everywhere anymore, so we had to retreat to a random cinema hidden in Mullae which noone else seems to have heard of, but I can report that it exists and is perfectly pleasant.

( Wall-E! )

Maybe I should be concerned about the possibility of getting sued for flagrant plagiarism? Even a casual glance through my entry titles shows myriad examples of my penchant for filching lyrics and other quotations. Oh well, ahem, good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright. (At least I have the chagrin to admit that I'm stealing Aaron Sorkin's words from the mouth of Sam Seaborn there.)

On the subject of writing, since another month is fading into that strange and distant land called the past, I declare it time for another book round-up post! Woo, and a mighty hoo.

First of all can we all take a moment to rejoice in the fact that I honestly have nothing more to say about Atlas Shrugged? Nada. Zip. Zilch. (Unless it's in comparison to other things, which is clearly utterly and totally different.)

( Beware of spoilers for: The Screwtape Letters, Wide Sargasso Sea, On The Road, The Stranger, The Old Man and the Sea, Dune and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, as well as more general discussion of The Chronicles of Narnia, Jane Eyre, Atlas Shrugged, Neal Cassady, Supernatural, The Great Gatsby, Desolation Angels, 'The Old Man', Austen's novels and DH Lawrence's writing. )
I think I ought to finish up for now because I've just realised that I've scratched a mosquito bite on the back of knee so much that the floor is now bloody. Ew. However nothing can ruin my good mood or stop me mentally doing The Dance of Joy (whilst searching for an appropriate clip of Numfar dancing I found this appalling clip of a bunch of foul SOASians doing a rubbish dance, do you know these people? Can you track them down and smack them?) because I have a camera, the Empyror mission was apparently a success and I have a fridge full of food!

Sometimes I worry that I live in a completely different reality to other people. I'm pretty sure that it's other people who are the insane ones though. For example,

Scotty: You were so funny that night!
Me: Hwha?
Scotty: I can't believe you slept on the floor!
Me: What are you talking about? I slept on the bed!
Scotty: Really? Oh, well I can't believe you offered to sleep on the floor anyway.
Me: What? That was you!
Scotty: Hwha?
Jojo: Would both of you idiots shut up?

Meanwhile K and S are involved in some convoluted and highly disturbing courtship ritual as far as I can tell. This mostly consists of them winding each other up, trying to involve me in their dramas and occasionally getting drunk and nuzzling while they reminisce about past nuzzling incidents. Somehow though it was me who ended up sprawled out on top of K in the street whilst S rolled his eyes. It's a funny old world.

Instead of dealing with said world, how about a dram of escapism? I love the fact that I didn't come across this until I'd actually read Atlas Shrugs: if famous authors wrote fanfiction. It features Anne Rice's take on LOTR, Nicholas Sparks on Star Wars (although it could easily be Mitch Albom instead!), David Sedaris on Harry Potter and, best of all, Ayn Rand on Buffy. Can you imagine anything more perfect? It doesn't contain any spoilers beyond the most basic premises (so if you didn't want to know that there's vampires in Buffy...well oops, it's too late now). On the subject of fanfiction, I discovered Neil Gaiman's explanation of slash which was great, especially this part "It's normally written by extremely nice ladies. I have several very sane, respected, and respectable friends who write slash fiction, and do not try to make me read it". I've also been feeling quite a lot of love for his song I Google You. I recommend reading through the interesting comments on that post, and not only because NG popped by to post the lyrics. I now really want to read The Physics of the Buffyverse, yes a book about the science of Buffy has been published. Ask me again why I love fandom. It sounds like such an interesting book, as does Oullette's other book Black Bodies and Quantum Cats. I love science, especially biology and physics, and was semi-seriously considering dropping out of SOAS in my second year to go and study physics somewhere (not that I'd be able to with no appropriate A levels). I think that was probably fuelled by reading The Science of the Discworld, which is a wonderfully eloquent (and passionate) book. The fact that Oullette was actually an English major who accidentally ended up doing science writing makes it all the more interesting and appealing to me. I think I might actually end up ordering The Physics of the Buffyverse, I haven't ordered anything to my new address yet. Fun, fun fun!

Speaking of the interwebs (see how this all, sort of, inter-relates seamlessly?) Lifehacker's top 10 Youtube hacks actually looks pretty useful. I haven't had a chance to implement their ideas yet but their Better Youtube Firefox Extension sounds pretty good (having the option to turn off the autoplay is a brilliant idea) and their filegrabbing suggestions sound good. My geeky side is also hoping to sort out the last.fm widget properly, but in case that takes a while I can at least post it in an entry. Hopefully it won't fuck up!





My sister (AKA Sib) was a little derisive as to the extreme nerdiness of my entries. She just wishes she was cool enough to understand it all. Harrumph like a hippo. The Park Bench is a pretty fun nerdy-lady blog which I've been enjoying. It also furnished me with the link to the 10 geeky movies that should have been great but weren't. I'm in broad agreement with most of it, the Hitchhiker's film was incredibly disappointing (except for the parts which involved Neil Hannon singing) and the Matrix sequels were a pile of wank. I haven't actually seen any of the others (being as I don't watch films) but I feel this vindicates my choice not to watch the third Mummy film (I haven't actually seen the first two either, but I wouldn't be entirely averse to the idea if I could just get through the opening sequence of the first one), A.I., The Time Machine remake and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (of course no one would be foolish enough to want to watch Waterworld). I'd quite like to see the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake though, it sounds fun although probably not über-amazing or anything.

On the subject of awesome blogs I simply have to pimp the Saved By The Bell Quote of the Day blog, could there be a better idea for an online journal ever? Then, mixing my segues like others blend metaphorical cocktails, I'm going to wax poetical about a couple more lists. I always love those lists of the sexiest wo/men because they combine some of my favourite things: hotties, listing and the opportunity to get annoyed by something irrelevant. Often these lists include some really great irreverent commentary (I assume because I'm the only one who actually reads it they can get away with some brilliant randomness).

The other list that I wanted to link to was this one of potential good directors for Batman 3 if Nolan steps down (beware of some spoilers for The Dark Knight). Sadly I didn't make the cut, but it was full of sensible suggestions nonetheless. I can't imagine why The Sib was accusing me of nerdiness, alright I did just download a comic but it took me longer to work out the viewing software. I think the geekdom initiation (and secret handshake lesson) are a ways off yet. The comic I downloaded was episode 17 of Buffy season 8.



The letters page also introduced an excellent concept to me- pronoia. It's the opposite of paranoia, and apparently is the sneaking suspicion that the whole world is conspiring to shower you with blessings. Honestly that is sometimes how I feel when I get to feed my obsessions, yay there are shiny, pretty things! I did get around to reading Sugarshock! the other day too. It's up on myspace but I don't think the transitions are made very clear, so if you want to check it out here's part one, two and three. It's not the deepest thing in the world, but it's a really fun comic and you don't have to get too invested in it. I'd definitely recommend it (especially to you Shan!) and can see why it won awards.

The Bonnie Tyler cover of Getting So Exciting never fails to make me giggle. Maybe it's because I spent most of my childhood dancing on my parents' bed to the original.



Fandom, and in fact just the world, is making me excited about various upcoming happenings. Amongst them:



Pardon my overly revealing linking behaviour, and Young Americans misquoting.
 

I am constantly amazed by the length of my posts. I start writing about a couple of books or a recently watched film and not only do the words seem to flow out of me, so do the tangents. However, I reckon that I should be able to be reasonably pithy about Joheunnom nabbeunnom isanghannom (or The Good, The Bad, The Weird), the first Korean film I've watched in Korea (and yes, I know I need to get around to watching Oldboy one of these days).

R claimed that I'm 'isanghannom' (i.e. the weird one), which normally I wouldn't argue with. However his reasoning was that I'm obviously very bizarre because I'd rather see the new X-Files movie than Mamma Mia. I'm sure the new film is bad, but there's quite a lot of things I'd rather suffer than watching Mamma Mia. He balked at the idea of knocking me unconscious so he'd have someone to go watch it with though, not because it seemed morally reprehensible but because he'd have to shell out for my ticket too if I blacked out. I guess that leaves J to be 'the good'.

In other news I've had to buy yet another pair of shoes. Seoul is wearing out my soles. I gave up in disgust on Friday night and spent most of the time dancing in my tights, I should really throw them away since they're incredibly beer-scented (as well as blood-encrusted thanks to numerous new mosquito bites, I thought that had stopped). I meant to go to the book shop to go buy Catch-22 because when I last attempted to buy it I accidentally bought the sequel (which I wasn't aware existed). However we were too lazy to walk to the other side of the mall today. It isn't a particularly pressing issue at the moment though since I have a fair sized stack of books to get through at the moment, added to by my Grandma's new book Equality in Action: A Way Forward With Persona Dolls (in which I get an acknowledgement for my data analysis skills) and a few others which I've pilfered from Jes' stored possessions.

Apparently I should curb my thieving ways though, since quite a lot of the stuff doesn't even belong to Jes. Since I'm not the smartest cookie in the jar when someone knocked on the door a little while ago I just went and opened it without considering anything. I guess I assumed that it was probably one of my neighbours, perhaps asking me to turn the music down, or possibly D or S coming to check that I'd actually made my way home alright (in my defence I actually had no idea where my apartment is in relation to the subway, as well as no knowledge of my address). It turned out to be Scotty coming to pick up some of his belongings (it feels a bit like some awkward break-up drama), at which point I became aware of the fact that I was incredibly stinky, not very dressed and in possession of a pair of very bruised and bloody legs. Not to mention the fact that I haven't bothered to unpack anything yet, and there's just underwear, tampon packets and other girly accouterments strewn about the place. My packet of cereals is sitting next to the bed because I was too lazy to move it kitchenwards. At least I'm pretty sure that there was nothing vaguely pornographic on the screen.

I am going to spend the rest of my year being incredibly paranoid that I've properly bolted the door since about a billion people still seem to have spare keys for this apartment. I'm never sleeping naked again! However Jojo promised to bring my cheddar, so I guess it doesn't work out too badly. I really hope that I haven't switched shifts this week since I forgot to check when I was at work and can't access the site from home. If I have I'll just plead idiotic foreigner syndrome and make puppy dog eyes at Hans, D and the receptionists of joy.

I am now safely ensconced in my new apartment, and the internet is working fine! There's several bills (I think) stuffed into my pigeon hole, so I'll have to get them sorted in the week so that I don't end up having any utilities being cut off. So far it's all good, and Jes left me helpful things like beer and a tiny hacksaw. It took me an inordinately long time to work out how to use the hob, but now that I've eaten my pasta and salsa (couldn't find any actual pasta sauce, but the combo wasn't actually too bad) with real Parmesan I feel very settled and sedate.

I've also finally achieved a great aim of mine- I've completed watching season one of Carnivale. Thankfully it was a cable series and therefore 12 episodes rather than 22 or the completion of the first season would still feel completely unattainable. I've found that I really like this show.

I'm excessively happy that project-Z seems to be coming together (finally!). Now Cat, Shan and (amazingly enough!) Cassie are getting set up it's all feeling increasingly real.

On the other side of things I'm also acclimatising to the fact that I've actually joined the -osphere. I have an intense hatred for the word 'blog', it's extremely ugly and reminds me of (the possibly more foul and certainly overused by JK Rowling) 'snog'. It also has a whole host of truly foul associations (at least for me). Thankfully weblogs in general are connoted with fourteen year old emo kids in the media and the the public consciousness less and less. They're accepted as having multifarious functions and readers. Nonetheless I don't think the ugly little word can quite shake off those unpleasant connections, and I'm never emo. I may occasionally be introspective, and that's an entirely different thing. So if you could humour me and think of this as a 'journal', 'weblog' (if you must), 'a collection of posts' or some other vaguely suitable noun I shall be grateful.

I also kind of resent the fact that merely by posting on the big wide web I somehow apparently joined a sphere or community, without even getting a membership discount or something worthwhile. I don't dispute the fact that there are thriving online communities (hell, we're in the process of setting one up), but simply because I'm capable of typing and pressing that little 'post' button doesn't seem like an adequate reason for me to be a member of some nonsense. I don't think I want to necessarily be considered part of it, especially when you consider how much nonsense is produced. I suppose this is comparable to disliking the bulk of humanity; they're all blithering idiots and I don't see why I ought to be lumped in with them. Viva la non-person!

I'm in a slightly grumpy mood due to sleep deprivation and the fact that I'm nursing a multi-day hangover. But what's new about that? Jes has now left, which sucks because I've realised just how much I've not learnt my way around Hongdae and Sinchon! I'm going to have to somehow develop a sense of direction very quickly. It's just been a ridiculous few weeks, on Monday I took the subway home straight after work and couldn't work out why it felt so odd until I realised that it was the first time I'd taken the subway home for a week. Fair enough I'd stayed in on Saturday, but every other night I'd come back in a taxi. It's been the same every day since Monday this week too, and clambering into bed after 7am can be disorientating enough even when you don't have to wake up for work in a few short hours.

I'm excited to see the pictures from Tuesday night, Jes let me steal his semi-professional camera and I was actually fairly proficient with the settings and lens twiddling. I haven't owned a camera of my own for years (and never a decent one), but I often get my grubby mitts on those belonging to various friends and family members so I suppose I've had a fair bit of practice. We were all gazing with rapture at some of the pictures I'd taken and K has semi-seriously designated me as her official photographer. I'm hoping that they don't look awful blown up and when sober. Alcohol does make everything prettier somehow, and certainly funnier. K and I were in hysterics for several hours about our conversation with a bell that happened to be dangling over our table ("do you hang here often?" etc). I think perhaps my current choice of reading material, On The Road, might have somehow permeated everyone with a touch of the surreal- Jes, K and I managed to maintain a brilliant conversation using languages in which only one of us each had a decent level of comprehension (Russian, Korean and French respectively) after the others left.

Today (well yesterday now since it's around 6am, let's just split the difference and call it 'Friday') was a bank holiday, so predictably there was a decent amount of Thursday night celebration. I didn't end up returning home until Friday eventime, which I have to say feels a little bit ridiculous. I think that I need to try to curb my enthusiasm a little, and at least pretend to be a grown up for about half of the week. I'm moving to my new apartment tomorrow (or rather, in a few hours time) and have had about two hours kip. I'm mostly packed up, but I haven't cleaned the place at all so I need to get on with that. Eventually. Once I've moved I think that I may be returned to the split shift, which would be rather annoying but also might force me to act a bit more like a responsible adult at least.

As a responsible and mature person I have a new career in consideration: namely being a script doctor for the new Batman movie. I've clearly come up with the best plot ever.

I've somehow managed to convince other people that this is an excellent idea too. They may have had ulterior motives I suppose, for example I think J would have agreed to pretty much anything once I bought her a cocktail and let her use me as a pillow. But I'll take what I can get!

When I started typing this I'd just returned from watching The Dark Knight. There are two things I perpetually love about travelling around a big city by myself:

*Walking around in a pretty dress, high heels and sunglasses in the sunshine at whatever speed I want.
*Cruising around in a cab at night, watching the lights, both of the city and its reflection in the river. If the driver will put up with me murmuring along to The Long and Winding Road so much the better.

I would have preferred to watch the film a little earlier in the day, but it was worth waiting for (and I think it's always nice to come out of watching something slightly creepy into darkness rather than jarring daytime). Obviously it's a good film. Even I can't really dispute that. It was (I'm sorry, I must say it) darker than I've grown to expect from Hollywood films. However I don't think that it really lives up to its hype (although, really, what could?). At least for once I'm actually watching the world's most popular movie close to its release date (it was released this week over here in fact). To give you a frame of reference I think I watched Titanic around five years after it was released, and only under extreme duress (i.e. our teacher threatened me with extreme punishment if I attempted to escape the room).


I'm intrigued now to see if this (long and windy) post has made any impact on my wordle- a really fun toy which allows you to track what the most used words of any given content are. Here is how mine (actually of my other "official" blog, which contains pretty much identical content these days) stood before this post (although I'm not entirely sure if it checked everything or only the most recent page), I couldn't find any information on the FAQs but I assume that it must filter out conjunctions, articles and pronouns. It's extremely interesting to see!

My apparently paltry vocabulary made me wince, but I've consoled myself a little with the idea that perhaps I actually have an excellent and varied vocab, it's just that I don't overuse many words except for the practically unavoidable stock ones. Probably that isn't an accurate portrayal, but let's just let sleeping pups (and lazy puns) lie. I was surprised to see 'awesome' looking so teeny, I thought it was definitely one of my go-to words, and whilst I thought that the B(uffy)-word would be pretty significantly placed I didn't expect it to get quite so large! I can excuse myself slightly by pointing to the fact that it does at least convey two meanings (both the show and the character, and I like that by merely choosing to italicise or not I can easily show which meaning I intend) but really I think that I must speak about it/her even more than I'm aware!

Of course Rand, Atlas and Dagny all made the cut too- which reminds me that I forgot to link to this, which contains absolutely no Atlas Shrugged spoilers but did make me giggle. On the subject of linking I have accidentally discovered two things about Neil Gaiman's blog: verily, it exists and I like it. I've already forgotten how I stumbled across it and it was almost certainly within the last 24 hours. Perhaps I should start getting worried about my premature dementia. I recently also got around to watching the Neverwhere DVD extra of his interview, which was pretty fun, and I'd say worth a looksee if you get a chance.

My brief mentioning of The O.C. also tangenitally relates to (and at least reminded me of) possibly my favourite advert ever. Again I feel obliged to point out that Korean cinema adverts are fantastic (especially the Baby Got Back soju one!), I'm glad that this time around they definitely weren't better than the film though.

ETA: Just one post does indeed impact the wordle. It's such a fun game! I must remember to play with it every so often, and also to crack a thesaurus one of these days (especially since I now know that they're not dinosaurs).

I feel that the people in my life can be divided roughly into two camps.

There's those who appreciate my sarcasm, cynicism and general distaste writ large. For some, it's because they share these characteristics and like to bitch and moan along with me, whereas for others its simply because I make them laugh. Sara takes a simple delight in the fact that someone as grouchy as me can tolerate her presence.

Then there's the others, the ones who love the fact that I'm apparently incredibly fun and carefree. Sanja especially is always telling me that she adores hanging out with me because I don't get stressed out like other people, I just enjoy myself. I can understand where she's coming from, but at the same time it seems pretty strange- given that I don't know all that many people who are as perpetually irritated as me. Maybe my grouchiness is just inherently lovable. (I feel as though Cat has said so at some point. Perhaps I'm making it up though.) It might also be that although I do tend to grump and groan I still manage to get on with life (and enjoying its various pleasures) rather than freaking out, or feeling that I'm entitled to something.

I have a very vivid memory of Sanja, visibly drained, almost passed out on the grass of Suzy's garden. She'd had a hellish couple of (sleepless) weeks and had only just returned to London. Suzy was trying to be helpful, but kept adding to the stress by rehashing the situation from every angle. She'd also offer to do something nice, such as get some wine or give Sanja a massage, but then make things even worse by complicating things- fretting about accepting Sanja's money towards the wine or fussing about which position she ought to be in for the massage to be most 'effective'. Meanwhile I lazed about on the grass and made cups of herbal tea. Sanja thanked me profusely for this support later, and couldn't help feeling bitter towards Suzy.

I was also honestly shocked when Becka and Tony found my ranting about Tiph's (thankfully now former) shag-buddy hilarious. He was a complete and utter knob, and I spent a great deal of time expanding on that point. They protested that they'd never seen me so hate-filled towards someone, and that completely blew me away. I spend a good deal of my time embroiled in lengthy diatribes about how almost everyone is a complete waste of oxygen, ranting foully really isn't uncharacteristic of me.

Anyway, I find it a little weird that people seem to see, and like, these two extremes in almost equal measures. Apparently I'm wonderfully bitter, and also fantastically not- instead childlike and happy-go-lucky. I'm sure that most people possess aspects of both these types of traits, but again I think that I'm more of an extreme case. I'm special. (And probably don't have a multiple personality disorder.)

Already I find that I'm appreciated here for these apparently mutually-exclusive personality traits. At Yeouido R and I were drawn to each other almost magnetically because we were both just as cynical as each other, whereas Y found me the funnest person in the world (and S, someone I could imagine whatever the Korean version of on otaku is absolutely adoring, kept asserting that I was incredibly cute). Similarly Jes and 2.0 find my sarcasm and constant exasperation hilarious (and Jes' friend Duncan actually described me as 'wry', I think that's a new one), yet people like V laud me for being so free and easy (this also leads to me getting excellent texts such as "ENJOY US LATER" from her- I love broken English).

There is of course a third group of people in my life, they don't quite fall into either of the groups described above. I call them my family. They're all very odd, but essentially wonderful. I got very excited when I discovered that my grandfather, Mannie Brown, is on a sign in South Africa (it seemed to fit rather well with the ancestor worship of Atlas Shrugged which I was still reading when I was sent this picture).
In keeping with the split-personality theme, after a fortnight filled with drunken debauchery (and rather a lot of yummy raw seafood incidentally, including live octopus tentacles yesterday) I stoically refused to go out tonight. I think that I tend to be counted in for whatever the plans are, which I don't mind obviously- it's just that I think in the back of my head I thought that this year might have undertones of 'sensible' and 'grown up' and possibly 'not-just-like-London'. I claimed that I wanted to stay in and read Kerouac just because it sounded so deliciously and awfully pretentious (and no-one called me on it!) but mostly I've been cracking monkey nuts, reading fic (actually about someone reading On The Road eerily) and watching Carnivale. It feels so amazingly decadent.

I think that for all that I'm a social person and a person who does love, and enjoy spending time with, her friends and family, I am at heart a fairly solitary person. I relish the opportunity to spend some time alone, and can't imagine finding it boring. Maybe that's because I don't get the opportunity to spend that much time alone, but I don't think it's just that. I feel that travelling and living by myself are special indulgences, the only time I get frustrated by it are when my life sadly has to intersect with the world around me- when I have to sort out annoying real life bureaucracy or technology I could really do with a Tiph or JP perhaps!

I suppose it's because I'm so taken with myriad forms of distraction. I adore music (and being anal about organising my music collection is actually fun for me), watching really good television shows and films, reading (apparently comics as well now), writing and the smug feeling of having replied to all the emails in my inbox (even though its a never-ending quest of course). I can't imagine getting bored when left to my own devises, although it's entirely possible that I could develop cabin fever, or die of malnutrition.

Probably I'll go out into the big wide world tomorrow, and if J's feeling better go shoe shopping and hopefully see The Dark Knight. It's definitely nice to know a few people, such as her, who aren't complete alcoholics!