Photographic Confusion

So I have a photo on my wall.

Many, in fact.

I printed off a bunch of motivational quotes and whatnot to stick above my treadmill at eye level, so that when I feel like I can't go on and might well die, the quotes will guilt me into going on.

One of them, though.. I don't know what it is about it, but I can't read it the way it's supposed to be read. Perhaps it's beacause I workout in the morning, or perhaps the peculiar mismatch of colours confuses and frightens me, but I started to write down over the last couple of months the weird things I read in place of what's actually there.

What'll follow here is the ACTUAL photo, and then the list of things I've mistaken it for reading:

Actual photo.

Things I have mistakenly read it as saying:

"Stop wrestling, you idiot."

"Stop doing what she's doing."

"Stop washing - silly doings!"

"Stop doing the washing up!"

"Swishing tart."

"Cat, wish, art, oink." (Incidentally, that's the name of my gallery show in the trendiest part of London. Send me £50 and I'll send you an invite.)

"Stop, wish, deny."

"Stop washing your dong."

"Wish-washing the step."

So yeah, that's it's for now. I'll write an update in a while if anything else vaguely humourous comes from me mis-reading this or any other sign. There's a roadworks sign near where I live that says "HEAVY PLANT CROSSING" which always makes me giggle.


Love you, awesome nerds.

x

If you're a bird, you're an asshole.

I do not much like birds.

It is an irrational thing. I can certainly appreciate how beautiful some of them are, and I even think that Kingfishers are pretty cute, but they're all assholes, nonetheless. I think it's something about how graceless their movements are on the ground. They're too fast, too sudden. Calm down, bird, you asshole. Why are you jumping around like that anyway? Like, are you super busy? Do you have a bird-meeting to get to? An owl parliament? No? THEN GO SIT IN A TREE OR FLY OR SOMETHING, DO YOU KNOW HOW OFTEN I WOULD BE FLYING IF I COULD FLY? ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. SO GO DO IT.

Anyway, I was lounging in my back garden this morning, minding my own business while my dog got to doing hers, and SUDDENLY a BIRD LANDED ON MY SHOULDER.

Well, I was shocked.

It was a little sparrow. I froze, it froze. Neither of us knew what the hell to do. I sensed the bird realised it had made a mistake but wasn't clever enough to work out how to rectify it.

I just closed my eyes in case it was a crow in disguise, and someone told me when I was five that crows will peck out your sodding eyes if they're given half a chance, because they're even more asshole-y than most birds.

Anyway, the whole encounter probably lasted less than a second before it took off and flew away, allowing me to un-freeze, dance the dance of the freaked out (many little hops, fingers flailing like out of control jazz-hands) and swallow a scream. I was in danger, man. You can't trust a bird.

I was obviously not quick (or able) enough to take a photo for you guys, but I have done this drawing to accurately recreate what happened:

Frankly, I'm lucky I escaped with my life.

UNTIL TOMORROW. PCE.

That Outside Place.

So, usually my spare time is generously divided between sleeping, eating and playing World of Warcraft. There's some televisual wonders thrown in there, as well as some running and general exercise-y activities to prevent me from slowly growing into my computer chair; but generally I like doing things that don't require me to go outside where there's all kinds of weather and strangers and situations I might not find interesting.

I just don't know what I would do here.

I mean, don't get me wrong - I am a social person and I enjoy doing shit with people I know, but it's those unfortunate other people who I'm loathe to run into. This isn't just something I've created in my mind, either. This is a thing I have learned through experience. I lived in Manchester for two years after I ditched out of university (Do you know they make you learn stuff there? Yeah, I was shocked too) and during that period of time I was incredibly outgoing and even welcoming towards strangers. I used to walk around at night just because I liked how the city breathed after midnight. I was mugged four and a half times, accidentally engaged in a serious relationship with a corner-dwelling drug-dealer, and once ended up going to a midnight mass with a group of very religious people whom I thought were taking me to a killer nightclub.

"Oh, you meant-- You meant an actual church. Ohhh."

The drug-dealer thing wasn't actually a relationship, I hasten to add. I didn't even know he was a dealer. I just thought he was homeless. I used to talk to him for ages and was mildly amazed at how many people he seemed to know. Turned out he just thought I was really shy about asking to be one of his girls.

Man. I did not want to be one of his girls.

I have, therefore, spent enough time outside bumping around into, onto and around strangers. Once you've seen a homeless man defecating into an empty McDonald's bag, you've seen 'em all, and you're much less likely to come across that kind of scene while in the warm, snug walls of your own house.

Today was a brisk, Autumn English day, and I ended up in the woods.

They're nice woods, as woods go. Pretty trees and old waterfalls, stone statues dotted around between ancient rock seats that you can sit on and go "Hm." Or whatever you want to do, I suppose. There used to be a castle in the middle of it, but they've since made it into apartments, which pretty much sucks ass.

It was probably hard to make stone look like water back when this was made. At least, that's what I think it's supposed to be.

I climbed three trees.

I would have climbed more but there was this moment during the descent of the last one where I wasn't sure for a moment how I was going to get down, and therefore decided to stop pushing my luck.

Next time I shall take more pictures.

Hmph.

This Post is Dedicated to Amber

UGH, SPIDERS.


Am I right? Of course I'm right.


I can't pinpoint exactly the moment when spiders changed from fairly benign creatures who lived at my childhood home (all of whom were named Boris by my mother) to these hideously disjointed and unnerving creatures who frankly, look as if they could do with a good damn wash. All the Boris' were black. Black spiders. Spider-shaped, as spiders are supposed to be. I didn't care much about them to look very closely at them as a kid, but in my memory, they looked like this:

Now, though? NOW?


Whole different, dark game. Hunger Games, in fact. The spiders I find around my house are a sickly brown colour, too small to justify calling 999, but far too large to get anywhere near enough to squash. They're squat, terrifying beasts, malignant and malicious and I'm pretty sure are actually host to the souls of serial killers. Their horrid twisted legs are arranged poorly, LAZILY even. All the Boris' made sure they came out looking their best. Sleek and black in their dinner suits. Top hats. Silver-topped canes.


But THESE motherfuckers? Oh no. They're wearing stained and faded combat pants on (EVEN THOUGH THEY NEVER SERVED) and some kind of nicotene-yellew string vest. They're the worst. They look like this:

Pale brown, shifty-looking, twisted up and just.. THEY ALL LOOK DIRTY. I feel like they ought to have eyestalks, even though I'm fairly certain no spider does. ALL the legs on these spiders are stalks. Disjointed, disgusting, badly put-together stalks.


UGH.


Here, have all of my nopes.


And when they die, the curl their grotesquely misshaped legs in on themselves and roll onto their back, giving the overall look of a teeny, HORRIFIC, inside-out sarlacc, ready and eager to digest your finger over a millenia if you're insane enough to pick it up. I do what any sane person would do - put a mug over it and wait for rescue to arrive.


I have only recently found in myself the fear of spiders. In the past, I didn't care about them one way or anther, but I hated wasps with a passion. Now I know that wasps are dumb enough that you can give them a careless thwack with one hand and carry on your merry way, while they're still spinning around on the pavement trying to figure out what manner of train they just flew into. THE J-TRAIN, BITCH.


Anyway. Spiders.


When I was six years old I had my first sexual awakening by dancing after a gently flying ladybird until it was caught in a spiderweb. The spider came out, wrapped it up, and all I could do was watch. HEY, I don't fucking know why that was a sexual awakening, I just know that somehow it was. I HASTEN TO ADD that I had no sexual FEELINGS for the spider (Please, oh please, internet, please don't make attractions to spiders be a real thing. I'm not Googling it, just in case.) I just sort of watched the ladybird get wrapped up and devoured. More like a: "Shit. I'm a woman now."


Can someone explain to me why spiders love bathrooms so much? Are they secretly using the powershower while I'm out, or maybe they're going to the toilet or brushing their teeth or-- I have no idea. Checking their make-up? I realise it's distinct possibility that it's because they climb up the plug-holes, but whatever. My theory is better.


I actually had to stop leaving my clothes in the bathroom overnight. If I happen to have a particularly evil day, sometimes you just want to throw on your PJs, toss your day clothes on the bathroom floor and collapse face-first into bed, preferring to deal with tossing the clothes in the washing machine the next day.


On one such occasion, I pulled a pair of jeans on that had been in the bathroom overnight, felt a tickle on my leg, gave it a shake, AND A SPIDER FELL OUT.


YOU GUYS, IT WAS ON ME.


....I have to go. The memory is still too traumatising. Oh god.

It was on me.