Turn And Face The Stranger

Back in May I commented on my shift away from my Morrison-esque look that has characterised me for the better part of half a decade. Along with the thousands of days of maintaining shoulder length hair, last week's wind and rain piled in and convinced me to get a haircut.

[IMAGE REMOVED] 1253, my appearance for the last 5 years ; 1406, my appearance for the last 15 minutes

The guy cutting my hair was a certifiable metrosexual - flared jeans, pastel blue t-shirt, spiked die-blonde hair. I'm not condemning the guy, labels are how we communicate ideas. Having my hair cut and having a conversation are not two simultaneous actions associated with me. I'm used to unblinking silence. He asked what I did; rather than say fuck-all, I told him I was on the Social Sciences college course. That's half-true, I never tell outright lies - that way the façade remains unbroken. I actually think it was cheaper than having my shoulder-length hair trimmed. Quite possibly a reimbursement given how much they'll make with the hair I left there.

[187]

They'll Never Clone Ya

Although not as nice a day as my trip to the cemetery two weeks ago (which I've been meaning to write about), I had a nice time today. The streets round here are lined with trees - which is great, but for some reason the council consistently re-tars the road right up to the main trunks which just results in raised and cracked road. I noticed yesterday the pavements were covered in gold and brown leaves and conker pods. 'Tis surely a sign of Autumn - although I saw a lot of fresh conkers back in June. The remnants of Hurricane Gordon caused heavy winds the other night and obviously knocked all the seeds out of the Sycamore tree at the back of the garden. I was out playing with the cat today and noticed dozens of Sycamore seeds all over the driveway.

Niemand Gibt Uns Eine Chance

Automat, Edward Hopper, 1927

It gets dark at 1930. I can't get out of bed until 1300. I can't sleep until 0400. The rain is heavy and constant. The air is warm and stifling. I'm as comfortable as being stuck on a plane again.

The strong winds last night have blown the first dead leaves from the trees that line the streets on this side of town. It's a Thursday and I hate Thursdays. On said day the bins are collected. Every Thursday I walk down the street and immediately know from the multitude of bins that another week has come and gone. It's like having an odometer counting the days of your life, ticking over in the most noticeable but uneventful way. I sit in the dark and listen to the wordless cries drifting through Subterraneans (Low, 1977).

On a different note, anyone else find Anousheh Ansari attractive? I think the pigtails do it for me. That she, like every other woman I've found attractive, is older than me is totally coincidental and in no way reflects any perceived preference on my part.

[186]

Intermission

Ochre, Prij, 09/02/06

I must be at the other end of a Weltanschauung-cycle. I'm very tired, lethargic even. Tired during the day, wide-awake at night. I've got 20 draft posts waiting to be completed and published. I wonder if I can blame it on my third-in-three-years Venus Fly-Trap dying?

I started a few projects this year to keep myself occupied. Since February I've been working on encoding as much data into a single pixel as possible (close to 9 characters per pixel), as an attempt to express as much about my NationStates and CyberNations nations in forum signatures. It's a good way to stay on top of mathematics - preventing you from forgetting everything you know, and introducing you to some advanced concepts. However, it frequently gets bogged down in excessive lossyness problems for weeks at a time until I think of something just as I'm about to fall asleep at night. Plus, there's always my alternative history project, Enyo, which I had planned to release last New Year, but can't settle on the layout.

(Moment of Clarity)

'Twas a sunny Tuesday afternoon, I came home from school to listen to Chris Moyles' show on Radio 1, as always. I turned the radio on, only to be confronted with a contemplative Moyles explaining why there wouldn't be anything to laugh about today (compared to all the other days when starved Africans are no reason to stop having a good time). As I listened to the unscheduled Newsbeat, my eyes widened and I wondered "Shit, has it finally happened?". As I didn't have a TV at the time, I ran into my brother's room and caught my knee on the drawer in my excitement - is "he" on the New World's side? All channels broadcasting breaking news.

To Those Nice Nights

It's my kitten's estimated birthday today. He was roughly 8 weeks old when we got him last Halloween, making him 1 year old today.

It was raining all day so we weren't going to let him outside, but he ran down the stairs and hid under the bush beside the gate. He quite likes the water - the woman who runs the cattery up by IBM says he's a Turkish Van (not pure, of course). Just one of many anniversaries that seem to have clustered around the second half of the year. Amongst others, the 4th anniversary of my first website is in December (although the concept marks its 4th in November). Better think of something.

Share Bride Failing Star

Nighthawks, Edward Hopper, 1942

Last night the sky was the clearest I've ever seen without a power cut. The faint smudge of the central belt of our galaxy was just perceivable. My gaze was fixed upward, waiting for something to happen. A streak of light 100km above. The trouble with Earthgrazing meteors is that there's no sound. You can't write 'woosh', regardless of whatever noise your mind tries to associate with the spectacle. Shiin is apparently the closest you could get to describing it.